<strong>New York:</strong> A local judge sentenced President-elect Donald Trump to unconditional discharge in connection with his conviction in the hush money case, on Friday, 10 days before he is to enter the White House, but did not give him a prison term or other penalty. Judge Juan Merchan gave Trump, who was appearing in the local court through a video link, an “unconditional discharge” which confirms his conviction without consequences after the Supreme Court refused to intervene. Trump will be the first President who enters office with a criminal record. It was a pyrrhic victory for the local prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, who was elected as a Democratic Party candidate, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who used the conviction as a propaganda point, because 1.77 million American voters repudiated them and elected Trump as President. Trump, who spoke at the sentencing from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida through a video link, said, “This is a great embarrassment to the state of New York”. The voters saw firsthand what transpired and elected him, he said. Merchan said that he was deferring to Trump becoming the President but would have penalised him if he were a private citizen. Trump maintained his innocence. The case arose out of allegations made by a porn star that she had a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 before his 2016 election to buy her silence. Trump reimbursed the lawyer, and the payments were shown as legal expenses, which the prosecutor said was a criminal fraud and the jury accepted it. Bragg made each of the checks he wrote and ledger entries into separate criminal offences to pump up the convictions to 34. Trump denied her claim of a tryst and said he made the payment to avoid embarrassment to his family. A jury convicted him of the 34 offences before the November election and the sentencing was postponed because of the election and his appeals. (IANS)
