Michael Cohen sentenced to 3 years in prison for various crimes
Trump's longtime lawyer gets 36 months in Otisville federal prison (camp)
Michael Cohen, right, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, accompanied by his children and wife, arrive at federal court for his sentencing in New York, Dec. 12, 2018.
December 12, 2018
A federal judge in Manhattan has sentenced Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney, to three years in prison for crimes including campaign finance violation, tax evasion, and lying to Congress.
Before leveling his sentence, U.S. Judge William Pauley said “Cohen pled guilty to a veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct" and “lost his moral compass,” according to various reporters inside the courtroom.
Judge Pauley added that “as a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better.”
Cohen pleaded his case for leniency in front of a federal judge in Manhattan, accusing President Trump – his former boss – of causing him to “follow a path of darkness rather than light” and “cover up his dirty deeds”.
Standing in court today, Cohen told the judge that “blind loyalty” to Trump “led me to take a path of darkness instead of light.”
Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges in August, including two campaign finance law violations for arranging hush-money payments shortly before the 2016 presidential election — at Trump’s behest, prosecutors said — to two women who had claimed they had affairs with Trump years ago. The president has denied having an affair.
Cohen later pleaded guilty to a ninth charge, in a separate case, for lying to two congressional committees last year about a proposed Moscow hotel and condominium project that Trump had pursued during the campaign. It is one of several episodes that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is scrutinizing in his investigation into a possible conspiracy between Trump’s team and Russian authorities.
In a sentencing memo last week, Mueller said Cohen has provided “useful information concerning certain discrete Russia-related matters core to [the special counsel] investigation.”
Cohen’s sentence is significantly harsher than most others who have become ensnared in the Russia investigation. George Papadopoulos, a former campaign foreign policy advisor, served less than two weeks behind bars for lying about his overseas contacts, and prosecutors have not recommended any prison time for Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor who lied about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition.
But, unlike those two men, Cohen admitted to a wider array of crimes. Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, could also face a long prison term when he’s sentenced early next year. He’s been convicted on eight counts of tax evasion and bank fraud related to his previous work as a political consultant in Ukraine, and a plea deal with Mueller’s office collapsed when prosecutors accused him of continuing to lie to them.
Cohen was once among Trump’s most aggressive and loyal acolytes, not only working directly for him but also serving as an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, the family’s private holding company for business ventures around the globe.
The ambitious, unscrupulous 52-year-old lawyer and businessman expected to cash in on the unexpected election of his longtime client to the White House. He earned millions of dollars by pitching himself as an advisor to blue-chip companies looking for connections to the new president.
But Cohen’s high-flying life unraveled after FBI agents in April searched his home, office, hotel room, and safety deposit box, seizing computers, records, and other evidence.
In addition to the two campaign finance violations, Cohen pleaded guilty in August to six counts of tax evasion and bank fraud involving his New York taxi business and real estate. The U.S. attorney in Manhattan brought the charges.
Cohen returned to federal court in November to plead guilty to lying to Congress, admitting that he had sought the Trump Tower Moscow deal until after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination, far longer than he had previously admitted.
Prosecutors said the deal, which would have required Russian government approvals, was potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump, and that he was regularly briefed on Cohen’s progress.
They said the push in Moscow coincided with Russia’s covert efforts to meddle in the U.S. presidential campaign by hacking Democratic Party emails and spreading misinformation on social media.
With his two guilty pleas to campaign finance law violations, Cohen — who Trump long tasked with suppressing negative publicity and protecting his private affairs — has emerged as a direct threat to the president because of his extensive cooperation with federal and state law enforcement.
The hush money case could prove even more significant than aspects of the Russia probe.
Prosecutors said Trump directed Cohen to arrange $280,000 in payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn actress, and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate, shortly before the election to buy their silence about alleged sexual affairs with Trump.
Cohen admitted the hush-money payments were intended to influence the election, and prosecutors say they can prove the president’s involvement.
Trump initially denied knowing anything about paying them to keep quiet. That claim crumbled as more evidence emerged, and he remains in potential legal jeopardy.
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Trump said Cohen’s legal problems are his own fault.
“Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing,” the president said. He added that the payments were not related to the campaign and suggested that it should not be a criminal matter.
“Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution,” Trump told Reuters. “If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”
Cohen’s defense lawyers have asked the judge to keep him out of prison, and they emphasized his willingness to meet with federal and state authorities despite criticism from the president.
“In the context of this raw, full-bore attack by the most powerful person in the United States, Michael, formerly a confidante and adviser to Mr. Trump, resolved to cooperate, and voluntarily took the first steps toward doing so even before he was charged,” the lawyers wrote in a pre-sentencing memo.
But the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan was not impressed, noting that Cohen declined to fully cooperate with prosecutors there. They recommended about four years in prison and described him as someone “motivated by personal greed and ambition” and “whose outlook on life was often to cheat.”
Prosecutors were particularly scathing in describing Cohen’s role in paying hush money to the two women during the campaign.
“Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election,” they wrote.