NEW YORK, United States (AFP)— The New York judge presiding over President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money case on Friday set sentencing for 10 days before his January 20 inauguration and said he was not inclined to impose jail time.

Judge Juan Merchan said Trump, the first former president ever convicted of a crime, can appear either in person or virtually at his January 10 sentencing.

In an 18-page decision, Merchan upheld Trump’s conviction by a New York jury, rejecting various motions from Trump’s lawyers seeking to have it thrown out.

The judge said that instead of incarceration he was leaning towards an unconditional discharge –- meaning the real estate tycoon would not be subject to any conditions.

The sentence would nevertheless see Trump entering the White House as a convicted felon.

The 78-year-old Trump potentially faced up to four years in prison but legal experts — even before he won the November presidential election — did not expect Merchan to send the former president to jail.

“It seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration,” the judge said, noting that prosecutors also did not believe a jail term was a “practicable recommendation.”

Trump, who is expected to lodge an appeal that could potentially delay his sentencing, denounced the decision late Friday.

“This illegitimate political attack is nothing but a Rigged Charade,” he wrote on his platform Truth Social.

Calling Merchan a “radical partisan,” Trump added that the order was “knowingly unlawful, goes against our Constitution and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it.”

Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.

Trump’s attorneys had sought to have the case dismissed on multiple grounds, including the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year that former US presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.

Merchan rejected that argument but he noted that Trump will be immune from prosecution once he is sworn in as president.

“Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognising that Presidential immunity will likely attach once Defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this matter down for imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025,” the judge said.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung denounced Merchan’s decision to set sentencing for the former president, calling it a “direct violation of the Supreme Court’s Immunity decision and other longstanding jurisprudence.”

“This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said in a statement.

“President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the Witch Hunts,” he said.

“There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead,” Cheung added.

Trump also faced two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, but both were dropped under a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.

In those cases, Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and removing large quantities of top secret documents after leaving the White House.

Trump also faces racketeering charges in Georgia over his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in the White House.