A New York State appeals judge on Monday denied Donald Trump’s request to postpone his April 15 criminal trial on charges stemming from a bribe paid to a porn star, while the former US president seeks to transfer the case out of Manhattan.
With that, Associate Justice Lizbeth Gonzalez issued her ruling shortly after a half-hour hearing in the Appellate Division in Manhattan, a state intermediate appeals court.
Emil Bove, Trump’s lawyer, said during the hearing that his client was trying to put the case on hold pending Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s request to transfer the trial on the charges.
A prosecutor in Bragg’s office, Steven Wu argued that Trump waited too long to object to being tried in Manhattan, where he once lived. Charges were filed in April 2023.
Trump, the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 5 US election, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Bove did not specify where Trump’s team would like the trial to be held. Bove said a survey by Trump’s legal team of residents of Manhattan, one of the five boroughs of heavily Democratic New York City, found that 61% of respondents thought Trump was guilty and 70% had a negative opinion of him.
“There is a real potential for predisposition,” Bove said. “Jury selection cannot proceed fairly from next week in this county.”
Wu said biased jurors could be eliminated during the jury selection process and that Trump could not cite media attention as a reason to delay the trial.
“He himself was responsible for fueling this publicity,” Wu said.
A criminal trial would be the first for a former US president.
Trump is accused of covering up the $130,000 payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 presidential election about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied any meetings with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
