Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Monday that they will defer to the judge on former President Donald Trump’s bid to delay his sentencing on falsifying business records charges until after the election.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 18 — two days after New York state Judge Juan Merchan is expected to rule on Trump’s motion to toss out his conviction in May in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity in a different case.
Prosecutors said they would “defer to the Court on the appropriate post-trial schedule that allows for adequate time to adjudicate defendant’s CPL § 330.30 motion while also pronouncing sentence ‘without unreasonable delay,’” referring to Trump’s motion to set aside the verdict.
They note that Trump’s request is about evidentiary issues, not immunity from prosecution, and that the Supreme Court did not address whether evidentiary rulings that touch on immunity are immediately appealable.
They also flagged that the measures the court would have to take to prepare for a sentencing, especially after the assassination attempt last month, would be costly and could be for naught if Trump seeks appellate intervention right after Merchan rules on Sept. 16 on the request to set aside the verdict.
Trump’s lawyers filed a letter last week arguing that the existing timeline would not allow them enough time to properly pursue an appeal before sentencing if Merchan rejects Trump’s motion to dismiss.
“A single business day is an unreasonably short period of time,” said the filing by Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove. “There is no basis for continuing to rush.”
Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign. It was the first time a former president has been convicted of a crime.
He was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but Merchan postponed that hearing until September at Trump’s request. His lawyers had argued that they needed time to present arguments that the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision on presidential immunity in Trump’s federal election interference case should result in overturning his New York conviction.
Trump’s team contends that the immunity ruling means Manhattan prosecutors should not have been allowed to present evidence of his “official acts” at trial, including former White House aide Hope Hicks’ testimony describing a conversation she had with Trump while he was president. Prosecutors maintain the Supreme Court ruling had no impact on the evidence they introduced at trial, which centered on Trump’s personal conduct.
If Merchan signs off on another postponement, it would be a huge victory for Trump, who at one point was facing the prospect of four criminal trials this year. A federal judge in Florida dismissed the classified documents case against him in July, the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity delayed the federal election interference trial for several months, and the election interference case in Georgia is delayed until at least December as Trump appeals a judge’s ruling not to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office from the case.
