NEW YORK: New York’s top court rejected on Thursday Donald Trump’s request to halt the president-elect’s sentencing for his conviction on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star, with a decision on a possible delay now in the hands of the US Supreme Court .
The state court’s decision was a setback for Trump, who now must pin his hopes of freezing the case at the nation’s top judicial body, where his lawyers have made a similar emergency bid to avoid the sentencing, set for Friday at 9:30 a.m. (1430 GMT) in a Manhattan court.
Manhattan prosecutors made a filing at the Supreme Court on Thursday morning, opposing Trump’s bid for a stay.
“Defendant now asks this court to take the extraordinary step of intervening in a pending state criminal trial to prevent the scheduled sentencing from taking place - before final judgment has been entered by the trial court, and before any direct appellate review of defendant’s conviction. There is no basis for such intervention,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office wrote in a filing.
Trump has asked for proceedings in the criminal case to stop as he seeks an appeal to resolve questions of presidential immunity following a Supreme Court ruling last July that granted former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts.
The sentencing hearing is set for 10 days before Trump is due to be sworn in for his second term as president. Any substantial delay would likely mean Trump would not be sentenced before his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trump was found guilty last May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 US election about a sexual encounter she has said she had with Trump a decade earlier, which he has denied. Prosecutors have said the payment was designed help Trump’s chances in the 2016 election, when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
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