Donald Trump will face a seasoned judge at the hearing today who is no stranger to the former president’s orbit. Judge Juan Merchan has sentenced Trump’s close confidant Allen Weisselberg to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and overseen former adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal fraud case.
Merchan has been described by observers as a “tough” judge, yet one who is fair, no matter who is before him. Merchan launched his legal career in 1994 when he started off as an assistant district attorney in the trial division in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Several years later, he moved on to the state attorney general’s office, where he worked on cases in Long Island.
In 2006, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then a Republican, appointed Merchan to Family Court in the Bronx, and Democratic Gov. David Paterson appointed him to the New York State Court of Claims in 2009, the same year he began serving as an acting New York Supreme Court Judge.
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Merchan emigrated to the United States at the age of 6 and grew up in the New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens, according to a New York Times profile of the judge. He was the first in his family to go to college.
Merchan initially studied business at Baruch College in New York before he dropped out of school to go work only to return several years later to finish school so that he could get his law degree, the Times reported. He eventually received his law degree from Hofstra University.
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