Judge sets sentencing date for former President Donald Trump

NEW YORK (PIX11) --- A judge has set Donald Trump's sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are set to select him as the 2024 nominee.

A jury has found the former president guilty on all counts in his historic hush money trial in New York City, making him the first former U.S. president to be convicted of felony criminal charges.

The 12 jurors deliberated for 9.5 hours before reaching the guilty verdict Thursday afternoon.

Trump was accused of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential election to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had a sexual encounter with him a decade prior.

Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the case. He denied any wrongdoing. 

The case centered on a $130,000 payment Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels near the end of the 2016 election to prevent her from going public with her story of a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump 10 years earlier in a hotel suite in Lake Tahoe.

When Trump reimbursed Cohen, the payments were logged as being for legal services. Prosecutors said this was done to hide the true purpose of the transaction with Daniels and to illegally interfere in the 2016 election. Trump’s lawyers contended the payments were legitimate and were for actual legal services. 

The weeks-long trial in a Manhattan courtroom included testimony from nearly two dozen witnesses, including Daniels, Cohen, former Trump advisor Hope Hicks, and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.

The trial, which began in mid-April, was the first criminal case in U.S. history against a former president. Before the trial started, experts said it was unlikely Trump would do jail time if convicted.

The hush money trial was one of four separate criminal cases against Trump as the Republican presidential candidate seeks to defeat President Joe Biden and reclaim the White House. It’s unclear if any of the other cases against Trump will reach trial before the November presidential election.