Names and faces
■ Michael Cohen, who was former President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer until his 2018 arrest, said Monday that his three-year prison sentence — mostly spent in home confinement — was over as he took another swipe at his former boss and vowed to continue cooperating with law enforcement investigations. A smiling Cohen emerged from Manhattan federal court after signing documents and speaking with authorities about his forthcoming three-year term of supervised release. “I feel great today. It’s been long overdue,” Cohen said to a collection of camera crews alerted to his presence by a tweet he had sent Sunday. Cohen, 55, was sentenced to prison in December 2018 after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes. In all, he spent about 13½ months behind prison walls and 1½ years in home confinement. The campaign finance charges came after he helped arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from making public claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs. Cohen said that his release from home confinement “in no way negates the actions I took at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump.” He said he “will continue to provide information, testimony, documents and my full cooperation on all ongoing investigations to ensure that others are held responsible for their dirty deeds and that no one is ever believed to be above the law.”
■ The former Oklahoma zookeeper known as “Tiger King” Joe Exotic, a prominent figure in a Netflix documentary series, has been transferred to a medical facility in North Carolina for federal inmates after a cancer diagnosis, according to his attorney. Joe Exotic, 58, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was transferred from Fort Wort to a federal medical center in Butner, N.C., last week, defense attorney John Phillips said in a statement. Phillips said Maldonado-Passage told him that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was getting medical treatment and tests “for a host of issues.” Phillips said prison medical care “isn’t the best and justice is slow.” Maldonado-Passage and his blond mullet were featured in the Netflix documentary “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.” He was convicted of trying to hire two different men to kill Florida animal welfare activist Carole Baskin as well as violating federal wildlife laws. Meanwhile, Baskin, of Tampa’s Big Cat Rescue sanctuary, lost her bid to stop Netflix and a production company from using previously recorded video of her and her husband in the “Tiger King” sequel, which began airing Nov. 17 when a federal magistrate judge denied her request on Friday.