Juan Merchan

Merchan, a former prosecutor with 16 years on the bench, is expected to preside Tuesday over the unprecedented arraignment of a former U.S. commander in ...

This is not the first Trump-related case he has presided over | The Economist explains.

“The way to approach a case like this is to be a kind of judge from central casting,” says Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School and a former prosecutor. In late 2022 Mr Merchan oversaw a trial in which a jury found Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation, entities of the former president’s property business, guilty of a host of crimes, including conspiracy, tax fraud and falsifying records. But Mr Trump’s team said news cameras would create a “circus-like atmosphere” and be “inconsistent with President Trump’s presumption of innocence”. He is overseeing a criminal case against Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud and money-laundering related to fundraising for a wall along the border with Mexico. According to the New York Times Mr Merchan was born in Colombia and emigrated to the United States in the late 1960s as a six-year-old child. But the former president has also attacked Juan Merchan, the judge who was (randomly) assigned to his case.

Print. AP Trump indictment April 2023 1_800px. Former President Donald Trump appears in court for his arraignment April 4 in New York. Trump surrendered to ...

“Judge Merchan was efficient, practical and listened carefully to what I had to say,” Gravante said in the email. “His fidelity to the law and to getting it right lends to him this sort of moral purpose of what he’s doing that makes it a joy to practice in front of him.” He treated me and my colleagues with the utmost respect, both in open court and behind closed doors.” Merchan “is the same person who ‘railroaded’ my 75 year old former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, to take a ‘plea’ deal,” Trump wrote. “He is someone who reads every word on every page of every filing and every footnote—and then the cases that you cite to him,” said Jose A. Before becoming a judge, Merchan was a prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York City and a lawyer overseeing civil cases with the New York attorney general’s office. The company’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, was a witness after pleading guilty to 15 felonies for failing to report $1.76 million in income. “He strong armed Allen, which a judge is not allowed to do, & treated my companies, which didn’t ‘plead,’ VICIOUSLY. “He’s a meticulous thinker, he’s deliberate, and he’s smart,” one of Merchan’s former supervisors in the district attorney’s office told Law.com. I think he’s one of the better judges in the building.” Trump surrendered to authorities ahead of his arraignment on criminal charges stemming from a hush-money payment to an adult film actress during his 2016 presidential campaign. Former President Donald Trump appears in court for his arraignment April 4 in New York.