NEW YORK — The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money trial fined him $1,000 on Monday for violating his gag order once again and sternly warned the former president that additional violations could result in jail time.

The fine marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order, which bars him from making incendiary comments about jurors, witnesses and other people closely connected to the case. He was fined $9,000 last week, $1,000 for each of nine violations.

Increasing Penalties for Gag Order Violations

“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” Judge Juan M. Merchan said before jurors were brought into the courtroom. Trump’s statements, the judge added, “threaten to interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.”

The violation in this case stems from an April 22 interview with television channel Real America’s Voice in which Trump criticized the speed at which the jury was picked and claimed it was stacked with Democrats.

“That jury was picked so fast — 95% Democrats,” Trump said at the time. “The area’s mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a, just a purely Democrat area. It’s a very unfair situation that I can tell you.”

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Testimony Resumes with Former Trump Organization Controller

Meanwhile, testimony resumed Monday with prosecutors calling to the stand Jeffrey McConney, the former Trump Organization controller.

He retired from the company last year after 36 years after being granted immunity to testify for the prosecution at the Trump Organization’s New York criminal tax fraud trial, where he admitted breaking the law to help fellow executives avoid taxes on company-paid perks. The company was convicted and is appealing.

The testimony follows an inside-the-room account given to jurors Friday about Trump’s reaction to a politically damaging recording that surfaced in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Trump Faces 34 Felony Counts

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with payments made to stifle potentially embarrassing stories. Prosecutors say Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Cohen for payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels and gave Cohen bonuses and extra payments. Prosecutors allege that those transactions were falsely logged in company records as legal expenses.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied sexual encounters with any of the women, as well as any wrongdoing.

So far, jurors have heard from witnesses including a tabloid magazine publisher and Trump friend who bought the rights to several sordid tales about Trump to prevent them from coming out and a Los Angeles lawyer who negotiated hush money deals on behalf of both Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Trump’s lawyers have tried to chip away at the prosecution’s theory of the case and the credibility of some witnesses. They’ve raised questions during cross-examinations about whether Trump was possibly a target of extortion, forced to arrange payouts to suppress harmful stories and spare his family embarrassment and pain. Prosecutors maintain the payments were about preserving his political viability as he sought the presidency.

The case is one of four Trump prosecutions and possibly the only one that will reach trial before the November election. Other felony indictments charge him with plotting to subvert the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and illegally hoarding classified documents after he left the White House.