NEW YORK, May 31 (Xinhua) -- A jury in New York on Thursday found former U.S. President Donald Trump guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a bid to hide hush money payment to a porn star in 2016, shortly before the presidential election.
The jury of 12 people reached the verdict on Thursday afternoon after deliberation started one day ago. It was the first time a former U.S. president was ever convicted of a crime, and was the first of Trump's four indictments to reach trial.
Trump is currently embroiled in a series of criminal and civil lawsuits at the federal and local levels, including four criminal lawsuits in the hush money case, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, the election interference case, and the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot investigation.
The hush money case is thought to be the only one where a verdict will be issued before the election.
The charges centered on reimbursements to Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen for a 130,000-U.S.-dollar hush payment he paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her not going public with her claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
Prosecutors said the hush money was falsely logged as "legal expenses" to hide the true nature of the transactions.
The charge of falsifying business records is a Class E felony in New York, the lowest tier of felony charges in the state. It carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison, though the judge could ultimately impose a different sentence. There's no guarantee Trump would serve time in prison.
Judge Juan Merchan denied a motion for acquittal and set a sentencing hearing for July 11, just days before the 2024 Republican National Convention, where Republicans will officially nominate Trump for president.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty, saying the hush money trial against him was "rigged" and a "disgrace."
"The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people. And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here," Trump told media outside the Manhattan courtroom, according to a CNN report.
As the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee in the 2024 general election, Trump can keep campaigning and running for president despite the conviction and can still vote for himself in his home state of Florida as long as he stays out of prison in New York State, reported The Associated Press.
Trump will push forward with post-trial motions and "if that is not successful, then as soon as we can appeal we will," Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche was quoted by CNN news as saying.
Republicans have rushed to the former president's defense, while Democrats largely avoided the specifics of the case but said justice had prevailed.
"There's only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: At the ballot box," U.S. President Joe Biden wrote on social media X.
"This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one," U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson was quoted by ABC News as saying, calling it a "shameful day in American history."
The former president's middle son, Eric Trump, wrote on X: "May 30, 2024 might be remembered as the day Donald J. Trump won the 2024 Presidential Election."
Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who serves as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday that Trump would do virtual rallies and campaign events if he's convicted and sentenced to home confinement.
A Quinnipiac University poll released earlier this month found that among Trump voters, 6 percent said if he were convicted they would be less likely to vote for him, 24 percent said they would be more likely to vote for him, and 68 percent said it would not make a difference.
"The vast majority of his supporters say it would be no big deal. But in an extremely tight race, that 6 percent could tip the balance," Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy was cited as saying by a Reuters report. ■