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The conviction makes Trump the first former US president to be convicted of a crime.
Judge Juan Murchan set a sentencing date for July 11.
Outside court, a furious Trump continued his claims that the trial was “rigged” and accused Murchan of being “conflicted” and “corrupt”.
”This was a rigged decision from day one with an embattled judge who should never have been allowed to hear this case,” Trump said.
He said the “real verdict” will come on November 5, the date of the upcoming US presidential election, for which Trump is the presumptive Republican candidate.
“This was done by the Biden administration to hurt or injure an opponent, a political opponent,” Trump said.
Jurors were on the verge of being sent home on the day they sent word that they had reached a verdict.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to cover up potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The felony charge stems from restitution paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a secret $US130,000 ($195,000) payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence her claims that she and Trump had sex in 2006
Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to the payment of hush money.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and claims the payments to Cohen were for legitimate legal services.
He also denied the alleged extramarital sexual relationship with Daniels.
Trump’s lawyers previously indicated that he would appeal the sentence if convicted.
The charges of falsifying business documents carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek prison time, and it’s unclear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of prison terms for violations of the gag order – will impose this penalty even if requested.
A conviction and even a prison sentence won’t stop Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.
Trump faces three other felony charges, but the New York case may be the only one that will end before the November election, adding to the political significance of the outcome.
How the trial unfolded
The trial involved more than four weeks of sometimes riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter in Trump’s past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the release of an Access Hollywood tape that captured him talking about sexually assaulting women without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex that would be damaging to his candidacy.
Trump himself did not testify, but jurors heard his voice via a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and a lawyer discussed a secret US$150,000 ($226,147) deal involving Playboy model Karen McDougall, who said had an affair with Trump: “What do we have to pay for it? Fifty-one?” Trump was heard saying on the recording made by Cohen.
Daniels herself testified, offering a sometimes graphic account of the sexual encounter she says they had in a hotel suite during a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.
The National Enquirer’s former publisher, David Packer, testified about how he worked to keep stories damaging to the Trump campaign from ever becoming public, including getting his company to buy McDougal’s story.
Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the attorney who arranged the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougall.
He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence, but also faced an aggressive round of questioning from a Trump lawyer who noted that Davidson had helped broker similar secret cash deals in cases involving other prominent figures.
But the most important witness so far has been Cohen, who spent days on the stand and gave jurors an inside look at the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump’s detailed knowledge of it.
“Just take care of it,” he quoted Trump as saying at one point.
He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the allegations, recounting a meeting in which he and the Trump Organization’s then-chief financial officer outlined a plan to reimburse Cohen for monthly legal fees.
And he emotionally described his dramatic split with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president’s personal mediator.
“To maintain my loyalty and do the things he asked me to do, I broke my moral compass and took the punishment and so did my family,” Cohen told the jury.
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