Criminal law

Michael Cohen Wins Release Under Pandemic Order
images-1 The pandemic has cost many thousands of lives, millions of jobs, and destroyed the global economy. However, there are some who are pandemic beneficiaries and Michael Cohen can now call himself among them.  The former fixer (and now sworn enemy) of President Donald Trump will be released early from a federal prison in New York to serve the remainder of this three-year sentence as a true one percenter.  For a lawyer who bragged of his special treatment and special access, he is finally serving his sentence in his signature style.  His case also raises an interesting dynamic for the sudden plea agreements for Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli.

Cohen, 53 will now have to do his hard time in his luxury apartment in Manhattan, where he can work on his tell-all book against Trump.

Cohen has run cons his entire career. He claimed urgent medical needs for release from prison. Of course, he previously claimed health problems in failing to appear to testify only to be spotted out on the town for a fancy dinner. Cohen previously (and implausibly) reinvented himself as a redemptive sinner and received financial support from Trump critics.  He is apparently getting support from Rosie O’Donnell.

He is not alone. Former Trump campaign chair, Paul Manafort, was released earlier to his own golden cage.

The fact is that the Bureau of Prisons has been releasing thousands and it would have been troubling to make an exception for Cohen. The President clearly would prefer Cohen to remain in jail but he has a right to be treated the same as other prisoners who meet the criteria.  Indeed, there were concerns over the delay in the release.  Dozens of federal inmates have died of the virus and a dozen inmates tested positive at Cohen’s prison in Otisville, N.Y.

Despite the correctness of the decision, the release will not sit well with many who felt that Cohen got off lightly given his unlawful record.  Yet, good things often happen for bad people. Cohen, who spent his career as a legal thug, may have few ethics but he has shown a knack for being, in this circumstance, at the right place at the wrong time.

Now to another set of potential beneficiaries: Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli.  These are short sentences and the BOP just expanded releases to inmates who have not served half of their sentences. It may actually serve them to get a quick sentence under the new BOP policy-and before a vaccine is developed. They could become eligible as non-violent inmates to serve their sentences at home. It is not clear if this factored into the decision or whether there is a side agreement with the prosecutors not to oppose such a motion.  However, they would need to move before a vaccine comes available by the end of the year or early 2021 to best take advantage of such an option.  This is a good time to plead guilty to a non-violent federal offense.  You just might be able to plead guilty to a federal crime and avoid ever seeing the inside of a federal prison.

64 thoughts on “Michael Cohen Wins Release Under Pandemic Order”

  1. No wonder this evil ahole Harvard Trained Idiot, Alan Dershowitz, wants to take away our 2md, he wants to help jab a needles in our bodies that contain one of the worst Bio-Weapons Ever!

    I see in this video here he’s clean up his words the last few days, but even here he’s threaten harm, even up to death, for supporting evil crap!!

    (There’s no way in hell vaccine mfg’s should have the current unconstitutional govt liability protection from Harmful vaxxes they have been producing!”)

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/aint-gonna-happen-alan-dershowitz-americans-can-forced-take-coronavirus-vaccine-video/

    Anyway, where were we, so some white guys were trying to protect their neighborhood & one known hoodrat got shot.

    Mind you Dershowitz was hanging out with that POS Jerrfy Epstein & all those kids…..

    1. As we are all under direct violent attack by Dr Fauci/Bill Gates/Big Pharma/etc…. their Wuhan Flu Bio Weapon, That Creep Alan Dershowitz tells us, even though it’s illegal, that we should allow them/govt’s to violently Attack us/even Kill us.

      Below is good up past 17 minutes… HyDx, Zinc, etc….

      https://banned.video/watch?id=5ec45cfd244ac5001d2cc480

    2. I don’t know why people would be on guard, in fear for their Lives from Hoodrats, Islamic Pedo Wacko’s, Big Pharma & their Lawyer Hoodrats? Sarc Off.

