Unlike Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, which lasted seven dramatic weeks, his sentencing Friday was brief.

One day after Mr. Trump sat with other former presidents at Jimmy Carter’s funeral, he appeared in court via a video screen in front of two American flags. About thirty minutes later, he was officially deemed a felon.

The president-elect was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a scheme to cover up a sexual encounter with a porn star, a salacious story that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.

Here are five takeaways from Mr. Trump’s sentencing:

Dramatic trial, subdued sentencing.

Mr. Trump’s trial, which culminated in a guilty verdict in May, was a dramatic affair complete with the intimate details of a scandal, tearful testimony from a former aide and ruthless cross-examinations, including that of Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

But on Friday, the sentencing was largely symbolic and predictable. Mr. Trump received an unconditional discharge, a rare sentence in New York courts that doesn’t subject him to jail time or any other requirements.

While the events were not surprising, they were without precedent: Mr. Trump will be the first felon to occupy the Oval Office when he is inaugurated in 10 days.

The election was treated as a trump card.

Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said he was only recommending the unconditional discharge because of Mr. Trump’s status as president-elect.

“The defendant sees himself as above the law and won’t accept responsibility for his actions,” Mr. Steinglass said, quoting a presentencing report that would normally carry significant importance.

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, was staid, a marked contrast to the showmanship he displayed during the trial. Mr. Blanche — who has been tapped to become deputy attorney general — took aim at the mere existence of the trial, arguing that the jury’s verdict “presupposes that the case is legally appropriate.”

“The majority of the American people also agree that this case should not have been brought,” Mr. Blanche said, referring to Mr. Trump’s election victory.

Trump remained defiant until the end.

Mr. Trump’s frustration with the prosecution remained on full display on Friday. He shook his head as the court reiterated his conviction and crossed his arms in defiance when Mr. Steinglass referred to his “disdain” for the rule of law.

Mr. Trump then addressed the court for just over six minutes, maintaining his innocence and claiming that he was targeted by political opponents and that the Justice Department had somehow propelled the case. He also got in a final jab at Mr. Cohen — the prosecutor’s star witness — whom he called “a totally discredited person.”

“It was an injustice of justice,” said Mr. Trump before he was formally sentenced, adding, “I was treated very, very unfairly.”

Justice Merchan got the last word.

There was a lot that Justice Merchan could have said.

During the seven-week trial, the judge was accused by Mr. Trump of being “biased” and “corrupt.” Mr. Trump violated a gag order, resulting in $10,000 in fines. The judge’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant, received a multitude of threats after Mr. Trump complained about her.

Instead, Justice Merchan used his final time addressing Mr. Trump to justify his punishment. Calling an unconditional discharge the “only lawful sentence” he could hand down, he distinguished Mr. Trump the individual from Mr. Trump the president-elect. The office of the president shielded him, Justice Merchan said.

As Justice Merchan left the bench, the judge wished the soon-to-be president “godspeed.”

It isn’t over.

Mr. Trump had already filed motions challenging the case through a constellation of courts and began a civil action against Justice Merchan.

But now that he has been sentenced, he can mount a formal appeal attacking the merits of the prosecutor’s case and the judge’s rulings.

The process could take months or years and will continue well into his second term in office.

Food Cart

Dear Diary:

I was near Central Park South for a doctor’s appointment, so I decided to stop at a food cart I used to frequent when I worked in the area.

The cart was owned by an Egyptian couple. The woman who worked there gave me a free banana and said “love you” without fail every day.

She didn’t know that I was going through a rough time, and that she was often the only bright spot in my otherwise grim days.

As I got in line on this occasion, I worried that she wouldn’t be there anymore and that if she was, she wouldn’t remember me. After all, it had been six years.

But there she was, at the rear of the cart. We made eye contact, and she kept looking back at me.

“Did I see you at Costco the other day?” she asked.

I smiled and shook my head.

She stepped in front of the cart. Her shirt said, “I love you.”

