U.S. President-elect Donald Trump asked a New York court on Tuesday to throw out his conviction on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star, and to dismiss the case before his scheduled Friday sentencing. The request to a state appeals court marked a last-ditch effort by Trump to block a lower court ruling on Monday to proceed with the sentencing on Friday, 10 days before Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration. In Monday's ruling, Justice Juan Merchan rejected a request from Trump's lawyers to delay the sentencing while they appealed two of his previous rulings upholding the Manhattan jury's May guilty verdict on 34 felony counts of falsifying records Trump has long argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, brought the case to harm his 2024 reelection campaign. Bragg has said that his office routinely brings felony falsification of business records charges. The hush money case made Trump the first U.S. president - sitting or former - to be charged with and convicted of a crime.