A jury in New York has convicted former President Donald Trump of all 34 felonies stemming from his personal attorney Michael Cohen’s hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.

Trump,77, is the first president of the United States to face criminal conviction. Three other criminal cases are ongoing against him.

Judge Juan Merchan of the Manhattan Supreme Court set the date for his sentencing in the hush money case for July 11 at 10 a.m. ET.

That is only a few days before the twice-impeached Trump is scheduled to be formally certified as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Merchan is under no obligation to sentence Trump to any jail time, although he faces a maximum penalty of four years in prison on each offence. Trump is now free on bond. Trump will undoubtedly appeal the decision.

The former president was found guilty of forging documents that appeared to show that he and the Trump Organisation paid Cohen’s legal fees in order to compensate the former fixer for the $130,000 that Cohen personally reimbursed Daniels prior to the 2016 election.

Both Cohen and Daniels stated in court that the payment was given to her in order to stop her from selling the account of her one-time encounter with Trump in 2006—a few months after his wife Melania Trump gave birth to their son Barron Trump—to media outlets.

Cohen claimed that Trump gave him the order to pay Daniels in order to keep her from jeopardising his chances of winning the presidency in 2016. He said that within the time frame covered by the company documents, he performed little to no real legal work for Trump.

Following less than two days of deliberations by the state court jury, the verdict was read at around 5:05 p.m. Trump remained composed throughout the whole ordeal. Following the jury foreman’s repeated declaration of “guilty” on each count as it was read, his son Eric Trump appeared irate.

“After all, I am a very innocent man,” Trump declared.

“This was a disgrace,” he said. “This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt.”

“The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here,” Trump said.

Minutes after the decision, President Joe Biden’s campaign released a statement stating, “There has never been a greater threat from Trump to our democracy.”

“In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law,” said Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler. “Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain.”

“But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality,” Tyler added. “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”

Alvin Bragg Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney whose office prosecuted Trump, referred to the jurors as “12 everyday New Yorkers” after they heard 22 witnesses testify throughout the course of the trial and examined checks, records, and other paperwork before finding Trump guilty.

“Even though this defendant might be unique in American history, we handled this trial and came to this decision today in the same way we handle every other case that comes,” Bragg said.

“I want to thank you very much for your service,” Merchan said to the jury.

The judge said, “That’s a long time to be away from your job, your families, and your other responsibilities.” “I want you to know how much I respect your commitment and diligence.”

The jury’s decision was reached just hours after they were shown excerpts of Merchan’s legal instructions on Wednesday, in addition to readbacks of Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s testimony.

Pecker had testified about a 2015 meeting between Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower, when he made a commitment to utilise his media contacts to find anybody leaking unfavourable information about Trump so they could be compensated for their quiet. Karen McDougal was paid $150,000 by Pecker’s organisation in 2016 to stay quiet about her claimed romance with Trump.

Within two of the remaining three criminal charges that Trump is facing, he is accused of offences connected to his attempts to reverse Biden’s defeat in the 2020 election.

Two cases are pending in federal court in Washington, D.C., and Georgia state court in Atlanta, respectively.

Trump is accused of crimes in a federal court located in Florida, relating to his attempts to stop federal agents from recovering sensitive government papers that he had retained after leaving the White House in January 2021.

In addition, Trump is ordered by the Manhattan Supreme Court to pay the state of New York about $450 million in damages as a result of his liability for corporate fraud involving the Trump Organisation and its appraisal of real estate assets.

In addition, he is facing two civil defamation rulings from federal juries that awarded writer E. Jean Carroll, who testified that Trump had sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store changing room in the mid-1990s, damages of about $90 million.

“Justice!” Carroll posted on X on Thursday, along with an eye-catching image of Daniels.

The decisions in the three civil suits are being appealed by Trump.

Trump may cast a ballot in the election in either of the two states where he now resides—Florida or New York—if he is not incarcerated this autumn as part of his sentence.

(Adapted from APNews.com)