Alan Dershowitz predicts Trump will be sentenced to prison but the sentence will be suspended

Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, predicted Friday that former President Donald Trump will be sentenced to prison but the sentence will be suspended.

“A lot of people are predicting probation,” Dershowitz said on the television show “Just the News, No Noise.” “I’m not predicting that. I’m predicting that he (Judge Juan Merchan) will sentence Trump to prison but give him probation. That way he gets the symbolic effect of prison without actually going to prison.”

A New York jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records during his presidential candidacy in 2016. For example, he had concealed a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with her for the purpose of influencing the election.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for 2024, is now the first U.S. president to be found guilty of serious crimes. Dershowitz says he doubts that Merchan will give Trump a fair sentence of probation, as some are predicting.

“He’s going to sentence him to two years in prison, suspended because he has no prior convictions, or something like that,” he said. “But I don’t think he’s going to just give him a suspended sentence.”