      No doubt this first piece of crap was attending night school to be a brain surgeon:

      https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/just-black-man-caught-video-beating-elderly-white-nursing-home-patients-arrested-judicial-watch-alerts-authorities/

      Islamic Pedo Trash:

      https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/breaking-fbi-now-investigating-shooting-arab-male-corpus-christi-naval-air-force-base-suspect-neutralized/

      cont.

  4. The only reason anyone is talking about hydroxyhloroquine is because Trump declared it to be a “game-changer”, and then made his usual qualification/non-qualification comment like “we’ll see”. Then, doctors started reporting that hydroxychloroquine is not harmless, that it is not indicated for use either prophylactically or as a treatment for COVID-19, and that it should not be prescribed until or unless there is valid scientific testing to prove it is both safe and effective for COVID-19.

    That should be “nuff sed”, but Trumpy Bear is not, and can never be, wrong, so he and Fox News keep touting it, keep disputing studies and anecdotal reports that it not only doesn’t work, outcomes are worse. Trump keeps asking rhetorically: “what do you have to lose”? Your life, maybe, if you get an arrhythmia. But, Trump can’t let it go because he is a malignant narcissist and can never be wrong. He bullied his doctor into prescribing it, and he bullies the doctors at the CDC, too, to try to prevent them from making recommendations that would put the brakes on opening things up again too quickly. There is literally no limit to his arrogance and narcissism. He thinks he can bully the economy to open again because he has nothing to brag about.

  5. Funny, isn’t it, that only the medical portion of Trumpy’s military records are missing. Also funny is the fact that daughters of the podiatrist tenant of Fred Drumpft (Daddy Trump) told the story for years that Daddy Trump asked for a favor in the form of coming up with a condition that would exempt little Donnie from military service. Equally strange is the fact that when Trump has been interviewed he claims he doesn’t recall what medical problem exempted him from service. There is no record of any treatment for these bone spurs, either. No one disputes that bone spurs could be disabling, but did this alleged condition ever prevent Trumpy Bear from playing golf or doing anything else? Nope.

    1. Since Obama had to show a birth certificate to prove he was born in the USA, maybe Trump should show his X-rays of his foot. Maybe we can see those x-rays after he shows us his tax returns.

      1. O vomits birth cert was likely forged ,as he was the biggest phony / lying anti American POS excuse for a President in our history , I guess the Prez could come up with whatever “X” ray that would help capitulate this libtarded Anti USA democrap civil war juggernaut that seems inevitable , TRUMP 2020

      1. She fancies that a medical professional would remember, decades after the fact, a routine appointment he had for an unremarkable problem and would spill his guts to his daughters about his patients by name. Conveniently, the physician in question is dead.

        She still hasn’t answered Paul’s question about her GRE scores or her BMI.

  6. MIchael Cohen released. Democrats and their allies get Get Out of Jail Free cards. Hong Kong protestors vanish. China gets the attention of, prunes and buffs-up its population, and gives the world notice of its ascendance. The gift that never stops giving to communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs):

    The Deliberate China Election-Year Release of COVID-19 to Preclude the Impending Trump Landslide Victory and Establish China as

    the Sole Global Hegemon.

    2. George

      Sounds like you aren’t aware of the evidence that the U.S. military released COVID-19 while a large group of them were in Wuhan for an international athletic event. Curiously, the U.S. won none of the competitions – well, maybe one. Suggesting the athletes were more “athletic” than athletic.

      Whenever Trump makes a claim, trust if you’re so inclined – but verify, before you accept that it’s true.

      1. MY CARD SIR:

        I am somewhat of a bull—–er myself, but, occasionally, I like to listen to a professional.

        PLEASE CARRY ON!

