Breaking | Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen sentenced to three years’ jail for hush-money payments to women and lying about Russia deal
- Michael Cohen says Donald Trump led him down a ‘path of darkness’ as he tried to cover up ‘dirty deeds’
- The illicit payments to women who said they had sex with Trump were made during the 2016 campaign
Michael Cohen, US President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, was sentenced to a total of three years in prison on Wednesday for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to women to help Trump’s 2016 election campaign and lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.
In a statement to the court, Cohen blasted his former benefactor, saying Trump led him down a “path of darkness” as he tried to cover up Trump’s “dirty deeds”.
US District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan sentenced Cohen to three years for the payments, which violated campaign finance law, and to two months for the false statements to Congress. The two terms will run concurrently. The judge set March 6 for Cohen’s voluntary surrender.
Cohen pleaded guilty to the campaign finance charge in August and to making false statements in November. The women who received the money had claimed they had sex with Trump.
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As part of the sentence, the judge ordered Cohen to forfeit US$500,000 and pay restitution of nearly US$1.4 million for the campaign finance law violations.
Cohen, 52, had walked into court on Wednesday morning with his wife, son and daughter, amid a crowd of photographers and reporters.
The sentencing capped the stunning about-face of a lawyer who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump but has now directly implicated the president in criminal conduct. The three-year sentence imposed by the judge was a modest reduction from the four to five years recommended under federal guidelines, but still underscored the seriousness of the charges.