“No, no,” she said. “I remember you.”

She gave me a free bagel and told me proudly that her daughter was a big shot at Chase now. She told me to come back soon.

As I walked away, I began to tear up. I wished she knew what her kindness had meant to me all those years ago.

— Kelly Krause

Puzzling

Dear Diary:

I’ve taken the A to work for 20 years. And for 20 years, I’ve done puzzles on the train during the ride.

I didn’t think there could be any more firsts for me on my commute after so long until a recent morning.

As I sat there working on a Sudoku puzzle, a man stood over me telling me where to put the numbers.

At first, I was inclined to tell him he was out of line. Instead, I complimented him on his ability to read backward, and we did the Sudoku together until he got off the train.

— Sandra Feldman

‘Misty’

Dear Diary:

I walked to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade at the end of a long week. I planned to go for a run after taking in the view for a few minutes.

Golden shadows danced tenderly against the red brick that flanks one side of the ramp down. Tree branches and falling leaves were momentarily etched by orange rays. The sky was pink and glorious.

Two young men set up their saxophone, electric guitar and small speaker. The music started so gently: “Misty.”

The saxophone carried the melody. I settled against the fence, my back to the skyline, and watched, an audience of one.

A man in a red flannel shirt slowed to a stop. His hair, brownish and thinning, shined in the setting sun. His face softened as the music played. He caught my eye with a quick smile and settled against the fence a few yards away.

We stood and listened together, taking in the dying leaves on the trees, the people of New York and the beautiful music.

When the song ended, he clapped first, and then I joined in. The musicians nodded. A prickling of tears in my eyes, which had begun at the start of the song, grew as I wondered what to do next.

The man approached the musicians. I turned away and started my jog. I thought about my endless nights alone in my room.

A few minutes later, I saw the man who had been listening to the music walking in my direction with a grinning woman at his side.

I caught his eye for a moment, and I think he recognized me before I looked away. My face, already warm from the run, sizzled more.

The sky was starting to darken. As I turned, I saw my shadow, indistinguishable from the pavement.

— Dylan Nadelman

Albertine

Dear Diary:

What do I know about France?
What do I know about French bookstores in New York City?
Not much is the answer to both questions.
But I do know about sisters.
And I saw two sisters in the French bookstore.
It’s not like I asked them: “Are you sisters?”
I didn’t need to. I could tell by watching them amid a dispute.
When sisters have conflict, their reactions are unique.
Sister #1 said something I couldn’t hear.
Sister #2 replied: “In Malaysia, people don’t mention the tiger for fear it will draw him out.” I’m not sure if this was an allegory, but for a moment, the moment became sharp. Coincidentally, in a moment, after that moment, the sisters hugged each other with their eyes, while allowing each other red carpets of retreat.
I didn’t end up buying a French book.
Instead I considered sisters.
Before leaving in pursuit of ice cream.

— Danny Klecko

Tasty Contraband

Dear Diary:

We were waiting to get into a comedy show in Brooklyn on a Thursday night. Members of the venue’s security staff were checking bags.

“No drinks,” they hollered. “No food. No cookies.”

Pieces of fruit were confiscated. Some people had their chocolate taken away.

After clearing security and heading for the entrance, we saw a box filled to the brim with delicious contraband: apples, bananas, oranges and, to top it all off, a large, vacuum-sealed package of cooked octopus.

— Betty Tsang

Over the years, Jeffrey B. Maddrey toiled as a beat cop in half a dozen Brooklyn precincts. He nurtured hundreds of officers he oversaw as an inspector. He quelled violent crime in a dangerous part of Brownsville.

But not until he shepherded officers through the pain and anger of seeing one of their own shot dead in 2011 did he attain the high profile that would later undo him.

After the officer, Peter Figoski, was killed while trying to stop a robbery, Mr. Maddrey became the face of law enforcement in the 75th Precinct. He spoke to reporters about the murder and led a weeklong search for the fatal bullet. At the funeral on Long Island, he handed the Figoski family a folded American flag.

