After Former President Donald Trump’s conviction in his New York criminal case, he could face jail time, home confinement or be at the mercy of a probation officer, legal experts say.
A Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty Thursday on all 34 counts in his New York criminal trial.
The guilty verdict in the historic case will have far-reaching consequences for the 2024 presidential election and upend criminal case law in New York, legal experts told Fox News Digital before the conviction.
“It seems this is an all-or-nothing case, assuming arguendo there is a verdict and not a hung jury,” said Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and a former federal prosecutor.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Gowdy, who has been in the New York City courtroom where Trump’s case was decided, said it was unlikely for the jury to find Trump guilty on some charges but not others.
“I cannot foresee a verdict with some counts as guilty and others as not. Unless there is a lesser included misdemeanor charge, in which case there perhaps could be a series of convictions for felony and misdemeanor counts,” he said.
Louis Gelormino, a Staten Island defense attorney, agreed that the jury would render the same verdict on all counts “because all the felonies are pretty much the same.”
“They’re just different instances of the same felony,” he told Fox News Digital.
Indeed, that’s what happened.
The charges against Trump in New York were related to alleged payments made ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels about an alleged 2006 extramarital sexual encounter with Trump.
Prosecutors needed to convince the jury that not only did Trump falsify the business records related to alleged hush money payments, but that he did so in furtherance of another crime, conspiracy to promote or prevent an election. Bragg’s allegation that Trump falsified records to cover up an additional crime elevated to a felony what otherwise would have been misdemeanor charges
