A US judge has agreed to postpone the sentencing of former president Donald Trump for his hush money conviction until after the November election.
The decision grants the Republican nominee a hard-won reprieve as he navigates the aftermath of his criminal conviction and the homestretch of his presidential campaign.
Manhattan Judge Juan M Merchan, who is also considering a request from the defence to overturn the verdict on immunity grounds, delayed Mr Trump’s sentencing until November 26, several weeks after the final votes are cast in the presidential election.
It had initially been scheduled for September 18.
The delay, the latest bit of good legal fortune for Mr Trump, means the presidential election will be decided without voters knowing if the Republican nominee is going to jail.
Mr Merchan explained in a four-page decision that he was postponing the sentencing “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate”.
“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he added, writing that his decision “should dispel any suggestion” otherwise.
Mr Trump’s lawyers pushed for the delay on multiple fronts, petitioning the judge and asking a federal court to intervene. They argued that punishing the former president and current Republican nominee in the thick of his campaign to retake the White House would amount to election interference.
Mr Trump’s lawyers argued that delaying his sentencing until after the election would also allow him time to consider next steps after Mr Merchan rules on the defence’s request to reverse his conviction and dismiss the case because of the US Supreme Court’s July presidential immunity ruling.
In his order Friday, Mr Merchan delayed a decision on that until November 12.
A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Mr Trump’s request to have the US District Court in Manhattan seize the case from Mr Merchan’s state court.
Had they been successful, Mr Trump’s lawyers said they would have then sought to have the verdict overturned and the case dismissed on immunity grounds.
Mr Trump is appealing the federal court ruling.
Mr Trump lauded the delay in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“The Manhattan D.A. Witch Hunt has been postponed because everyone realizes that there was NO CASE, I DID NOTHING WRONG!” he wrote. He assailed the case as “a political attack” and argued that it “should be rightfully terminated, as we prepare for the Most Important Election in the History of our Country”.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, is a Democrat. His office did not take a position on Mr Trump’s delay request, deferring to Mr Merchan.
“A jury of 12 New Yorkers swiftly and unanimously convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony counts,” District Attorney office spokesperson Danielle Filson said. The office, she said, “stands ready for sentencing on the new date set by the court”.
Mr Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a 130,000 dollar hush money payment to pornography actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.
Ms Daniels claims she and Mr Trump had a sexual encounter a decade earlier after they met at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.
Prosecutors cast the pay-out as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him during his first presidential campaign.
Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Ms Daniels and was later reimbursed by Mr Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses.
Trump maintains that the stories were false, and that reimbursements were for legal work and logged correctly.
The agreement on the sentencing comes after Mr Trump was back in court to fight to overturn a verdict finding the former president liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
His lawyer D John Sauer told a three-judge panel that the civil trial in a lawsuit brought by writer E Jean Carroll was muddied by improper evidence.
Mr Sauer noted that the jury was allowed to consider such items as the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Mr Trump boasted years ago about grabbing women’s genitals.
Ms Carroll says that Mr Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996.
He denies it but a jury awarded Carroll 5 million dollars (£3.8 million).
The appeals judges have yet to rule.
