USA TODAY International Edition
‘BLIND LOYALTY’ LED DOWN TO ‘DARKNESS’
Former fixer considered it his duty to cover up Trump’s ‘dirty deeds’
NEW YORK – Michael Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison, making the longtime personal attorney for Donald Trump the first member of the president’s inner circle to serve time in a case that could place the former real estate mogul in legal jeopardy.
Cohen, known for years as Trump’s fixer in legal and business matters, pleaded guilty in August to a series of crimes, including campaign finance violations and tax evasion in the Southern District of New York. Cohen admitted last month that he lied to Congress in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“My own weakness was blind loyalty to the man that caused me to choose the path of darkness,” Cohen said, his voice cracking. “Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”
Cohen said he took “full responsibility” for the nine felonies to which he pleaded guilty – “the personal ones to me and those involving the president of the United States of America.”
Cohen must surrender for prison March 6. He was ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution for his unpaid taxes and $100,000 in fines.
Manhattan U.S. District Judge William Pauley walked through each of the counts against Cohen, saying, “Each of these crimes is a serious offense against the United States.” Pauley agreed to a modest reduction of Cohen’s prison sentence to reward him for his cooperation but said his “veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct” required a punishment to match.
“Somewhere along the way, Mr. Cohen appears to have lost his moral
“Today is the day I am getting my freedom back.” Michael Cohen, former Donald Trump attorney
compass,” Pauley said. “Our democratic institutions depend on the honesty of our citizenry in dealing with the government.”
After Pauley announced his sentence to a crowded Manhattan courtroom, Cohen’s father, Maurice, 83, who had entered in a wheelchair, held his face in his hands. “I’m dizzy as hell,” he said. “My world is spinning out of control.”
Cohen’s daughter Samantha had limped into court on a crutch. She started to sob as soon as sentencing was pronounced.
Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, cooperated with Mueller’s team and provided prosecutors with a potential bounty of information about the Trump campaign’s contacts with the Kremlin. Prosecutors said he gave them information about “core” aspects of the Russia investigation, based in part on his connections to Trump’s private company and his administration.
Cohen said his cooperation with prosecutors against his onetime boss was a way of “ensuring that history will not remember me as the villain of this story.” He apologized to his family and the public, who “deserved to know the truth.”
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump’s personal attorney, dismissed Cohen as a “complete liar” and a “scoundrel” and said that what the president’s former associate told prosecutors doesn’t matter.
Cohen and Trump once seemed a united team. Trump’s fame and wealth grew with the licensing of his name and his starring role in “The Apprentice,” while Cohen took on the real estate developer’s critics in legal combat.
Their relationship ruptured this year as federal prosecutors and Mueller investigated both men. Cohen cemented the split as he sought leniency Wednesday, telling the judge he had been in a form of “personal and mental incarceration” since the day he began working for the businessman he admired so much that acquaintances said Cohen referred to him even privately as “Mr. Trump.”
“Today is the day I am getting my freedom back,” he said.
Cohen is the first member of Trump’s inner circle to be sentenced in the tandem criminal investigations that cast a shadow over the presidency. Three other senior aides – former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates – are scheduled to be sentenced in the coming months after they pleaded guilty to federal crimes. George Papadopoulos, a former aide to Trump’s campaign, completed a 14-day prison sentence for lying to the FBI about a person he thought was a Russian offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
Lanny Davis, an attorney for Cohen, said his client will continue to share what he knows about his former boss.
“At the appropriate time, after Mr. Mueller completes his investigation and issues his final report, I look forward to assisting Michael to state publicly all he knows about Mr. Trump – and that includes any appropriate congressional committee interested in the search for truth and the difference between facts and lie,” Davis said. “Mr. Trump’s repeated lies cannot contradict stubborn facts.”
The New York prosecutors said Cohen paid hush money to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep them from publicizing claims they had sexual affairs with Trump, potentially jeopardizing his presidential campaign. Trump denied the women’s accounts.