Mr. Maddrey “has certainly been in our sights for a while as someone deserving of recognition,” said then-Commissioner Raymond Kelly at a ceremony in which he posthumously promoted Officer Figoski to detective and elevated Mr. Maddrey to deputy chief.

The base of support Mr. Maddrey built in those years with Brooklyn pastors, rabbis, anti-violence groups and politicians — including, crucially, Eric Adams, a former police captain who would become mayor — vaulted him to the highest uniformed rank of the nation’s largest police department. It insulated him during a string of scandals — until the one that ended his career.

In December, a lieutenant and former subordinate, Quathisha Epps, accused Mr. Maddrey of demanding sex in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime. Mr. Maddrey, who was chief of department, resigned. Federal agents have searched his home, and the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau has launched its own investigation.

Mr. Adams, who is facing federal corruption charges, has defended how he had pushed Mr. Maddrey to the upper echelons of the Police Department.

In an interview last week with Corey Pegues, a retired deputy inspector and host of a YouTube channel, Mr. Adams said Mr. Maddrey “was beloved in Brooklyn North,” Mr. Adams said, referring to the territory that Mr. Maddrey once oversaw.

Mr. Pegues said Mr. Maddrey had weathered repeated scandals with few repercussions. “You gave him that second or third chance,” Mr. Pegues said. “How many chances do you give him?” Mr. Adams said, “People gave me 10 chances.”

“I needed someone with that police experience and great interaction” with the public, Mr. Adams said. “He went beyond the call of duty.”

The mayor’s relationship with Mr. Maddrey dates back at least two decades.

In 2006, the year Mr. Maddrey was promoted to deputy inspector, Mr. Adams was elected to represent a Brooklyn district in the New York State Senate. Both Mr. Maddrey and Mr. Adams spoke at community board meetings, and they were invited to talk with students in Bedford-Stuyvesant about policing.

In 2015, a year after Mr. Adams became Brooklyn borough president, Mr. Maddrey was chosen to lead the 10 precincts that compose Patrol Borough Brooklyn North, another major career leap. The two went to an awards banquet for the Mo Better Jaguars youth football team; a school gymnasium where students played double Dutch; and an event in Bushwick to improve police relations.

By then, Mr. Maddrey had long been a large presence in the borough, said the Rev. Robert Waterman, a pastor at Antioch Baptist Church in Brooklyn who has known Mr. Maddrey for more than two decades.

Mr. Waterman said they met when Mr. Maddrey, then an inspector in the 81st Precinct, had invited him to talk with veteran officers and recruits about concerns over neighborhood policing. He said Mr. Maddrey took children to special events and suited up as Santa Claus for Christmas.

“I had never known him to be anything but an officer who had not only walked the beat, but was part of the beat of the neighborhood,” he said.

Mr. Maddrey first became fodder for the city’s tabloids in 1993. Then a rookie, he was leaving a woman’s apartment building in Staten Island when two men approached him, including the woman’s suitor. The suitor’s friend fired several shots, striking Mr. Maddrey in the left wrist.

But his real troubles began in 2016, a year after he had been promoted to assistant chief and the head of Brooklyn North. They arrived in the form of a lawsuit: A subordinate with whom he was having an affair accused him of beating her, prompting her to pull out a gun, according to court filings. Mr. Maddrey, she said, tore it away. The suits were tossed out, but James O’Neill, then commissioner, docked Mr. Maddrey 45 vacation days.

Nonetheless, in 2020 Mr. Maddrey was made head of the Community Affairs Bureau, which educates New Yorkers about policing and crime prevention. The appointment set the stage for his push to the top after Mr. Adams was elected the next year.

