Queens man indicted

Queens man and former President Donald Trump was indicted on State charges for hush money payments he allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels, the New York Times reported Thursday. AP file photo Alex Brandon

By Ryan Schwach

A Queens man was indicted Thursday for allegedly making hush money payments to a porn star shortly before he was elected president of the United States in 2016.

Although the exact charges against former president and Queens native Donald Trump are still unknown, Trump will be the first former president to ever face criminal charges and is expected to be arrested, fingerprinted and quite possibly handcuffed in the coming days, the New York Times reported.

Court sources told the New York Daily News that the grand jury handed up their indictment vote around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. The grand jury had been deliberating in lower Manhattan as part of an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg into hush money payments the former president raised in Jamaica Estates made to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the election in 2016.

Trump allegedly made the illegal payments as a way to keep Daniels from going public about the alleged affair he had with her in 2006.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen first brought the story to light in 2018, saying that he handled the illegal pay off, and that Trump did it “for the principal purpose of influencing” the 2016 presidential election, the Daily News reported.

The $130,000 payoff was taken out by Cohen through a home equity line of credit, the Daily News said, and wired to Daniels.

The charges come about a week after Trump called for protests outside of Bragg’s office and threatened “death and destruction” if charges were to be brought against him.

Trump became the first man from Queens to be impeached in 2019. Two years later, he became the first man from Queens to be impeached twice.