In nearly two decades on the bench, Justice Juan M. Merchan has sentenced crooked cops, the so-called Soccer Mom Madam and skydivers who jumped off the World Trade Center. But no defendant has been as famous as the man scheduled to be sentenced on Friday: Donald J. Trump.
It is the most high-profile moment of the judge’s career and the culmination of his long involvement with the former president. Ever since prosecutors filed the case nearly two years ago, it has placed Justice Merchan and his family in Mr. Trump’s cross-hairs, an unusual position for the even-keeled judge.
Born in Bogotá, Columbia, Justice Merchan, 62, was raised primarily in Queens and worked as an internal auditor at a real estate firm before attending law school. He joined the Manhattan district attorney’s office and began prosecuting a variety of cases, including financial crimes.
After a stint in Bronx Family Court, he was appointed by New York’s chief administrative judge to the bench in Manhattan. Since 2011, he has also presided over Manhattan Mental Health Court, a specialized program he created for defendants whose mental health troubles have landed them in legal jeopardy.
Even before Mr. Trump’s indictment, Justice Merchan oversaw cases related to the president-elect. He presided over the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution of the Trump Organization and its moneyman, Allen H. Weisselberg. After a jury found the company guilty of tax fraud and other crimes, Justice Merchan fined the company $1.6 million, the maximum possible amount.
He also sentenced Mr. Weisselberg, then 75 years old, to five months in jail following his plea deal.
Mr. Trump asked Justice Merchan to recuse himself from his trial, citing the judge’s daughter’s work as a Democratic consultant. The judge sought guidance from a state advisory committee on judicial ethics, which found that his impartiality could not reasonably be questioned based on his daughter’s work.
But Mr. Trump persisted. He assailed the judge, a moderate Democrat, as “biased” and “conflicted,” and attacked the judge’s daughter on social media.
In response to Mr. Trump’s second request to recuse himself, Justice Merchan, on the first day of trial, responded, “There is no agenda here” and said, “We want justice to be done.”
Justice Merchan ran his courtroom with a firm hand during the seven-week trial. Outside the presence of the jurors, he rebuked Mr. Trump for muttering an expletive during the porn star Stormy Daniel’s testimony and scolded a defense witness for his impertinence on the stand.
The judge also imposed a gag order barring Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and jurors, as well as family members of the court staff. He found that the former president violated the order 10 times, resulting in $10,000 in fines, and threatened to imprison Mr. Trump if the prohibited comments continued.
Last month, Justice Merchan rejected Mr. Trump’s long-shot request to have the verdict thrown out following the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity. And earlier this month, he rejected Mr. Trump’s claim that his election victory should shut down the case.
“To dismiss the indictment and set aside the jury verdict would not serve the concerns set forth by the Supreme Court in its handful of cases addressing presidential immunity, nor would it serve the rule of law,” Justice Merchan wrote in his decision, adding, “On the contrary, such decision would undermine the rule of law in immeasurable ways.”
With that rejection, he then scheduled the sentencing for Friday.
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