Donald Trump to be sentenced over hush money case.

Trump to be sentenced over hush money case but judge signals no jail time.

A judge has mandated that Donald Trump will be sentenced on 10 January in his hush-money case in New York - less than two weeks prior to his expected swearing-in as president.

New York Justice Juan Merchan indicated he would not sentence Trump to incarceration, probation, or a fine, but rather provide him an "unconditional discharge," and stated in his order that the president-elect could attend the hearing either in person or virtually.

Trump had tried to leverage his presidential election win to have the case against him dismissed.

The president-elect has taken to social media to dismiss the judge's ruling as an "illegitimate political attack" and has described the case as "nothing but a rigged charade."

Juan Manuel Merchan, born 1962, is a Colombian-born American judge and former prosecutor. He is an acting justice of the New York State Supreme Court in New York County of Manhattan. He presided over the 2024 criminal trial of former US president Donald Trump, in which Trump was found guilty. Merchan is the first judge in history to preside over the criminal indictment and a guilty verdict of a US President, and the first judge to hold a President in criminal contempt of court.

Merchan was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He immigrated to New York City when he was six years old, growing up in Jackson Heights, Queens, as the youngest of six children. His father was a military officer in Colombia. Merchan studied business at Baruch College in Manhattan, graduating in 1990, and earned his Juris Doctor from Hofstra University School of Law on Long Island in 1994. He was the first member of his family to go to college.