# Juan Merchan Acting Justice of the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan who presided over *People v. Donald J. Trump*, the hush-money case in which a jury convicted [[Donald Trump]] on **34 felony counts** of falsifying business records on **May 30, 2024**. It is the first criminal conviction of a U.S. president. ## Background Merchan was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1962 or 1963 and immigrated to Queens as a child. He worked as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's office and in the state Attorney General's office before joining the bench. He was named to the Court of Claims in 2009 and sits as an acting Supreme Court justice. Before the Trump trial he presided over the 2022 tax-fraud trial of the [[Trump Organization]], which was convicted and fined $1.6 million, and he took the guilty plea of its CFO, [[Allen Weisselberg]]. ## The trial and the sentence - **The case.** [[Alvin Bragg]] charged that Trump falsified records to disguise the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels as legal fees ([[Stormy Daniels Hush Money Case]]). Merchan ran a six-week trial in the spring of 2024 and held Trump in contempt ten times for violating a gag order, with fines and a warning of jail. - **The immunity detour.** [[Trump v. United States]] came down five weeks after the verdict. Merchan postponed sentencing repeatedly, and then ruled that the evidence in question concerned unofficial conduct. - **The discharge.** On **January 10, 2025**, ten days before the second inauguration and the day after the Supreme Court declined 5–4 to halt it, he sentenced Trump to an **unconditional discharge**. The conviction stands with no penalty attached. ## After Trump appealed the conviction in the state courts and kept trying to move the case to federal court. The Second Circuit revived the removal bid in November 2025. In late August 2026 federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected it again: "there is no way that discussions regarding hush money payments to cover up the President's relations with Stormy Daniels could be an official act." From the start of the case Republicans made Merchan himself a target, especially his daughter's work at a Democratic political-consulting firm. A New York judicial-ethics advisory committee found in 2023 that it gave no reason to question his impartiality, and he denied the recusal motions. The attacks have continued since sentencing. They are part of the vault's broader pattern of making the judge the subject ([[Judicial Independence]]). ## See also - [[Stormy Daniels Hush Money Case]] · [[Trump Indictments Timeline]] · [[Alvin Bragg]] - [[Trump Organization]] · [[Allen Weisselberg]] · [[Trump v. United States]] - [[Federal Judges Hub]] · [[Judicial Independence]]