Former President Donald Trump was found guilty of all charges by a 12-person jury on Thursday in a New York criminal trial. liveupdate From the court: After about 11 and a half hours over two days, the jury returned its verdict.
“Please do not have any reaction, no outburst of any kind,” Acting Judge Juan Merchan told jurors before the verdict was read out.
Trump was indicted last year by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors accused Trump of listing payments to his then-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, as legal expenses to conceal a $130,000 settlement the lawyer paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels about an alleged affair between the former president and the president.
“We think the chances of that happening here are very low.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denied Daniels’ allegations.
The defense argued that the $35,000 per month paid to Mr Cohen in 2017, totalling $420,000, was legal fees, but Mr Cohen argued that some of the funds were repayment for payments made to Ms Daniels.
Trump was not allowed to leave the courtroom while the jury was reaching its verdict.
“It’s so unfair I’m not being allowed to campaign. A vicious witch hunt on Joe Biden. Third World Country!!!” Trump posted. The truth of society.
Tuesday morning, Marchan Transmitted instructions to the juryIn it, he told jurors they did not have to agree on “unlawful means” to unanimously convict Trump.
“We don’t have to be unanimous about what the illegal means were…we can consider FECA violations. [Federal Election Campaign Act]falsifying other business records and violating tax laws,” he added.
Legal expert Jonathan Turley said: X“Marchant has just given the order to deliver the final blow. He said there is no need for agreement on what happened. There can be disagreement on what was the crime among the three options. So even if it’s 4-4-4, he will treat it as unanimous.”
Journalist Paul Ingrassia It pointed out He said Judge Marchan’s jury instructions “may be the broadest definition of a crime in history” and accused the judge of “literally throwing the whole book at the jury.”
After about four and a half hours of deliberation Wednesday, jurors requested to hear portions of witness testimony read out loud, including statements from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about a June 2016 phone conversation with Trump and a meeting at Trump Tower in August 2015. Jurors also requested to hear Pecker’s testimony about payments from the media company’s parent company, AMI, to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims she had an affair with Trump.
The jury also asked for Cohen’s testimony about the Trump Tower meeting.
The jury also asked to hear Marchan’s jury instructions again, as New York courts prohibit jurors from receiving written instructions.
On Thursday morning, ahead of the requested readings from the previous day, jurors submitted another note specifying which parts of Marchan’s instructions they wanted to hear again. Jurors also requested headphones or speakers for the evidence laptop.
Trump spoke about Marchan’s jury instructions in a post. The truth of society On Thursday, the court said, “The jury instructions issued by the highly inconsistent Judge Juan Merchan were unfair, misleading, inaccurate and unconstitutional; and were extremely confusing (exactly what the Judge wanted!), because no crime was committed!”
The jury left the courtroom early Thursday afternoon to continue deliberations. During the lunch break, the panel did not request any additional recordings.
Trump’s lawyer, Will Scharf, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the government is prepared to appeal if Trump is convicted.
“If there is a conviction, which we believe is a grossly unjust conviction, we will promptly appeal to the New York Appellate Division and potentially to the New York Court of Appeals, and we will take that step if that happens,” Scharf said, “but right now we think it’s highly unlikely that’s the outcome here.”
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