On 29 November 2018 attorney Michael Cohen plead guilty to charges of tax evasion, making false statements to financial institutions, lying to the US Congress and facilitating illegal campaign contributions totalling US$255,000 in the 2016 US presidential campaign.
His plea agreement can be found here.
US President Donald J. Trump is identified in the US Government's Sentencing Memorandums, the first of which recommenfs that Cohen be gaoled for up to three and a half years.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT
COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-v.- MICHAEL COHEN: 18 Cr. 602 (WHP)
1.
Background
Cohen
is a licensed attorney and has been since 1992. (PSR ¶ 149.) Until 2007, Cohen
practiced as an attorney for multiple law firms, working on, among other
things, negligence and malpractice cases. (PSR ¶¶ 156-157.) For that work,
Cohen earned approximately $75,000 per year. (Id.) In 2007, Cohen seized on an
opportunity. The board of directors of a condominium building in which Cohen
lived was attempting to remove from the building the name of the owner
(“Individual-1”) of a Manhattan-based real estate company (the “Company”). (PSR
¶ 155.) Cohen intervened, secured the backing of the residents of the building,
and was able to remove the entire board of directors, thereby fixing the
problem for Individual-1. (Id.) Not long after, Cohen was hired by the Company
to the position of “Executive Vice President” and “Special Counsel” to
Individual-1. (Id.) He earned approximately $500,000 per year in that position.
(Id.)
In
January 2017, Cohen formally left the Company and began holding himself out as
the “personal attorney” to Individual-1, who at that point had become the
President of the United States…..
4.
Cohen’s Illegal Campaign Contributions
On
approximately June 16, 2015, Individual-1, for whom Cohen worked at the time,
began an ultimately successful campaign for President of the United States.
Cohen had no formal title with the campaign, but had a campaign email address,
and, at various times advised the campaign, including on matters of interest to
the press. Cohen also made media appearances as a surrogate and supporter of
Individual-1. (PSR ¶ 39).
During the campaign, Cohen played a central role in
two similar schemes to purchase the rights to stories – each from women who
claimed to have had an affair with Individual-1 – so as to suppress the stories
and thereby prevent them from influencing the election. With respect to both
payments, Cohen acted with the intent to influence the 2016 presidential
election. Cohen coordinated his actions with one or more members of the
campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature,
and timing of the payments. (PSR ¶ 51). In particular, and as Cohen himself has
now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and
at the direction of Individual-1. (PSR ¶¶ 41, 45). As a result of Cohen’s
actions, neither woman spoke to the press prior to the election. (PSR ¶ 51)…..
First,
Cohen’s commission of two campaign finance crimes on the eve of the 2016
election for President of the United States struck a blow to one of the core
goals of the federal campaign finance laws: transparency. While many Americans
who desired a particular outcome to the election knocked on doors, toiled at
phone banks, or found any number of other legal ways to make their voices
heard, Cohen sought to influence the election from the shadows. He did so by orchestrating
secret and illegal payments to silence two women who otherwise would have made
public their alleged extramarital affairs with Individual-1. In the process,
Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would
have had a substantial effect on the election. It is this type of harm that
Congress sought to prevent when it imposed limits on individual contributions
to candidates. To promote transparency and prevent wealthy individuals like
Cohen from circumventing these limits, Congress prohibited individuals from
making expenditures on behalf of and coordinated with candidates. Cohen clouded
a process that Congress has painstakingly sought to keep transparent. The
sentence imposed should reflect the seriousness of Cohen’s brazen violations of
the election laws and attempt to counter the public cynicism that may arise
when individuals like Cohen act as if the political process belongs to the rich
and powerful…..
in
a secretly recorded meeting Cohen took credit for the payment and assured
Individual-1 that he was “all over” the transaction. And after making the
payment to the second woman, and after Individual-1 was elected President,
Cohen privately bragged to friends and reporters, including in recorded
conversations, that he had made the payment to spare Individual-1 from damaging
press and embarrassment.....
The
Special Counsel’s Office (“SCO”) provides this memorandum in connection with
the sentencing of Michael Cohen scheduled for December 12, 2018. On November
29, 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to
Congress, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a). The government does not take a
position with respect to a particular sentence to be imposed but submits that
it is appropriate for any sentence of incarceration to be served concurrently
to any sentence imposed by the Court in United States v. Cohen, 18-cr-602
(WHP).
The
defendant’s crime was serious. He withheld information material to the
investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election
being conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (“SSCI”), the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (“HPSCI”), and the SCO. The
defendant lied to Congress about a business project (the “Moscow Project”) that
he worked on during the 2016 presidential campaign, while he served as
Executive Vice President at a Manhattan-based real estate company (the
“Company”) and as Special Counsel to the owner of the Company (“Individual 1”).
The defendant admitted he told these lies—which he made publicly and in
submissions to Congress—in order to (1) minimize links between the Moscow
Project and Individual 1 and (2) give the false impression that the Moscow
Project had ended before the Iowa caucus and the first presidential primaries, in hopes of
limiting the ongoing Russia investigations being conducted by Congress and the
SCO.....
The
defendant’s false statements obscured the fact that the Moscow Project was a
lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance
of the Russian government. If the project was completed, the Company could have
received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees
and other revenues. The fact that Cohen continued to work on the project and
discuss it with Individual 1 well into the campaign was material to the ongoing
congressional and SCO investigations, particularly because it occurred at a
time of sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S.
presidential election. Similarly, it was material that Cohen, during the
campaign, had a substantive telephone call about the project with an assistant
to the press secretary for the President of Russia.....
The
defendant, without prompting by the SCO, also corrected other false and
misleading statements that he had made concerning his outreach to and contacts
with Russian officials during the course of the campaign. For example, in a
radio interview in September 2015, the defendant suggested that Individual 1
meet with the President of Russia in New York City during his visit for the
United Nations General Assembly. When asked previously about these events, the
defendant claimed his public comments had been spontaneous and had not been
discussed within the campaign or the Company. During his proffer sessions, the
defendant admitted that this account was false and that he had in fact
conferred with Individual 1 about contacting the Russian government before
reaching out to gauge Russia’s interest in such a meeting. The meeting
ultimately did not take place…..
