President-elect Donald Trump is seeking a stay of his Friday sentencing in the hush money case, according to a court filing made public Monday.
“The Court should vacate the sentencing hearing scheduled for January 10, 2025, and suspend all further deadlines in the case until President Trump’s immunity appeals are fully and finally resolved,” Trump’s attorneys argued in the filing to New York state Judge Juan Merchan dated Sunday.
Merchan had denied Trump’s bid to dismiss the case in a ruling last week and ordered his sentencing on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to proceed this week, ahead of his inauguration.
Trump’s filing said he is appealing those decisions to the state Appellate Division later today, and is entitled to an “automatic stay.”
In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung called the sentencing “unlawful.”
“The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed,” he said.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is expected to file a response in the afternoon.
In his Friday ruling, Merchan said he did not plan to jail Trump and was likely to sentence him to an unconditional discharge, meaning he would remain a convicted felon but would have no other punishment.
Trump was convicted in May of falsifying records related to a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election. Daniels testified she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, a claim he has denied.
He was initially scheduled to be sentenced in July, but Merchan postponed the proceeding at Trump’s request in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling setting a new standard for presidential immunity earlier that month.
In a pair of rulings over the last month, Merchan found that the Supreme Court ruling didn’t affect Trump’s conviction in the criminal case.
The judge’s Friday ruling said Trump could appear in person or virtually for the sentencing and asked Trump’s attorneys to inform him of the decision by Sunday. It’s unclear if they replied or if their filing is the response.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
