THE LAST SUPPER
Michael Cohen back in prison after this POST pic
This picture on the front page of The Post of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen dining out on the Upper East Side had feds take a look at his behavior while on furlough amid the COVID outbreak, a source said. Yesterday, they brought him in to sign a document outlining the rules he must follow — and when he refused, they took him back into custody.
His taste of freedom was shortlived.
Michael Cohen landed back behind bars Thursday after The Post’s Page One exposé on his night out at a Manhattan restaurant led federal officials to review his case, a source familiar with the matter said.
“That dinner caught the eye of those at [the Bureau of Prisons] who feel he was released on furlough only due to the coronavirus situation but is acting like he’s a free man and not out under supervision,” the source said.
“The Post article was a catalyst to take a closer look.”
Cohen, 53, was taken into custody and sent to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn following a meeting with federal probation officials in the Manhattan federal courthouse, his lawyer Jeffrey Levine said.
Cohen had been given a document outlining new, stricter conditions for home confinement that included no communication with reporters or filmmakers, no use of social media “and finally, that he could not publish a book,” former
Cohen lawyer and pal Lanny Davis said.
When Cohen — who last week tweeted that he’d almost finished writing a tell-all set for publication in September — refused to sign the paperwork, the officials left the room.
They returned about 90 minutes later with three deputy US marshals carrying a set of shackles, Davis said.
The former fixer for President Trump immediately changed his tune, Davis said, describing how he vainly pleaded, “I’ll sign exactly what you want me to sign so I don’t have to go back to jail.”
But the marshals told Cohen was too late, Levine said.
In an e-mailed statement, the BOP said simply, “Today, Michael Cohen refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a result it has been returned to a BOP facility.”
The development came less than a week after The Post published a cover photo of Trump’s onetime personal lawyer dining out with his wife and another couple at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side.
Last week, Levine claimed that Cohen’s July 2 meal at a sidewalk table outside Le Bilboquet, around the corner from his Park Avenue apartment, “did not violate any of the terms and conditions of his release” on furlough on May 21.
But experts told The Post that the brazen dinner — which didn’t end until around 11:30 p.m. — might be enough to send him back to prison.
Asked if The Post’s exclusive report prompted the move, Levine didn’t dispute it, CNN reported.
“I would leave that to your viewers,” Levine said.
He also suggested that “it probably has to do with the optics of everything,” CNN reported.
Another of Cohen’s defense lawyers, Roger Adler, told The Associated Press that his jailing was an “overly draconian response to what was, at worst, poor judgment.”
Adler also said that Cohen thought that being on medical furlough “did not prohibit venturing beyond his apartment and dining out.”
Cohen was sentenced in December 2018 to three years in prison for crimes that include tax evasion, bank fraud and lying to Congress, as well as covering up Trump’s alleged hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.
His prison term isn’t set to expire until Nov. 22, 2021, according to the BOP’s Web site.