Michael Cohen, a former lawyer for President Donald Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday after denouncing Trump and explaining that "I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds."
Cohen gave an emotional apology to the court for his involvement in a hush-money scandal to buy the silence of two women who said they had had affairs with Trump, payments that Cohen has said were meant to influence the 2016 election. He said his blind loyalty to Trump led him to ignore "my own inner voice and my moral compass."
The sentencing in federal court in Manhattan capped a fall for Cohen, 52, who had once hoped to work by Trump's side in the White House but ended up a central figure in the inquiry into payments to a porn star and a former Playboy model before the 2016 election.
Judge William Pauley III called Cohen's crimes a "veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct" and added, "Each of the crimes involved deception and each appears to have been motivated by personal greed and ambition."
He added that Cohen's particular crimes -- breaking campaign-finance laws, tax evasion and lying to Congress -- "implicate a far more insidious harm to our democratic institutions."
"As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better," the judge said.
Cohen had pleaded guilty in two cases, one filed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the other by the office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Before he was sentenced, a solemn Cohen, standing at a lectern, sounded emotional but resolved as he told the judge he had been tormented by the anguish and embarrassment he had caused his family.
"I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today," he said, "and it was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man" -- a reference to Trump -- "that led me to choose a path of darkness over light."
Cohen then apologized to the public: "You deserve to know the truth, and lying to you was unjust."
Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers, called Cohen's assertion he had acted out of loyalty to Trump "a complete lie."
"I feel sorry for him," Giuliani added. "He's a pathetic serial liar."
Federal agents raided Cohen's office and home in April, and he later turned on Trump, saying in court that Trump had directed him to arrange the payments.
Trump at first denied knowing anything about the payments, but then acknowledged that he had known about them. This week, he insisted that the payments were "a simple private transaction" -- not election-related spending subject to campaign-finance laws.
He also maintained that even if the hush-money payments were campaign transactions in violation of election regulations, that should be considered only a civil offense, not a criminal one.
Since Cohen came under investigation, Trump has mocked him as a "weak person" who was giving information to prosecutors in an effort to obtain leniency when he is sentenced.
In fact, Cohen did not sign a formal cooperation agreement with the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan or Mueller. In addition to the campaign-finance violations, Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, making false statements to a bank and lying to Congress.
In a court filing asking for no jail time, Cohen's lawyers wrote that their client's misdeeds were a product of his "fierce loyalty" to Trump and put the wrongdoing squarely at the feet of the president and his close advisers.
Cohen's lawyer, Guy Petrillo, urged the judge to be lenient in light of what he called Cohen's courage and "the remarkable nature and significance" of his decision to cooperate against Trump.
"He knew that the president might shut down the investigation ... He came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our country," said Petrillo. He did so not knowing what the result would be, not knowing how the politics would play out," or whether the special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election "would even survive."
As a result, Petrillo said, Cohen and his family have faced public anger and threats.
"This is not a case of standard cooperation," Petrillo said, because the investigation in question is as significant as the Watergate inquiry into President Nixon 40 years ago.
Jeannie Rhee, part of Mueller's prosecution team, told the judge that Cohen "has endeavored to account for his criminal conduct in numerous ways," providing "credible and reliable information about core Russia-related issues under investigation."
Rhee said she could not go into detail about the ongoing Russia investigation, but said Cohen was "helpful" to the inquiry. Cohen, she said, was "careful to note what he knows and what he doesn't know ... Mr. Cohen has sought to tell us the truth, and that is of utmost value to us."
Nicolas Roos, a federal prosecutor in New York, was far more critical of Cohen, saying he "quite brazenly stole millions of dollars in income from the IRS."
Roos urged the judge to give Cohen a significant amount of time in prison, as punishment for having "eroded faith in the electoral process and the rule of law."
The prosecutor urged the judge to send a message with his sentence of Cohen, that "even powerful and privileged individuals cannot violate these laws with impunity."
Pauley had the final say. The judge said Cohen's assistance to the special counsel's office, though useful, did not "wipe the slate clean," and a "significant term" of prison was justified.
In the end, the judge gave Cohen three years for the crimes he committed in New York and two months for lying to Congress, to be served at the same time. He also was told to pay nearly $2 million in fines, forfeitures and restitution. The judge ordered Cohen to begin serving his sentence March 6.
GUILTY PLEAS IN 2 CASES
Cohen's sentencing was unusual because it involved guilty pleas he had made in cases filed by the two prosecutors.
In the case filed by Mueller's office, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the duration of negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, as well as about the extent of Trump's involvement.
Cohen revealed that Trump was more involved in discussions over the potential deal during the election campaign than previously known.
The investigation of Cohen by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan was made public in April when the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room. Agents hauled off eight boxes of documents, about 30 cellphones, iPads and computers, even the contents of a shredder.
Four months later, on Aug. 21, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations, tax evasion and making false statements to a financial institution.
Cohen admitted in court that he had arranged the payments "for the principal purpose of influencing the election" for president in 2016.
The payments included $130,000 to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, which the government considers an illegal donation to Trump's campaign since it was intended to improve Trump's election chances. The legal limit for individual contributions is $2,700 in a general election.
Cohen also admitted he had arranged for an illegal corporate donation to be made to Trump when he orchestrated a $150,000 payment by American Media Inc. to a former Playboy playmate, Karen McDougal, in late summer 2016.
Prosecutors in Manhattan wrote Friday to Pauley that Cohen, in arranging the payments, "acted in coordination with and at the direction" of Trump, whom they referred to as Individual 1.
On Nov. 29, charged by Mueller's office with lying to Congress, Cohen pleaded guilty again.
The two prosecuting offices each wrote to Pauley, offering sharply contrasting portrayals of Cohen.
The Southern District of New York depicted him as deceitful and greedy and unwilling to fully cooperate with its investigation. It said it declined to sign Cohen as a formal cooperator because he refused to discuss fully any crimes in his past or crimes by others that he was aware of -- its policy for witnesses who seek to cooperate.
The Southern District wrote to the judge that Cohen had a "rose-colored view of the seriousness" of his crimes, which they said were "marked by a pattern of deception that permeated his professional life."
Mueller, on the other hand, said Cohen had "gone to significant lengths to assist" the Russia investigation and recommended that he receive some credit for his help.
Separately, federal authorities announced a deal shortly after Cohen's sentencing not to prosecute American Media Inc.
The company admitted its purpose was to suppress the woman's story and prevent it from influencing the election. According to the cooperation agreement with American Media, Cohen and another campaign official met with company Chairman David Pecker about the scheme around August 2015. That official's involvement has not been previously reported.
The prosecutors said they'd previously reached a nonprosecution agreement with American Media about its role in making the payment before the 2016 presidential election.
"As a part of the agreement, [American Media Inc.] admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election," the prosecutors wrote in a statement announcing the deal.
A spokesman for the company declined to comment.
Information for this article was contributed by Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum of The New York Times; by Larry Neumeister, Tom Hays and Jim Mustian of The Associated Press; by Chris Dolmetsch and Gerry Smith of Bloomberg News; and by Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett of The Washington Post.
A Section on 12/13/2018