President Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts at Manhattan criminal court on Thursday afternoon. 

Trump walked out of the courtroom, looking angry but not surprised, he was followed by his defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, Susan Necheles and his adult son Eric Trump, his legal spokesperson and attorney Alina Habba, and others. 

 “The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the American people,” Trump told reporters in the hallway, where he spoke briefly and called the case rigged. The sentencing will take place on July 11, the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, told the court. 

After deliberating for two days, the jury entered the courtroom at 5:05 pm to announce their unanimous verdict. Each juror was asked, and each of the seven men and five women found Trump guilty on all counts. 

In the morning, the judge had reread portions of trial testimony which the jury had requested and also reread the jury instructions. The 12 jurors took notes and listened attentively. Reporters waited the entire day. Shortly after 4 pm the judge announced that there was a verdict. 

Shortly before the reading of the verdict, Trump and one of his defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, were laughing at the defense table.     

But laughing or not, the guilty verdict against Trump on all 34 counts has created a wholly unprecedented and unpredictable scenario involving the first former president ever convicted of a crime. Here is how things will now play out.

The former president has been convicted of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, had accused Trump of disguising monthly payments he made to his former lawyer Michael Cohen as legal fees, when in reality they were, according to Mr. Bragg, reimbursements for a hush-money payment Cohen made to the porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. The payment was made two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, the district attorney alleges, to cover up her allegation of a one-time sexual encounter she claims to have had with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006. He denies the affair and had pleaded innocent to all charges. 

Mr. Bragg elevated what would usually be a misdemeanor to a felony conviction. The charge, which New York Times called “a staple of his office’s white-collar work,” could only be raised from a misdemeanor to a felony if the defendant falsified his business records with the intention to commit or conceal another crime. The prosecution named several second crimes, the most serious offenses being that Trump conspired to influence the 2016 presidential election and violated federal campaign finance laws. Mr. Bragg has faced criticism for prosecuting this federal offense in state court. 

“It seems a bit of a legal reach, and the question is why are they doing it?” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, as reported by the Associated Press, prior to the verdict. Last summer, Trump’s attorneys tried to move the case to federal court. But the federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein, denied their request, writing that the law did not provide exceptions for election-related activities.

As another second crime, the prosecutors alleged that Trump helped Cohen commit tax fraud, and that he encouraged Cohen to distance himself from the hush-money payment.        

Now that Trump has been convicted, the penalty phase begins. Under New York law, the class “E” felonies Trump faces are punishable by up to four years in prison per offense and-or a fine of up to $5000. As Trump has been found guilty on all 34 counts, meaning each falsified invoice, ledger entry and check, he could face up to $170,000 in fines and 136 years in prison. 

The Sun spoke to several legal experts prior to the verdict, and they all agreed that it is unlikely for a first time offender to receive the maximum sentence for these kinds of offenses, or any prison time at all. But this is an extraordinary trial and Trump is enormously unpopular in Manhattan, where he only got 12.2 percent of the vote in 2020. In January, a civil jury imposed an $83.3 million judgment on Trump for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, an extraordinary amount considering the slander involved. Regarding the hush-money case, many legal observers have said that someone other than Trump would never have been charged.

No experts to whom the Sun spoke about the hush-money case would speculate on what sentence the presiding trial judge, Juan Merchan, whom Trump has called “corrupt” and “conflicted,” will impose. Supervised parole could be an option. 

The sentencing in criminal convictions usually comes between 30 and 60 days after the trial has ended. During that time, Trump will be able to attend his campaign rallies. He will not, however, be able to leave the country. His attorneys can appeal the guilty verdict only after he has been sentenced, because the verdict and the sentence are appealed together. And should this sentence include prison time, he can immediately ask to be released on bail pending appeal. In other words, he may not have to step into a prison cell, even if Judge Merchan rules that he must do so, until an appeals court upholds such a ruling. 

Criminal procedure in New York state requires that in a case in which a defendant has been released on bail pending appeal, the arguments for the appeal should be heard within 120 days. Extensions, however, can be granted upon request. 

In the case that Trump is sentenced, say in July or in August, he could be before the appeals court in November, around the time of Election Day. A felony conviction does not impact his ability to run for president in the general election, but it would prohibit him from voting in his recently adopted home state of Florida, which restored voting rights to convicted felons in 2018, but only once they have completed their sentences, including parole and probation.

The only two states in the country where convicted felons retain their full voting rights are Vermont and Maine. In New York, where Trump was born and raised, convicted felons can vote if they are on parole, on probation, were not sentenced to prison or had their prison sentence suspended, served their maximum prison sentence, or were pardoned. 

Since Trump faces state charges, the only person who could pardon him is the state’s governor, in this case Kathy Hochul, who last week referred to Trump’s supporters as “clowns.” If Trump is elected president in November, he could not pardon himself for a state crime. Nor could President Biden.       

The American Bar Association writes, “There is a strong consensus among legal experts that a president cannot pardon someone for a state offense, as the Constitution notes “he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.” 

Since Trump also faces criminal charges in federal courts, one may wonder, could he pardon himself there? The American Bar Association calls this an “unsettled legal question”, with varying “expert legal opinions” and a U.S. Supreme Court that “has not weighed in on this issue.” It is widely assumed, however, that since Trump would oversee the Justice Department as president, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of him would end on January 20th should his quarry regain the presidency.

When Mr. Bragg announced the indictment last year, he said, “At its core, this case today is one with allegations like so many of our white collar cases. Someone lied again and again to protect their interests and evade the laws to which we are all held accountable.”