Former Trump lawyer gets 3 years in prison
Admits to doing president’s ‘dirty deeds’
NEW YORK — Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s onetime fixer, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to conceal his boss’s alleged sexual affairs, telling a judge that he agreed time and again to cover up Trump’s “dirty deeds” out of “blind loyalty.”
The legal and political peril surrounding Trump appeared to deepen when prosecutors announced that another major piece of the investigation had fallen into place: The parent company of the National Enquirer acknowledged dispensing some of the hush money in concert with the Trump campaign to fend off a scandal that could have damaged his bid for the White House.
Cohen, 52, shook his head slightly and closed his eyes as a judge pronounced his sentence for evading $1.4 million US in taxes, lying about Trump’s business dealings in Russia and violating campaign-finance laws in buying the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal, who claimed they had sex with the candidate. Cohen and federal prosecutors have said the payments were made at Trump’s direction to influence the election.
“Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass,” said a choked-up Cohen, a lawyer who once boasted he would “take a bullet” for Trump. “My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, and I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands.”
The twin developments represented a double dose of bad news for the president, who ignored reporters’ questions about Cohen during an appearance at the White House later in the day.
Cohen is the first and, so far, only member of Trump’s circle during two years of investigations to go into open court and implicate him in a crime, though whether a president can be prosecuted under the U.S. Constitution is an open question.
In a possible sign of further trouble for the president, Cohen said he will continue co-operating with prosecutors, and one of his legal advisers said Cohen is also prepared to tell “all he knows” to Congress if asked.
At the sentencing, defence attorney Guy Petrillo pleaded for leniency for Cohen, saying: “He came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our country.”
U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III said the defendant deserved modest credit, but his assistance “does not wipe the slate clean.”
The judge also ordered Cohen to pay $1.39 million in restitution to the IRS, forfeit $500,000 and pay $100,000 in fines. Cohen was ordered to report to prison on March 6 and left court without comment.
The prison sentence was in line with what prosecutors asked for. Sentencing guidelines called for about four to five years, and the government asked in court papers that Cohen be given only a slight break.
The sentence was the culmination of a spectacular rise and fast fall of a lawyer who attached himself to the fortunes of his biggest client, helped him get elected president, then turned on him, co-operating with two interconnected investigations: one run by federal prosecutors in New York, the other by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russia’s efforts to influence the presidential election.
It is unclear what Cohen has told prosecutors or what he has left to say. Legal experts said Cohen could get his sentence reduced by co-operating.
In the hush-money case, Cohen arranged for American Media Inc., parent of the pro-Trump National Enquirer, to pay $150,000 to McDougal to buy and bury her story, according to prosecutors. Cohen also said he paid $130,000 to Daniels and was reimbursed by Trump’s business empire. Both payments were made during the heat of the 2016 campaign.
Prosecutors said those secret payouts were not reported as campaign contributions and violated the ban on corporate contributions and the $2,700 limit on donations by an individual.