Trump faces trial on hush money criminal charges: What to know | Wilnesh News

Donald Trump has used every legal tool at his disposal to try to dismiss, reduce or delay the four ongoing criminal cases against him.

But on Monday, Trump will become the first former president to stand trial on felony charges, barring a last-minute court intervention.

The New York Supreme Court trial centers on accusations that Trump falsified business records as part of a scheme to conceal a $130,000 hush-money payment in 2016 to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an extramarital affair with Trump years earlier. .

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of using “arrest” tactics to hide damaging information from voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

The case may be the only one of 88 criminal charges filed against Trump in four separate cases before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

If convicted in the case, the 77-year-old former president could be sentenced to time in New York’s notorious Rikers Island prison or a state prison.

Here’s what you need to know about this historic trial:

under new york lawa person is guilty of a crime when his or her record is falsified with intent to commit or conceal another crime.

The DA charged Trump and others with violating election laws by purchasing and suppressing negative information about him in an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election.

At the center of the Bragg case is Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges related to hush money payments to two women before the 2016 election.

Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness in the trial, will say Trump directed him to make the payments.

To secretly pay Daniels, Cohen opened a bank account for a shell company he created specifically to facilitate the payments, the district attorney said. He then transferred $131,000 from his home equity line of credit to the account. On Oct. 27, less than two weeks before the 2016 election, Cohen wired $130,000 to Daniels’ attorney in exchange for her silence about the alleged tryst with Trump.

After the election, Trump reimbursed Cohen through a series of monthly checks processed by the Trump Organization, which the organization recorded as payment for legal services provided in 2017 through a retainer agreement, Bragg said.

The district attorney claimed the records were false.

Trump and Cohen were also allegedly involved in a 2016 hush-money payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who received $150,000 from the then-Enquirer publisher. Dollar to remain silent about his alleged affair with Trump.

Bragg also noted that publisher American Media paid a former Trump Tower janitor $30,000 for the rights to a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock. The publisher’s CEO, David Pecker, wanted to terminate the deal after determining the report was false, but he delayed it until after the 2016 election at Cohen’s direction, the district attorney said.

The trial was originally scheduled to begin on March 25, but later The delay to Monday was to give Trump’s team time to review some recently obtained documents.

Yes.New York law The defendant is required to attend the trial, with rare exceptions.

Trump has volunteered to attend numerous hearings in hush-money cases and other criminal cases, attracting attention from mainstream media that his regular campaign activities no longer attract.

Trump is also scheduled to testify on Monday in a separate lawsuit related to the public merger of his media companies. Trump Media Technology Groupbut that look is It is said Postponed.

First-degree falsification of business records is a Class E felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.

But defendants often end up receiving sentences well below the maximum, and Trump’s age and lack of prior convictions could also work in his favor in any potential sentencing decisions.

However, his animosity toward presiding judge Juan Merchant and others involved in the case – including the judge’s daughter – could work against him.

“I think there is a significant risk that he will be convicted and face prison time,” Norm Eisen, a legal analyst who helped House Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment, said at a news conference Thursday previewing the hush-money trial. .

“When you falsify business records to facilitate, conceal or commit a serious crime, you will often receive a prison sentence,” Eisen said.

Even if Trump is convicted and jailed, he can continue to run for office.

Trump has not said whether he plans to go to court to defend himself. In November, when Trump appeared in court in a civil business fraud case in New York, he angrily stated: Slamming judges, state attorneys general and many other “haters.”