        1. george
          thanks – you actually gave the best response to your special interest in disinformation when you quoted that fountain of truth – bill casey:
          We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

          – William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987

          1. Thanks for reading.

            Thanks for your communist spin which is irrefutably erroneous. Follow the money. Follow the benefit. China and global and American communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs), desperate in their act of last resort and in the face of an historic landslide victory by President Trump in November, benefit from the potential deleterious effects on the Trump campaign. Trump derives no benefit from the deaths of people and the death of the national economy. Communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) by contrast, have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Were the perpetrators to have actually been a rogue element within the Army, again, it would have been a special ops unit of the Deep Deep State (i.e. communists). Globalist power seekers and destroyers of individual freedom are collectivists and, more precisely, communists.

            Thanks so much. Next soft ball?

      2. “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

        – William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987

      3. He’s not aware of ‘the evidence’ because it doesn’t exist.

  7. Reporter to Trump: “Mr. President, with 4 percent of the world’s population and 30 percent of the — of the outbreak, what would you have done differently facing this crisis?”
    Trump: “Well, nothing.” And then proceeds to deflect from what could have been done differently.

    Shame on Trump. Tens of thousands dead, many more with their long-term health and/or financial situation harmed, but he can’t bring himself to identify even 1 thing that he would have done differently to reduce the harm.

    If I didn’t see evidence of it daily, it would be hard for me to imagine someone who goes to such ends to protect his ego.

    1. And his a cult that is also sworn to protect his ego.

      See hurricaine maps.

      See Hydrochloroquine.

      This is Kim Il Jung territory. The Dear Leader can NEVER MAKE A MISTAKE. FORBIDDEN!!

      1. Some people say that in North Korea they are throwing out pictures of the Kim family and hanging pictures of Trump as their new Dear Leader. They think Trump is better at BS than the Kim dynasty.

      2. You’re taking the incompetent Wapoo too seriously about hcq. There are no double blind placebo controlled studies that disprove it as an effectual prophylaxis for pre-exposure or early exposure to the sars cov 2 virus.

        The “studies” have been less complete and lower quality than the gold standard of proof, again, which is a validly designed, double blind placebo controlled study. This is called “peer review” and I have found it from qualified scientists and physicians. The opinions of journalists are not “peer review” because they are not scientific peers. Science does not render a clear verdict all at once, it emerges through repetition and experimentation and qualified criticism.
        ‘
        now perhaps you doubt me. If you think there is a double blinded placebo controlled study of hcq, not on patients who are already half dead, which were like testing an air bag on someone who was already in an accident– duh, that was never the claim in the first place– but in the pre-exposure and post exposure early prophylaxis, then post the links.

        1. “There are no double blind placebo controlled studies that disprove prove it as an effectual prophylaxis for pre-exposure or early exposure to the sars cov 2 virus.”

          FIFY.

          1. You’re being cutesy there. The point is, doctors are using it, a lot of them, there is anecdotal evidence that it works as an early stage prophylaxis, coming in global-wide.

            and the studies the were touted by wapoo and co. were a lot less than they were cracked up to be. the VA “study” was an after the fact comparison of a bunch of charts, not a double blind placebo controlled experiment, and it was not peer reviewed, before the press hopped on it and made more of it than they should have.

            so you obviously don’t have a peer reviewed publication of a valid study, or I guess, Commit, that you would have produced it. thanks

            PS editorial letters about how awful it surely must be, are not studies

            I’m not on HCQ but I’ll hold off on a conclusion until I see some more thorough “Science,” which actually does include a valid test design and execution. and peer review!

            1. No, I’m not being “cutesy.” It shouldn’t be advocated so widely before any double blind placebo controlled study has shown its efficacy.

              “you obviously don’t have a peer reviewed publication of a valid study, or I guess, Commit, that you would have produced it.”

              I generally only produce things for my own claims, not because someone else expects me to search on their behalf.