The new mayor, who continued to identify himself closely with the department and took a strong hand in its affairs, supported a quick succession of high-level promotions for Mr. Maddrey. He became chief of housing, then chief of patrol and, by the end of 2022, chief of department — the person who oversees operations, crime-fighting strategies, quality of life initiatives and all of the agency’s 33,500 officers.

Even after that, problems emerged. Mr. Maddrey faced disciplinary charges from an oversight board in 2023 for voiding the arrest of a retired officer accused of brandishing a gun at three boys in Brooklyn.

Keechant Sewell, then the police commissioner, agreed with the board. But that June, she resigned after months of talk that allies of Mr. Adams had been undermining her.

Her Adams-appointed successor, Edward A. Caban, dismissed the case against Mr. Maddrey. In the interview with Mr. Pegues, Mr. Adams denied exerting pressure on Ms. Sewell or Mr. Caban.

Then there were the lawsuits. Cases filed in the past two years claim that Mr. Maddrey had an officer in the traffic unit transferred after he issued Mr. Maddrey’s female friend a ticket; that he protected a former officer and senior adviser to Mr. Adams who was accused of sexual harassment; and that he defamed an anti-violence activist.

Christopher Mercado, an adjunct assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired Police Department lieutenant, said none of the disciplinary or legal accusations were enough to hinder Mr. Maddrey’s career.

“He’s friendly. He shakes everyone’s hand. He comes in the room and fills the room,” said Mr. Mercado, who has attended events with Mr. Maddrey. “He came up at a time when there were few African American executives at the department, and the community adored him.”

And, Mr. Mercado said, even as Mr. Maddrey’s personal problems intensified, he tackled policing problems aggressively, impressing executives.

“They’ll say: ‘Oh, they grinded it out. They handed that shooting well. They were there at that riot. They protected their cops,’” Mr. Mercado said.

“If you’re a guy like Maddrey, and you’re willing to do all of that, even if you have had issues in the past, people at the top might look the other way,” he added.

Looking away became impossible last month.

Lieutenant Epps, a single mother of three children, told the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Mr. Maddrey had humiliated her during unwanted sexual encounters, many at his office at police headquarters in Manhattan. In an interview with the New York Post, she said that, on one occasion, she pleaded with him to stop, crying out, “You’re hurting me.”

During the 2024 fiscal year, Lieutenant Epps had made $204,453.48 in overtime, roughly doubling her salary while working under Mr. Maddrey — the most of any department employee.

She and Mr. Maddrey were both suspended amid the federal investigation.

Mr. Maddrey’s lawyer, Lambros Lambrou, did not respond to requests to interview the former officer. But in an interview last month on NBC New York, Mr. Maddrey denied demanding sex in exchange for overtime pay. He said his relationship with Lieutenant Epps was a consensual “office fling.”

Mr. Maddrey then recited the high points of his career, talking about his relationships with people in Brooklyn and how crime overall fell while he was chief of department.

“I’ve given so much to the city — so much — and I’ve never asked anyone for anything in return,” he said. “Countless people can never repay me for what I’ve done for them.”

Mr. Adams is no longer in a position to repay him: Mr. Caban, who is being investigated by the F.B.I., resigned in September, and two weeks later, Mr. Adams was federally indicted on corruption charges. Last month, he appointed Jessica Tisch as commissioner. She has already reassigned many officers and several top police officials, including at least one allied with the mayor.

Mr. Adams has distanced himself from Mr. Maddrey. “I’ve never defended any accusation of any inappropriate behavior,” the mayor said in an interview last month with Fox 5 New York.

“He has had an exceptional police record,” he added. “Those are the knowns. I cannot defend or speak on the unknowns.”

In October, Mr. Maddrey spoke at Linwood Street and Sutter Avenue, a corner the city had renamed in honor of the officer who was shot there.

“What Pete Figoski did for this community should always be recognized,” Mr. Maddrey said, tapping the lectern for emphasis and pointing to a new street sign bearing Detective Figoski’s name.

Mr. Maddrey was met with a round of applause. Two months later, he resigned.