Michael Cohen, the former longtime personal lawyer of President Donald Trump, was sentenced to three years in federal prison on Wednesday, taking a parting shot at the President after implicating him in hush money payments to two women over alleged affairs with Trump.
“It was my blind loyalty to this man that led me to take a path of darkness instead of light,” Cohen said in court, the Associated Press reported. “I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.” Cohen said he had been “living in a personal and mental incarceration” since starting to work for Trump, the New York Times reported.
But U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III said a tough sentence was warranted because “as a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better.”
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 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.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York also announced a previously reached non-prosecution agreement with the parent company of the National Enquirer, American Media, Inc., which admitted to paying McDougal $150,000 “in concert with a candidate’s presidential campaign.” Before the 2016 election, the National Enquirer agreed to pay McDougal $150,000 for her story about the alleged affair, and then did not publish it. But AMI previously denied that the payment was intended to kill a story that could damage Trump.
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05.04.2025