A US judge has ordered former president Donald Trump to be sentenced on January 10 in the New York hush money case, upholding his guilty verdict.

The sentencing will take place just over a week before his inauguration on January 20.

Trump had previously wanted the judge to throw out the case in light of his presidential election win.

He had argued that going further with the legal proceedings would “threaten the functioning of the federal government”.

President-elect Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts in a New York court on criminal charges involving him paying hush money to a porn star.

Judge Juan Merchan ruled that the case won’t be thrown out, after agreeing to postpone the proceedings after Trump’s election win.

According to reports, Trump isn’t likely to be jailed.

Trump was found guilty in May of concealing a hush-money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election.

The former US President had pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts, and denied any sexual encounter with Daniels.

The judge said: “While this court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and defendants, opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorised by the conviction but one the people concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation.”

Trump was convicted in May of falsifying his business’ records to disguise the true nature of a chain of payments that provided 130,000 dollars to pornstar Stormy Daniels.

She received the money through Mr Trump’s then-lawyer, in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The payout was meant to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with the married Mr Trump a decade earlier.

It was the first ever criminal trial faced by a former or current US president.

Source: LBC