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What would happen if a sitting United States president was put in prison? Could such a thing even happen? Would he be removed from office before this, or could he even be sentenced for anything?
Also, would this affect the pension he gets for being president?
I guess this question overall is: what would happen if the US president was charged with a crime that would get him jail time?
As your third sentence hints at, it's extremely unlikely to impossible that a sitting president would be convicted of any crime outside of impeachment procedure (at the successful conclusion of which the person would, of course, no longer be a sitting president but a random citizen).
Please note that there's no definitive consensus on this (including the only real way it can be conclusively resolved, by a SCOTUS decision).
Additionally, there are 3 different types of judicial proceedings and the answer for them would be different:
Actions taken in Presidential capacity:
NO. This falls under "Sovereign immunity" concept.
Criminal prosecution for actions taken outside Presidential capacity
There's a near consensus that the answer is NO
"An impeachment proceeding is the only appropriate way to deal with a president while in office," - Assistant Attorney General Robert Dixon, 1973
"The framers implicitly immunized a sitting president from ordinary criminal prosecution" - Akhil Reed Amar, a law professor at Yale.
"Whether the Constitution allows indictment of a sitting president is debatable," Brett M. Kavanaugh, who served on the staff of Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, wrote in a 1998 law review article
However, as noted above, it's not so much law as opinions (plenty of which are cited in this NYT article), as such a case was never tried by SCOTUS.
Civil case for actions taken outside Presidency
Again, no irrefutable consensus. Most seem to point to "no", but at the very least one expert thinks the answer is "Yes" - as per Ronald Rotunda's opinion requested by Ken Starr:
...it is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president's official duties. In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.
Other resources: AG memo
Regarding pension: legal opinion seems to be that in, most cases outside Code 8312 (sedition, rebellion, treason) the pension of a person fired from Federal Government remains.
It would seem nearly unbelievable that the President would let it go so far that he actually went to prison. Although it would undoubtedly be unpopular politically, if a sitting President were actually convicted of a crime he could pardon himself as soon as the guilty verdict was announced.
It's hard to imagine that it would ever get to this point though. You'd need a president who was so wildly popular that it was essentially impossible for congress to impeach him. It's hard to imagine the level of popularity that would require though.
Let's consider a concrete case: Richard Nixon. Before the Watergate scandal broke, Nixon was wildly popular. In the 1972 election, he got 520 electoral votes, to 17 for George McGovern. The popular vote wasn't quite so one-sided, but still won the popular vote by the largest margin in US history. Pre-Watergate, Nixon had to look about as close to unimpeachable as any president in history.
Shortly after the 1972 election, however, the Watergate scandal broke. Here's what happened to Nixon's approval ratings:
Although he resigned before he could be impeached, by the time he resigned his approval ratings had dropped to the point that there was no longer any real question that impeachment proceedings would not only have proceeded, but would have undoubtedly resulted in his being removed from office.
To make a long story short, almost regardless of how popular a president started out, when enough evidence became public to uphold a conviction, it's almost inevitable that his approval would have dropped to the point that he'd be impeached and removed from office first. As such, there is essentially no possibility of a sitting president being convicted of a crime.
If a sitting President were actually jailed and was unable to perform his or her duties, this is covered in Amendment 25 of the US Constitution; basically the vice president would become Acting President with a bit of paperwork. This could be a temporary thing or a longer-term thing.
It's exceedingly unlikely that this would happen in America, as the DOJ has officially stated that the President is effectively immune from prosecution during his/ her tenure, but in theory this is not binding to state or municipal-level law enforcement/ justice systems (in practice, it would be almost impossible for an American local government to effectively jail a sitting president). If the charges the President were not ahem Trumped up (see what I did there?), it's likely such illegal behavior would warrant and ultimately drive an impeachment by Congress and a conviction by the Senate... at which point the Vice President would become the new President.
Please note we're still talking about American jails. It gets a little weirder if the president goes to another nation and is arrested, charged, convicted, and imprisoned. Most traveling heads of state are granted blanket diplomatic immunity, but depending on the politics involved, that may not be as protective as one might expect. In such a case, the 25th Amendment would certainly come into play.
