NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday to no punishment in his historic hush money casea judgment that lets him return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.

With Trump appearing by video from his Florida estate, the sentence quietly capped an extraordinary case rife with moments unthinkable in the U.S. only a few years ago.

It was the first criminal prosecution and first conviction of a former U.S. president and major presidential candidate. The New York case became the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever will. And the sentencing came 10 days before his inauguration for his second term.

In roughly six minutes of remarks to the court, a calm but insistent Trump called the case “a weaponization of government” and “an embarrassment to New York.” He maintained that he did not commit any crime.

“It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election, and, obviously, that didn’t work,” the Republican president-elect said by video, with U.S. flags in the background.

After the roughly half-hour proceeding, Trump said in a post on his social media network that the hearing had been a “despicable charade.” He reiterated that he would appeal his conviction.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan could have sentenced the 78-year-old to up to four years in prison. Instead, Merchan chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but assured that Trump will become the first president to take office with a felony conviction on his record.

Trump’s no-penalty sentence, called an unconditional discharge, is rare for felony convictions. The judge said that he had to respect Trump’s upcoming legal protections as president, while also giving due consideration to the jury’s decision.

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” said Merchan, who had indicated ahead of time that he planned the no-penalty sentence.

As Merchan pronounced the sentence, Trump sat upright, lips pursed, frowning slightly. He tilted his head to the side as the judge wished him “godspeed in your second term in office.”

Before the hearing, a handful of Trump supporters and critics gathered outside. One group held a banner that read, “Trump is guilty.” The other held one that said, “Stop partisan conspiracy” and “Stop political witch hunt.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat.

The norm-smashing case saw the former and incoming president charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, put on trial for almost two months and convicted by a jury on every count. Yet the legal detour — and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations — didn’t hurt him with voters, who elected him in November to a second term.

Beside Trump as he appeared virtually Friday from his Mar-a-Lago property was defense lawyer Todd Blanche, with partner Emil Bove in the New York courtroom. Trump has tapped both for high-ranking Justice Department posts.

Prosecutors said that they supported a no-penalty sentence, but they chided Trump’s attacks on the legal system throughout the case.

“The once and future president of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.

Afterward, Trump was expected to return to the business of planning for his new administration. He was set later Friday to host conservative House Republicans as they gathered to discuss GOP priorities.

The specific charges in the hush money case were about checks and ledgers. But the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trump’s political rise.

Trump was charged with fudging his business’ records to veil a $130,000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, late in Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier. He says nothing sexual happened between them and that he did nothing wrong.

Prosecutors said Daniels was paid off — through Trump’s personal attorney at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades.

Trump denies the alleged encounters occurred. His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And while prosecutors said Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses, Trump says that’s simply what they were.

“For this I got indicted,” Trump lamented to the judge Friday. “It’s incredible, actually.”

Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial, and later to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponed.

Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution, and they got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commanders-in-chief considerable immunity.

Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the reimbursements to Cohen were made and recorded the following year.

Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed the sentencing, initially set for July. But last week, he set Friday’s dateciting a need for “finality.”

Trump’s lawyers then launched a flurry of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. Their last hope vanished Thursday night with a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencing.

Meanwhile, the other criminal cases that once loomed over Trump have ended or stalled ahead of trial.

After Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith closed out the federal prosecutions over Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A state-level Georgia election interference case is locked in uncertainty after prosecutor FieldsWillis was removed from it.

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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of President-elect Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has invited President-elect Donald Trump to survey the damage from the Los Angeles wildfires personally and to meet with victims as the incoming president continues to cast blame on Newsom and other Democrats.

In a letter to Trump posted to social media on Friday, Newsom noted their joint 2018 tour of the ruins of the Camp and Woolsey fires. “As you prepare to assume the presidency once more, I invite you to come to California again — to meet with the Americans affected by these fires, see the devastation firsthand, and join me and others in thanking the heroic firefighters and first responders who are putting their lives on the line,” Newsom wrote.

“In the spirit of this great country, we must not politicize human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines,” he added.

Trump has seized on the deadly wildfires to attack Newsomone of his longtime Democratic targets. He has made false accusations against the governor over California’s water management and attributed the fires to Democratic “incompetence.”

Newsom in turn has bristled at Trump’s remarks at a time when his state is in the midst of a dire crisis.

