The judge overseeing Donald Trump's New York criminal trial on Tuesday approved a delay of the former president's sentencing after his lawyers asked for more time to argue that the
Supreme Court's immunity decision calls for a new trial.
The sentencing hearing, previously scheduled for July 11, will now take place on September 18 at the earliest, according to a letter posted on the court's docket.
The delay guarantees Trump will not be sentenced until after he is formally nominated for president at the Republican National Convention, which begins July 15, and sentencing will happen less than two months before the presidential election.
Trump's team moved quickly to leverage the Supreme Court's ruling on
Monday, sending
a letter to Merchan asking to brief him on how it impacts his felony conviction on 34 counts of falsified business records. In a letter Tuesday, prosecutors
said they were not opposed to delaying the sentencing hearing, though they signaled they believe the effort to toss the verdict is "without merit."
The Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of crimes that would normally be misdemeanors but were escalated to felonies in this case. Prosecutors argued he doctored his internal business records while serving in the White House to disguise the fact that as president-elect, he'd ordered his former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.