This post was updated June 2 at 9:20 p.m.
A Manhattan jury found former United States president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records Thursday afternoon.
A New York grand jury indicted Trump in March 2023 for falsifying business records of payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims she and Trump had an affair in 2006. A press release from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office alleged that Trump falsified business records when he reimbursed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who made a payment of $130,000 to Daniels to “bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects.”
In closing arguments, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said Trump had “hoodwinked” voters and that knowledge of his illegal payments could have “made the difference” in the 2016 election. The defense portrayed Cohen – who testified that Trump asked him to pay Daniels – as an untrustworthy witness, calling him the “greatest liar of all time.”
The jury informed Judge Juan Merchan that it had reached a verdict around 4:20 p.m. EST.
Merchan thanked the jury for its time hearing and deliberating the case.
“You gave this matter the attention that it deserved, and I thank you for that,” Merchan said, according to the New York Times.
Michael Tyler, the communications director for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, said in a press release that the verdict showed that nobody is above the law.
“Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain,” he said in the press release.
Merchan set Trump’s sentencing for July 11.
“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” said Trump – the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a felony – after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people.”
The former president still faces federal indictments in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents, as well as in the District of Columbia for his alleged attempts on January 6, 2021 to overturn the election result and obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Trump was also indicted in Georgia in August 2023 on charges of racketeering.
