US media reports say a New York jury yesterday found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — the first time a former U.S. president has been convicted of a crime.
The jury reached its verdict in the historic case after 9½ hours of deliberations, which began on May 29.
NBC News says Mr. Trump will be sentenced on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention. He reportedly faces penalties from a fine to four years in prison on each count, although it is expected he would be sentenced for the offenses concurrently, not consecutively.
Trump had pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump's attorney Todd Blanche reportedly made a motion for acquittal after the jury left the room, which the judge denied.
According to NBC News, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, immediately set out fundraising off the news, posting on his website that he is “a political prisoner” and urging his followers to give money.
Legal experts have told NBC News that even if Trump is sentenced to time behind bars, he'd most likely be allowed to remain out of jail while he appeals the verdict, a process that could take months or more. That means the sentence would most likely not interfere with his ability to accept the Republican nomination for president at the July convention.
And it likely wouldn't impact his ability to be elected. "There are no other qualifications other than those in the Constitution,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and NBC News & MSNBC Legal Analyst said following Thursday’s verdict.
President Joe Biden's campaign praised the verdict in a statement but stressed that Trump needs to be defeated in November.
