After a short stint on the outside, Trump’s former, weasel lawyer, Michael Cohen, was sent back to jail on July 9 after it was determined he violated his furlough.
BREAKING / NBC News: Michael Cohen has been remanded back into the custody of federal authorities and will be sent back to jail.
This comes after pictures were taken of Cohen at a Manhattan restaurant outside of his residence this weekend. NBC's Adam Reiss reports.
— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) July 9, 2020
In December 2018, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen was sentenced by a federal judge in Manhattan to three years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release for the eight counts brought by the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.
Those charges included campaign finance violations. Cohen will serve this term concurrently with a two-month sentence imposed for lying to Congress, a charge brought by the special counsel.
Prosecutors had recommended a “substantial term of imprisonment” for Cohen, who pleaded guilty to both lying to Congress over a possible Trump Tower Moscow project, and to campaign finance violations for paying women who alleged affairs with Mr. Trump.
After 14 inmates and 7 staff members tested positive for COVID19, Michael Cohen was released from an upstate New York prison in mid-April:
According to the New York Post, who spotted Michael Cohen dining in a swank Manhattan restaurant with his wife and another couple, he could soon be back in prison.
Exclusive photos show President Trump’s former personal lawyer seated at a sidewalk table outside Le Bilboquet, a French restaurant around the corner from his Park Avenue apartment, on Thursday night.
Cohen, his wife, Laura, and another couple spent about an hour chatting before they became the last patrons to leave around 11:30 p.m.
Cohen has also eaten at another posh, nearby restaurant, Avra Madison on East 60th Street, one source and one staffer told The Post.
Cohen, 53, is supposed to be serving a three-year sentence for crimes that include tax evasion, bank fraud, and lying to Congress, as well as covering up hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.
But the federal Bureau of Prisons released him due to the coronavirus crisis on May 20 — even though a judge had refused to reduce his sentence for the same reason two months earlier.
“Ten months into his prison term, it’s time that Cohen accept the consequences of his criminal convictions for serious crimes that had far-reaching institutional harms,” Manhattan federal Judge William Pauley wrote.
Cohen’s sentence is set to expire on Nov. 22, 2021, according to the BOP website.
The BOP form for furlough applications requires that an inmate provide a furlough address and acknowledge by signature that “I am authorized to be only in the area of the destination shown above and at ordinary stopovers or points on a direct route to or from that destination.”
Conditions listed on the form also include a provision that says, “I will not leave the area of my furlough without permission, with exception of traveling to the furlough destination, and returning to the institution.”
Bill Clinton appointed District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has now intervened and ordered the release from prison of President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer on Thursday.
AP News reports – that Judge Alvin Hellerstein is claiming the government retaliated against him for planning to release a book critical of Trump before November’s election.
Michael Cohen’s First Amendment rights were violated when he was ordered back to prison on July 9 after probation authorities said he refused to sign a form banning him from publishing the book or communicating publicly in other manners, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said during a telephone conference.
Hellerstein ordered Michael Cohen released from prison to home confinement by 2 p.m. on Friday.
“How can I take any other inference than that it’s retaliatory?” Hellerstein asked prosecutors, who insisted in court papers and again Thursday that Probation Department officers did not know about the book when they wrote a provision of home confinement that severely restricted Cohen’s public communications.
“I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release,” the judge said. “Why would the Bureau of Prisons ask for something like this … unless there was a retaliatory purpose?”
“How can I take any other inference than that it’s retaliatory?” Hellerstein asked prosecutors, who insisted in court papers and again Thursday that Probation Department officers did not know about the book when they wrote a provision of home confinement that severely restricted Cohen’s public communications.
“I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release,” the judge said. “Why would the Bureau of Prisons ask for something like this … unless there was a retaliatory purpose?”
