His file includes charges against former President Trump’s company and some of Trump’s close associates in business and politics.

Now Judge Juan Manuel Merchan is ready to take

on

the historic hush money prosecution of Trump himself.

Merchan, a former prosecutor with 16 years on the bench, is expected to preside over Tuesday’s unprecedented arraignment of a former US commander in chief. Trump will appear to be answering allegations arising from a grand jury investigation into payments made during his 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sexual encounters.

Trump, who is again a candidate for the White House, says he is completely innocent and speaks of political persecution. He also seized on Merchan’s involvement.

The judge HATE ME, Trump railed on his social media platform.

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It would be a legacy case for any lawyer. And a melting pot.

There’s a lot of pressure here because this is new,” said Patricia Brown Holmes, a former Illinois state court judge

,

who is now in private practice in Chicago.

As a judge, “You have to get it right. It has to be fair, the public has to know it’s fair, and then the outcome is the outcome,” she said. You want to make sure you stay away from all politics because it only concerns the law.

If politics gives one headache, another weighs the need for openness against the safety of the courtroom for the former president and others, said Geoffrey Puryear, a former Texas state court judge.

It’s a logistical nightmare, from a judge’s perspective, said Puryear, now a lawyer in Lubbock.

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Merchan did not respond to a message asking for comment through court officials.

He got Trump’s case because of a rotation where, according to the justice system, judges oversee grand juries and all cases arising from them. Merchan also often handles financial matters.

Colombian-born Merchan, 60, immigrated as a 6-year-old and grew up in New York City. The first member of his family to attend college, he worked his way through school and then earned a law degree from Hofstra University in 1994.

He was a Manhattan district attorney and worked in the Attorney General’s Office before then-Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appointed him as a family judge in 2006.

Three years later, Mercan was assigned to

called a court

the New York Supreme Court, the highest court in the state. His specific duties now include overseeing a Manhattan mental health court where some defendants are given the opportunity to solve their cases with treatment and supervision, a program he considers a success story.

Like many judges in New York, he has experience with stories that make headlines.

After paratroopers were convicted of misconduct for jumping from the now-signature World Trade Center tower while it was under construction in 2013, Merchan sentenced them to community service, saying they had “slurred the memories of those who died on 9/11 jumps, not for sport.” but because it had to.

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Merchan also oversaw the real-life case that formed the basis

underlying

the 2021 Lifetime movie Soccer Mom Madam, about a suburban mom with a secret side job who runs a high-end escort service in Manhattan. The woman, Anna Gristina, now wants to undo her guilty plea from 2012.

If Merchan came out in the open for those cases, he’s been pointing a Trump-orbiting telescope at his courtroom for the past two years.

First came the tax fraud case against Trump’s company and its longtime chief of finance, Allen Weisselberg.

Merchan was heavily involved in the negotiations leading to Weisselberg’s 2022 guilty plea for evading taxes on big-dollar employment benefits, including Manhattan apartments and school fees. Under the deal, Weisselberg received a five-month prison sentence in exchange for agreeing to testify against the company.

After hearing Weisselberg’s testimony at the trial, Merchan said he wished he could get a tougher sentence. He was especially shocked that Weisselberg’s wife was given a one-time payment of $6,000 for a no-show job in order to qualify for Social Security benefits, even though her husband was making a lot of money.

So many Americans work so hard in the hope that one day they will be able to benefit from their Social Security contributions,” the judge noted. Nevertheless, he kept his sentencing promise.

Nicholas Gravante, who represented Weisselberg at the plea negotiations, said Merchan was a real listener, well prepared, always approachable and a man who kept his word.

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“He was aware of the role my colleagues and I played as lawyers and treated us with the utmost respect both in open court and behind closed doors,” recalled Gravante.

The Trump Organization went to court and said the company was not benefiting from Weisselberg’s plan and that Trump and his family knew nothing about it. A jury convicted the company and Mercan fined the legal maximum of $1.6 million.

Trump

herself

was not charged in that case. But when it came time to wrap up the arguments, Merchan had prosecutors claim that Trump knew about the tax fraud maneuvers. The judge said it was only fair because the defense repeatedly mentioned Trump. The defense sought a mistrial on the matter; Mercan said no.

Mercan said he wanted to keep politics out of the process, which he led with a largely even and friendly tone.

He grew annoyed when Trump Organization lawyers tried to introduce new evidence late in the trial, ultimately limiting them to do so. After the verdict, it emerged that Merchan had secretly convicted the company of contempt of court for voluntarily ignoring four grand jury subpoenas and three court orders.

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Separately, former Trump White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon is on Merchan’s roll. Bannon, accused of defrauding donors who gave money to build a southern US border wall, called the case nonsense. A presidential pardon from Trump ended a similar federal prosecution.

Trump has a history of questioning the legitimacy or impartiality of judges in cases involving his company or administration. While a candidate trumpeting his planned border wall, he pointed to the Mexican ancestry of an Indiana-born federal judge to suggest he couldn’t handle a lawsuit against now-defunct Trump University.

As president, Trump referred to another federal lawyer as a so-called judge after speaking out against Trump’s initial travel ban that affects seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Trump has already gone on the offensive against Merchan, claiming that he pleaded Weisselberg and acted viciously in the Trump Organization case.

For any judge, criticism can be part of the job. But lawyers should focus on their courtrooms, not the court of public opinion, Holmes noted.

You are not the center of attention. The evidence is key, she said.