The judge presiding over the proceedings at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York once again threatened the former American president on Monday, May 6, with“incarceration” for violating his ban on verbally attacking witnesses and jurors.
Judge Juan Merchan fined him another $1,000 “for violating his order by making public comments about the jury and how it was selected”according to his written decision, and warned him that future violations would be “liable to incarceration”.
Last week, the judge sentenced him to a $9,000 fine, or $1,000 per offense, for publicly attacking witnesses and jurors on the sidelines of his trial and threatening to send him to prison in case of recurrence.
Since April 15, the start of this unprecedented trial for a former American president, prosecutors had requested that Donald Trump be sanctioned for his repeated violations of the ban on attacking key witnesses in the case. These include his former lawyer Michael Cohen or the jurors, who he implies are not impartial.
He is being prosecuted for thirty-four falsifications of accounting documents which allegedly served to conceal the payment of 130,000 dollars (121,000 euros) to the former pornographic film star Stormy Daniels, in the home stretch of the 2016 presidential election, which he won narrowly against Hillary Clinton.
This sum was used to buy her silence about a fleeting sexual relationship that she claimed to have had with the real estate mogul in 2006, when he was already married to his current wife, Melania. A relationship that Donald Trump denies.