Tried for falsification of accounting documents, former President of the United States Donald Trump could be imprisoned for having violated his ban on verbally attacking witnesses and jurors. A threat brandished by judge Juan Merchan, this Monday, May 6.
This Monday, May 6, the judge at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York once again threatened the former American president with prison for having violated his ban on verbally attacking witnesses and jurors. “They want two or three more weeks” to hear the witnesses, regretted the real estate magnate. Indignant, he denounces “electoral interference. And the judge is very happy to give them three more weeks because they all want to keep me away from the campaign” he declared. In this case, Donald Trump is being questioned on charges of falsifying accounting documents.
In a written ruling, Judge Juan Merchan fined Donald Trump another $1,000 “for violating his order by making public comments about the jury and how it was selected.” In an interview, he criticized the speed of jury selection, completed in a week, and its presumed composition, in a rather Democratic city.
This is the tenth fine imposed on the candidate for the next American presidential election. “In the future, this court will have to consider a prison sentence. The last thing I want to do is put you in prison,” the judge also declared, comments relayed in the Washington Post. In other words, a future offense would be “punishable by incarceration,” warned the judge. While the law provides for a maximum duration of 30 days in prison, the judge could opt for a gradual sentence. In this case, Donald Trump could be incarcerated for a few hours as early as May 2024.
By dint of appeals, this smaller trial, particularly compared to his indictment by federal justice in Washington for illegal attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election, could be the only one tried before the next presidential election, on November 5, 2024. Donald Trump is being prosecuted for 34 falsifications of accounting documents which allegedly made it possible to conceal the payment of $130,000 to ex-porn star Stormy Daniels. A sum which was used to buy the latter’s silence about a sexual relationship that she claims to have had with Donald Trump. An affair that the former President of the United States formally denies.
