Michael Cohen, a former attorney for President Donald Trump, will be released from federal prison and return to his Manhattan home.
Cohen, who served a three-year sentence for violating campaign finance laws and lying to Congress, was ordered to return to federal facilities in Otisville, New York, on July 9 after spending two months in confinement without permission. In the home. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said Cohen did not accept a clause in her home confinement agreement that prohibited her from speaking to the media, even through a book.
Cohen argued in a lawsuit that the federal government was retaliating against him, who opposed a revealing book that will soon be published about his experiences with Trump.
Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein sided with Cohen on Thursday.
“The purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from home leave and confinement to prison is retaliation, and it is retaliation for his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights and publish a book,” said Hellerstein.
Cohen, who had been in solitary confinement, according to his lawsuit, will be released on Friday afternoon, according to his lawyer, Danya Perry. Hellerstein also said that the conditions of the lockdown at Cohen’s home will be renegotiated.
The Bureau of Prisons said in a statement to ABC News that any decision to send Cohen back to prison as “an act of retaliation is patently false.”
“During this process, Mr. Cohen refused to accept the terms of the program, specifically electronic monitoring,” the statement said. “Furthermore, he was argumentative, he was trying to dictate the conditions of his monitoring, including conditions related to self-employment, access to the media, use of social media and other liability measures. Mr. Cohen He refused to acknowledge and sign the terms of his transfer from home confinement and was detained. ”
“Mr. Cohen’s refusal to accept those conditions here played no role in the decision to retain him to guarantee custody or his intention to publish a book,” the agency continued.
The office previously said that Cohen rejected the offer to stay home in exchange for the media gag order, but Cohen claims that he never reached such an agreement and that he was detained before he and his lawyer could negotiate the terms.
Cohen was one of several inmates released from federal prison in May after the Justice Department raised concerns about COVID-19 at the facility. He was active on social media and mocked the launch of his book, which he said would include Trump anecdotes using anti-Semitic and racist comments.
Cohen was also photographed by the New York Post dining al fresco in early July.
Hellerstein criticized the federal government for issuing new guidelines for permission and confinement at Cohen’s home.
“How can I take any other inference that is not retaliation?” Hellerstein asked rhetorically during an audience. “In 21 years of being a judge … I have never seen such a clause.”
“They put him on leave with no other conditions than hanging out at his house and being in his neighborhood,” added the judge. “Suddenly, when the New York Post article comes out and the Bureau of Prisons understands it’s writing a book, and it will be done by the time of the election, they impose conditions.”
Perry told ABC News that the terms of the Cohen home lockdown are still being worked out, but ruled out another return to federal prison.
“He was ordered to serve the rest of his sentence for home confinement, so he should not have been sent two weeks ago,” he said. “It shouldn’t be sent again.”
Perry said Cohen plans to finish and publish his book.
Two other recent books on the president: “The Room Where It Happened,” by former national security adviser John Bolton, and “Too Much and Never Enough,” by Mary Trump, the president’s niece, have presented legal challenges.
Both were published.
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