Michael Cohen, the former longtime personal lawyer of President Donald Trump, was sentenced to three years in federal prison on Wednesday — the conclusion of a case that has been a focal point in the legal troubles that continue to surround the President.
Cohen apologized in court and said he accepts “full responsibility” for his actions, but said his loyalty to Trump led him “to take a path of darkness instead of light,” the Associated Press reported.
In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance violations and making false financial statements — charges brought by prosecutors in New York’s Southern District. Cohen admitted that he worked “at the direction of the candidate,” Trump, to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged affairs with Trump — which Cohen said was an effort to influence the 2016 election.
Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, was present for Cohen’s sentencing hearing Wednesday.
Trump — who has denied the affairs and denied that the payments were campaign contributions — has lashed out at Cohen throughout the trial, calling him “a weak person,” accusing him of lying and saying he deserves to “serve a full and complete sentence.”
In a filing on Friday, the federal prosecutors in New York recommended a harsh sentence for Cohen, who requested a sentence for time-served. “Now he seeks extraordinary leniency — a sentence of no jail time — based principally on his rose-colored view of the seriousness of the crimes,” prosecutors wrote. “But the crimes committed by Cohen were more serious than his submission allows and were marked by a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life.”
Prosecutors said Cohen deserved to serve “substantial” prison time, even though he had cooperated with investigators, suggesting a sentence of about three and a half years.
In a separate case, Cohen pleaded guilty last month to lying to Congress in 2017 about the timing and details of his work on a since-abandoned project to build a Trump tower in Russia. Those charges were brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In his own filing on Friday, Mueller recommended that Cohen’s sentence for lying to Congress should be served concurrently with his sentence from the Southern District of New York case, crediting Cohen for providing “credible and consistent” information in cooperation with the Russia investigation.
