A federal judge has refused to grant former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s request for early termination of supervised release, issuing an order suggesting Mr. Cohen is a perjurer.
The judge’s refusal brings the number of Mr. Cohen’s failed attempts to end his probation early to four.
‘More Troubling’
Judge Furman cited Mr. Cohen’s testimony at former President Donald Trump’s civil trial in Manhattan last October, during which Mr. Cohen claimed he hadn’t committed tax evasion even though he pleaded guilty to the charge in 2018.The judge cited portions of Mr. Cohen’s October testimony at the Trump trial when Mr. Cohen confirmed he had lied more than once in federal court when the stakes affected him personally and that he misled a federal judge.
“This testimony is more troubling than the statements that Cohen had previously made in his book and on television—statements that the Court had specifically cited in denying Cohen’s third motion for early termination of supervised release...because it was given under oath,” the judge wrote.
Mr. Schwartz wrote in the letter that Mr. Cohen had testified for over 10 hours on the stand in President Trump’s civil fraud trial in October, providing “damning evidence” and offering testimony that was “critical” to a guilty determination against the former president and a $454 million fine.
The lawyer also noted that Mr. Cohen would be a “key witness” at President Trump’s upcoming criminal trial in New York, in which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged the former president with 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal an alleged $130,000 so-called “hush money” payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
“These testimonies do not come without substantial anxiety and stress, including threats of physical harm and death,” Mr. Schwartz wrote, while also claiming that Mr. Cohen had provided “meaningful assistance” to prosecutors on various matters and that he had “taken criminal responsibility for his actions and continues to suffer tremendously as a result.”
Unpersuaded by Mr. Schwartz’s arguments, Judge Furman said that granting an early end to Mr. Cohen’s supervised release would “undermine, rather than serve” the needs of sentencing in light of Mr. Cohen’s “ongoing and escalating efforts to walk away from his prior acceptance of responsibility for his crimes.”
‘Legally Incorrect’
Mr. Cohen said in a statement posted on X that he believes Judge Furman’s decision to be “legally incorrect.”“Judge Furman did not have a front seat to the testimony at the lengthy trial,” she wrote, adding the trial judge ultimately stated that Mr. Cohen “told the truth.”
“And Judge Furman ignores that Mr. Cohen has never disputed the underlying facts of his conduct, and also what many of Judge Furman’s own colleagues on the bench have long noted: that defendants often feel compelled to agree to coercive plea deals under severe pressure,” she said. “That is exactly what happened to Mr. Cohen.”
The judge in President Trump’s civil fraud trial, Judge Arthur Engoron, did write in his decision that he found Mr. Cohen’s testimony “credible” despite “seeming contradictions” in his testimony.
Judge Engoron also said that while Mr. Cohen had an “incentive to lie” after falling out with President Trump, he found Mr. Cohen’s testimony believable based in part on the general plausibility of his statements.
“This manifest problem will only become magnified in the upcoming Trump trial where Alvin Bragg is calling Cohen as his star witness,” Mr. Turley wrote. “Defense counsel will only need to read his past statements to leave him mired in self-impeaching contradictions.”
“Cohen has long been able to find powerful allies who value in his dubious skill set and flexible sense of ethics,” he continued. “I was critical of Cohen when he was a thuggish lawyer with Trump and he has changed little since then in my view.”
“What the court observed is a figure who has been sold as a redemptive sinner without a moment of actual redemption in his continued conflicting statements,” he added.
