Reuters/Timothy A. Clary
- Twice this week, Trump's NY hush-money judge has warned him about misbehaving in and out of court.
- If the judge makes good on his threats of incarceration, Trump probably won't be carted to jail.
- A quick stint locked up behind the courtroom may be all it takes to put the fear of jail in him.
Twice this week — first when he was found in contempt for a 10th gag order violation, and then when he audibly heckled Stormy Daniels — Donald Trump has been warned about misbehaving in his ongoing hush-money trial.
Could Trump's next courtroom outburst or gag-violating Truth Social post really be the final straw that gets him locked up on contempt of court?
Yes, courthouse veterans said Wednesday — but that doesn't have to mean a correction bus drive to the city's notorious Rikers Island jail.
Instead, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan is far more likely to give Trump a taste of incarceration by ordering a short stint in a small, secure space right behind the courtroom, experts predicted.
"It's a small staging room, or witness room," said Arthur Aidala, who knows the space well.
His client, Harvey Weinstein, ate lunch there with his legal team every day during the former movie mogul's 2020 sex crimes trial, held in the same 15th-floor courtroom as Trump's trial is now.
"They could definitely put him in that room Mr. Weinstein used to use and say he can't leave," said Aidala, who recently got Weinstein's conviction overturned.
The room has one window, cream-yellow walls, and a small conference table ringed by wooden chairs with vinyl cushions.
The door locks from the outside.
"We went through that door 20 or 30 times. It's pretty grimy in there," said Aidala, of Aidala Bertuna & Kamins.
"You could fit maybe 10 people," Aidala added of the space. "One former president and nine Secret Service agents. "
'Therapeutic remand'
Lawyers have a name for when a Manhattan judge orders a defendant to cool his heels behind the courtroom for a few hours, said longtime public defender Arnold Levine.
"It's called 'therapeutic remand,'" joked Levine, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of New York Homicide Defense Task Force.
"It's the judge saying, 'Here's a taste of jail for the day,' so that you realize this is serious business," he explained.
In 1999, Levine was therapeutically remanded on contempt of court himself after an argument with a misdemeanor judge in the same courthouse.
Another judge soon let him out, but not before Levine spent time handcuffed to a courtroom bench and then locked up inside a fourth-floor holding pen.
If prosecutors accuse Trump of violating his gag order again, it would trigger the same dayslong process of motions-filing and oral arguments that preceded his two previous contempt-of-court sanctions, which so far have amounted to just $10,000 in total fines.
"You get more due process" when you commit an act of contempt outside the courtroom, Levine said.
But if Trump acts out inside the courtroom again — say, if he heckles Daniels once more when her cross-examination continues Thursday — he risks the same immediate, on-the-spot "summary contempt" arraignment and sentencing that Levine faced in 1999.
There would likely be two big differences. Trump wouldn't be locked behind actual bars since there's no holding cell behind Merchan's courtroom.
And Trump would likely not be handcuffed at any point while in custody.
Trump was not cuffed during his 2023 hush-money arraignment. Former Secret Service agents told Business Insider at the time that cuffing the former president would hamper their ability to protect him should he ever need to be thrown to the floor or rushed to safety.
'Take charge'
For most defendants in Manhattan's criminal courtrooms, incarceration is heralded by the judge announcing, "Officers at the rail," said veteran defense lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Galluzzo.
"It's the worst feeling," hearing those words, said Galluzzo. "It's when the judge calls the court officers and tells them to surround the defendant so that he doesn't try to walk out of the courtroom."
But Trump already has at least two court officers standing behind him at all times in Merchan's courtroom, for his own protection. His officers are already "at the rail."
Reality will instead set in when the judge gives what's usually the final instruction to the court officers, "Take charge," Galluzzo said.
At that point, Trump would be led through a door to Merchan's right, and back to what was once Weinstein's grim and grimy lunch room.
"It's extremely rare," Galluzzo said of defendant gag orders in general. "Being held in contempt for violating one is even more rare. And this happening to an ex-president would be unprecedented."
Dip his toes in the water
Still, a stint locked up behind the courtroom will be the likeliest way for Merchan to "dip Trump's toes in the water for a little bit and give him a taste of what a jail cell would really be like," said Galluzzo.
"I think that's the next step in the escalation," agreed attorney Daniel Scott, a veteran Manhattan defense lawyer who's repped clients for 40 years at the courthouse where Trump is on trial.
"Rikers, logistically, would be a total nightmare," Scott said, adding, "It's bad enough for Joe Schmoe."
Trump's trial is in its third week of testimony. He is charged with falsifying 34 business records to conceal a $130,000 hush-money payment that silenced Daniels just 11 days before the 2016 election.
Trump has denied falsifying business records and has complained that his gag order is an infringement on his right to campaign for office.