A prison for white-collar and D-list scoundrels awaits Cohen
NEW YORK — “The Situation” and the Fyre Festival fraudster are already there. President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, is up next.
It’s not reality TV. It’s a federal prison 70 miles from New York City where white-collar and Dlist scoundrels can do time while playing bocce ball and noshing on rugelach.
Cohen, 53, is due to report Monday to the Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville to start a three-year sentence for tax evasion, lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes.
Tucked in the lush countryside south of the Catskill Mountains, Otisville is actually two federal facilities with a total of about 800 inmates: a medium-security prison where former NFL star Darren Sharper is serving a 20-year rape sentence, and a satellite camp for nonviolent offenders like Cohen.
There, he’ll be serving his sentence with the likes of “Jersey Shore” starturned-tax fraud convict Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino and Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which runs the federal prison system, has been tight-lipped about Cohen’s placement. The agency declined to comment for this article.
The camp does have its allure. About 115 inmates sleep in bunks lined up in barrack-style halls, instead of individual or two-man cells like in higher-security facilities. There are lockers to store personal belongings, washers and dryers for laundry, microwaves and ice machines.
Alums include accountant Kenneth Starr, who was accused of bilking celebrities like Uma Thurman with bad investments, and former Cendant chairman Walter Forbes and ex-Connecticut Gov. John Rowland. New York Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff wanted Otisville, but the Bureau of Prisons sent him to North Carolina instead.
Otisville is known as a favorite among prisonbound Jews for its Kosher meals and Shabbat services.
Add in recreational amenities like tennis courts, horseshoes and cardio equipment, and it sounds like the closest thing the federal prison system has to sleepaway camp.
Forbes once ranked Otisville as one of “America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons,” but former employees and inmates say it’s hardly “Club Fed.” Inmates are still doing time and they’re still separated from their families and friends — save for occasional visits.
“Prison is disrespectful. It’s impersonal,” said former Otisville case manager Jack Donson. “He’s never going to get any sleep because there’s always lights on, there’s always inmates snoring. There are officers walking around jingling keys. You shower out in the open. It’s very demeaning.”
Cohen could also be a target of bullying, harassment or worse for his cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and other probes, and that could make him a candidate for the prison’s protective housing unit, said Donson. Trump himself has branded Cohen a “rat.”
During a typical weekday at Otisville, it’s lights on at 6 a.m., followed by breakfast. Work duties, such as mowing the grounds or cleaning up the prison, are performed from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a break for lunch at 11. Dinner is served beginning at 4:15 p.m.
It’s lights out at 11:30 p.m.
Lawrence Dressler, who served 18 months for mortgage fraud at Otisville and who, like Cohen, was a lawyer before his conviction, predicted Cohen will largely be left alone — unless he’s seen as a rat.
“Everyone ends up having a couple of good friends,” Dressler said.