Ex-Trump lawyer Cohen to be released due to coronavirus outbreak -
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[April 17, 2020]
By Aram Roston and Mark Hosenball
(Reuters) - Michael Cohen, the former
personal attorney to U.S. President Donald Trump, will be released early
from prison because of the coronavirus pandemic, two sources familiar
with the matter told Reuters late on Thursday.
Cohen, who has served less than one year of a three-year sentence, will
serve the rest of his time in home confinement, one of the sources said.
Before his release, he will have to undergo a two-week quarantine to
ensure he does not have symptoms of COVID-19, according to the source,
who asked not to be identified.
Roger Adler, Cohen's lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request
for comment. A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said that
as of Thursday night Cohen was still incarcerated in the Otisville
Federal Correctional Institution.
A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Cohen, who once said he would "take a bullet" for Trump, was sentenced
to three years in prison in 2018 for directing hush payments to
pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen
McDougal, who claimed they had affairs with Trump. The U.S. president
has denied having the encounters.
Cohen, 53, was sent to a minimum-security camp at Otisville in upstate
New York, about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of New York City.
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Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former lawyer, leaves
his apartment to report to prison in Manhattan, New York, U.S., May
6, 2019. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo
He had pressed to be released early due to the coronavirus pandemic,
which has hammered New York state and surfaced in prisons around the
country.
Last month, a federal judge denied the request, saying Cohen should
accept the consequences of his crimes rather than invoke the
pandemic to justify his freedom.
"Ten months into his prison term, it's time that Cohen accept the
consequences of his criminal convictions for serious crimes that had
far reaching institutional harms," U.S. District Judge William
Pauley in Manhattan wrote.
The judge said that Cohen's attempt to "single himself out for
release to home confinement appears to be just another effort to
inject himself into the news cycle."
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Aram Roston in Washington, Writing
by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Noeleen Walder)
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