A New York jury on Thursday convicted former US President, Donald Trump, on all charges in his hush money case barely five months before the November 2024 election in which he is seeking to recapture the White House.
The jury found the former US president ended with the 77-year-old Trump guilty on each of the 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide a payment meant to silence porn star, Stormy Daniels.
Trump, who most observers of the US political landscape believe will appeal the conviction, did not immediately react, but sat still at the court room, his shoulders dipping.
Political analysts noted that the conviction thrusts the United States into uncharted political territory but does not bar Trump from a White House run, even in the unlikely event that Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to prison term.
The 12-member jury deliberated for more than 11 hours over two days at the end of the extraordinary five-week trial held in a drab Manhattan courtroom.
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election, when her claim to have had sex with him could have proved politically fatal.
The trial featured lengthy testimony from Stormy, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and who described to the court in graphic detail what she claimed to be a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
Prosecutors successfully laid out a case alleging that the hush money and the illegal covering up of the payment was part of a broader crime to prevent voters from knowing about Trump’s behavior.
Trump’s defense attorneys had countered that “trying to influence an election” was simply “democracy” and that the former president did nothing wrong.
Although observers noted that the trial had distracted Trump from his campaign to return to the White House by election this year, he had during the trial claimed during media chats in his speeches outside the courtroom complained that he was a political victim.
Theoretically, legal experts say he could face up to four years in jail for each count of falsifying business records but some maintained that a first-time offender he would unlikely go behind bars.
