NEW YORK, Jan 10, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Donald Trump will be sentenced Friday for
covering up hush money payments to a porn star despite the US President-
elect's last-ditch efforts to frustrate a process that would make him the
first felon in the White House.

The judge has indicated, however, that Trump will not face prison -- even
though the 34 counts of falsifying business records on which he was convicted
in May 2024 carry potential prison time. It is instead anticipated that he
will receive the mildest criminal sanction available, an unconditional
discharge -- a relatively uncommon measure.

Sentencing, which Trump is expected to attend virtually, will happen in the
scruffy Manhattan courtroom that was the scene of the trial's high drama,
legal wrangling and vitriolic personal attacks by the divisive Republican.

The trial saw Trump forced to look on as a string of witnesses testified that
he had fraudulently covered up illicit payments to porn star Stormy Daniels
in an effort to stop her disclosing their tryst ahead of the 2016
presidential election, which he ultimately won.

Daniels gave toe-curling testimony that included details about her sexual
encounter with Trump -- which he has always denied -- as well as his flirting
and interest in the adult film industry.

The judge intervened to stop more explicit testimony.

Trump had made an eleventh-hour plea for a suspension of the criminal
proceedings to the nation's highest court after a New York State appeals
court dismissed his effort to have the hearing delayed, and the state's top
court declined to act on the request.

But the Supreme Court ruled that the sentencing could proceed.

Prosecutors opposed the effort to stave off sentencing, 10 days before Trump
is due to be sworn in for a second term, arguing it was wrong for the apex
court to hear the case when the mogul still had avenues of appeal to pursue
in New York.

"This Court lacks jurisdiction over a state court's management of an ongoing
criminal trial when defendant has not exhausted his state-law remedies," the
prosecution told the Supreme Court Thursday.

- Legal wrangling -

His lawyers have used several legal maneuvers in an effort to fend off the
sentencing, which the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, has already indicated
in a filing will not result in jail time.

Instead, experts expect Trump will receive an unconditional discharge, a
measure without any sanctions or restriction that nonetheless upholds the
jury's guilty verdict -- and Trump's infamy as the first former president to
be convicted of a felony.

The 78-year-old Trump had potentially faced up to four years in prison.

"He's sticking his middle finger at the judge, the jury, the system of
justice, and laughing," said Pace University law professor and former
prosecutor Bennett Gershman.

Trump's counsel had argued sentencing should be postponed while the
Republican appeals his conviction, but New York state Associate Justice Ellen
Gesmer rejected that on Tuesday.

Trump's lawyers additionally claimed the immunity from prosecution granted to
a US president should be extended to a president-elect -- Gesmer also brushed
those arguments aside.

His attorneys had further sought to have the case dismissed based on the
Supreme Court's landmark ruling last year, which stated former US presidents
have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts
committed while in office.

Trump was certified as the winner of the 2024 presidential election on
Monday, four years after his supporters rioted at the US Capitol as he sought
to overturn his 2020 defeat.