“People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down,” Newsom told CNN on air Wednesday as structures burned behind him. “This guy wanted to politicize it. I have a lot of thoughts, and I know what I want to say. I won’t.”

As of Saturday, at least 11 people are confirmed dead from the fires, and some of the largest blazes are still burning even as adverse weather conditions over the weekend threaten to spread the fires further.

Clarissa-Jan Lim

Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.

As wildfires continue to tear through the Los Angeles areaofficials said that at least 11 people have died, though the actual death toll remains unknown.

Some of the victims have been identified by family members, neighbors and friends. Among them are a father and son who were waiting to be evacuated, as well as residents who had weathered past wildfires and wanted to stay behind to protect their homes.

Here’s what we know about the victims so far.

Anthony and Justin Mitchell

A father and son died in their Altadena home on Wednesday, family members said.

Anthony Mitchell Jr. told The New York Times that his father, a 67-year-old amputee who used a wheelchair, called him early on Wednesday to say that he was waiting for Anthony’s brother, Justin, who has cerebral palsy and did not walk, to be evacuated. That night, both of them were found dead.

Mitchell said his father did not want to leave Justin behind. “He probably could have gotten himself out, but he wasn’t going to leave my brother,” he told NBC News. “He really loved his kids.”

Mitchell described his father as a family man who considered his family as his legacy. “He said, ‘Money don’t matter, property don’t matter. My kids and my family are my treasure,’” Mitchell told NBC News.

Mitchell said his brother Justin was a “sweet kid.” In an interview with The Washington PostJustin’s half sister, Hajime White, said authorities told them that their father was found by Justin’s bedside.

People with disabilities are disproportionately affected by natural disasters. A 2019 state audit found that California emergency officials had continued to overlook people with disabilities and other vulnerable residents when preparing for disasters like wildfires. Victims of the deadly Camp Fire in 2018, for example, were mostly older or disabled.

Rodney Nickerson

Nickerson, 82, did not want to leave the home he lived in for decades and reassured family members and neighbors that he would be fine, his daughter Kimiko Nickerson told KTLA.

Her father had experienced other fires before, she said. “He said that he was going to gather up his stuff, but he said he was going to stay here, too,” she added. “He said that he felt this was going to pass over and that he would be here.”

Nickerson’s son, Eric Nickerson, told the New York Times his father was a retired aerospace engineer for Lockheed Martin and an active deacon at his church.

Victor Shaw

Shaw, 66, lived with his sister in the home that he grew up in. His sister, Shari Shaw, told KTLA that she tried to get him to evacuate with her Tuesday night as the Eaton Fire closed in, but that he was determined to stay behind and protect their home from the fire.

Shaw’s friend Al Tanner told KTLA that they found his burned body at the side of the road with a garden hose. “It looks like he was trying to save the home that his parents had for almost 55 years,” Tanner said.

Erliene Louise Kelley

Briana Navarro told NBC News that her 83-year-old grandmother, who had experienced a previous major wildfire, decided to stay behind when her family evacuated.

“My husband, he’s not from out here, so he kind of was looking at it a little different than we were,” Navarro said. “We asked [my grandmother] … and she’s like, ‘No, no I’m fine. You guys go ahead.’”

Kelley was a familiar face in the neighborhood, Navarro said. Terry Pyburn, a neighbor, described Kelley to the Times as an “angel” who was “so, so, so sweet.”

Randall Miod

Friends and family confirmed that Miod, a surfer and well-known figure in Malibu, died in the Palisades Fire.

Miod, 55, loved living a simple life in Malibu, in a house he called “the Crab Shack,” his friend Corina Cline told The Washington Post. His house burned down, and a cousin said that authorities found remains they believed to be Miod’s in the home, the Post reported.

Rory Callum Sykes

Sykes, a former child actor from Australia, died on his family’s Malibu estate on Wednesday, his mother, Shelley Sykes, wrote in a post on X.

According to the post, she could not put out the cinders on the roof of his cottage because of a lack of water.

Sykes, who was born blind and had cerebral palsy, starred in the British TV show “Kiddy Kapers.”

“He overcame so much with surgeries & therapies to regain his sight & to be able to learn to walk,” his mother wrote. “Despite the pain, he still enthused about traveling the world with me from Africa to Antarctica.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.