12 dead in bank robbery attempts, police shootout in Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO – At least 12 people, including two children, were killed Friday when police engaged in a shootout with bank robbers, according to authorities in northeastern Brazil.
The two attempted heists in the state of Ceara began around 2:30 a.m. in the downtown area of the city of Milagres, police said in a statement.
News portal G1 reported that the robbers blocked off a road into downtown and took hostages as they began entering two banks on the same street. When police responded, a firefight began.
NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors said Friday that President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen should serve “a substantial prison term” for trying to buy the silence of two women who said they had sexual affairs with Trump and tax evasion and lying to banks.
The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said Cohen should serve roughly 42 months in prison for his confessed crimes.
Separately, special counsel Robert Mueller credited Cohen for correcting his lies to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow – and for going to “significant lengths” to assist Mueller’s investigation of Russiarelated matters that could involve Trump.
Mueller’s investigative team said it would be “appropriate” if any sentence that Cohen received for the Russia matter ran concurrently with the sentence imposed for the issues investigated by New York federal prosecutors.
The sentencing recommendations were delivered to U.S. District Judge William Pauley a week after Cohen’s defense team asked the judge to spare the New York City attorney from serving any time in prison on either legal matter.
Pauley is scheduled to sentence Cohen on Wednesday.
The prosecution sentencing memos for Cohen are the latest development in the fate of a pugnacious attorney long known as an ardent Trump loyalist and fixer of difficult problems.
The relationship between the two longtime associates ruptured as Cohen pleaded guilty this year to campaign finance violations, fraud and lying to Congress.
Cohen pleaded guilty in August to violating campaign finance laws by paying hush money at Trump’s direction to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Trump has denied the women’s accounts of sexual affairs.
Prosecutors said the payments were made “in order to influence the 2016 presidential election” and were “coordinated with one or more members” of Trump’s winning campaign, “including through meetings and phone calls about the fact, nature, and timing.”
Cohen also pleaded guilty in August to charges of tax evasion and making false statements to a federally insured bank.
Cohen pleaded guilty last week to charges that he lied to congressional committees investigating Trump’s dealings with Russia.
Cohen told the Senate and House panels last year that planning for a Trump Tower in Moscow, discussions about a possible Trump trip to Russia in connection with the project, and related talks with Russia officials all ended in January 2016.
But Cohen said last week that he continued to discuss efforts to win Russian governmental approval for the project within The Trump Organization as late as June 2016. By then, Trump was the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
In a sentencing memo filed by Cohen’s defense team last week, attorneys Guy Petrillo and Amy Lester provided additional detail about what they characterized as the initial “false summary” about the Moscow project.
The memo appeared to implicate Trump, referred to as the “client” or “Client-1,” in some of Cohen’s self-confessed crimes.
Regarding the hush money, Cohen’s attorneys wrote that he did not personally make payments to buy the silence of “Woman-1,” possibly a reference to McDougal.
But they wrote that he “participated in payment planning discussions with Client-1 and the Chairman and CEO of Corporation-1.”
Cohen paid Daniels “in coordination with and at the direction of Client-1, and others within” The Trump Organization, they wrote.
Cohen’s attorneys asked for leniency based on his voluntary cooperation with the investigations by Mueller and federal prosecutors, and with Trumprelated investigations by the New York Attorney General’s Office and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.