On Thursday, Former President Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsification of business records in the first degree.
The jury in former President Donald Trump's "hush money" trial in New York has found him guilty on all counts, making him the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime.
The jury of 12 New Yorkers found that Trump violated the law by falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. They found him guilty on all 34 counts he faced.
The verdict was handed down in the Manhattan courtroom where Trump has been on trial for the past six weeks. The presumptive Republican nominee for president is now also a convicted felon.
The jury sided with prosecutors who said that Trump authorized the plan to falsify checks and related records in an effort to prevent voters from learning of an alleged sexual encounter with Daniels. Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the conspiracy spanned his 2016 campaign and continued well into his first year in the White House. Trump denied having sex with Daniels and pleaded not guilty.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsification of business records in the first degree, which is a felony in New York state.
Each charge corresponds to a document that was created to pay Michael Cohen $35,000 a month in 2017: the checks themselves, the invoices Cohen sent to get reimbursed and the vouchers the Trump Organization used to record the payment.
Prosecutors say those checks were meant to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 "hush money" payment that he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter she said she had with Trump years earlier. Trump's defense said the payments to Cohen were to pay for his legal services.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts and denied all wrongdoing.
In a process that took just minutes, the foreperson of the jury said the jurors had reached consensus on a verdict.
One by one, the foreperson read through the verdict for each count: "Guilty. Guilty. Guilty."
Each juror was asked individually if they agreed with the verdict. Trump stared directly at each one as they confirmed their decision.
This story was originally published by CBS News on May 30, 2024 at 5:13 p.m. ET.
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