              1. I dont need a search. Book was the one saying HCQ was fake. I said prove it.

                Now there’s not just a considerable amount of anecdotal, there is some systematic study. Not yet a full double blind placebo controlled test, and why not yet? We should have one. I can’t organize it. I have an open mind.. But some systematic study cuts in favor of it such as this:

                https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1

                Triple-drug combo of anti-malaria pill hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and ZINC improved coronavirus patients’ chances of being discharged and cut death risk by almost 50%, study finds (NYU Grossman School of Medicine)

                you guys are liars if you say HCQ + zinc = zpac has been debunked as a prophylaxis. It has not. The press is lying all the time about this. Lying fake news and you fools either believe them or perhaps don’t care about saving lives yourselves. You say this about Trump that he is a liar and doesnt care every day and yet this pattern of misrepresentation of the medical literature reveals the reality.,

                Wapoo is the worst offender by the way.

                1. Again: if you ever think that I’ve said something false, just quote it and give me evidence it’s false, and I’ll gladly admit I was wrong.

                  1. Committed:

                    “Again: if you ever think that I’ve said something false, just quote it and give me evidence it’s false, and I’ll gladly admit I was wrong.”
                    *********************

                    Loving the “Catch Me If You Can” mentality. Hahahaha

                    1. Frank Abernathy was right again about a 1 1/2-2 years ago regarding the, my words, mark of the breast IDs. It’s here now, in India, tested, & coming here

                    2. LOL.

                      If I discover on my own that I’ve said something false, I note that myself. I did it earlier today. (Let me know if you want a link to where I did it.) I try to avoid saying false things in the first place, but if I realize that I did — whether on my own or because someone else correctly points it out — I own the error. If everyone here were committed to being truthful, that would be a big improvement.

    2. “Shame on Trump.”

      Shame on the Democrats for focusing on a phony Russia and Ukraine hoax, on impeachment and the next election doing little to prevent the spread of Covid. Shame on you for buying into such nonesense. We don’t know why outside of China the worst hit countries appear to be western nations including Singapore, perhaps in similar latitudes and with so many other variables to be considered. One variable that explains some of the worst hit might be Chinese travellers and then other travellers that contracted the Chinese virus.

      That would hit western Europe, Singapore and the US hard and that is where the highest death rates seem to be. Did Democrats provide any ideas? Maybe a few scattered inconsistent ones but they were for the most part reactionary and stated to “make trouble” for Trump just like Harry Litman proposed (see earlier blog). Of the nations hit hardest one might assume from CTHD’s analysis that the US did poorly in comparison. It didn’t, but it seems that dumping on Trump is more important to the one comitted to honest discussion than the facts.

      Let me add that if one forgets about the different ways of reporting and enterring data the US fared pretty well compared to Western Europe and Singapore. That would point to Trump doing a lot of right and CTHD being quite wrong.

    3. Obviously he should have cut all flights from all foreign destinations including Europe. China yes but Europe too. That would have made a big difference. Time will tell of other things that we may be able to nitpick in hindsight.

      But it’s not his style to admit errors and considering the constant phony criticisms I guess I can cut him slack for not giving a self deprecating answer. I didn’t vote for him so he could apologize to the media, i was hoping he would show the error of their ways instead. Among other things. That’s my viewpoint at least.

  9. So Trump supporters are upset that a lawyer that worked on the behalf of DJT, and went to jail because of DTJ is out of jail. And a paid foreign agent of Turkey that was planning to kidnap an American on behalf of Turkey, and was cutting side deals telling Russia not to worry about sanctions that our country put in place because they were interfering with our elections, supporters say should be free as a bird. Didn’t they both work for Trump?

  10. Turley says: “Cohen has run cons his entire career. He claimed urgent medical needs for release from prison.” Trump has run cons his entire life, and he escaped from military service by faking bone spurs. Turley states: “Despite the correctness of the decision, the release will not sit well with many who felt that Cohen got off lightly given his unlawful record.” Trump refused to cooperate with either the Mueller or House investigations, and therefore escaped prosecution. Did these ironies escape you? Birds of a feather.

      1. Since Obama had to show a birth certificate to prove that he was born in USA, maybe Trump should show his X-rays of his foot. And I can bet the farm he won’t.

  11. When aspect of his qualifying for release is that he has earned good time of approximately 160 days. Please explain how one who has served less than a year of his sentence can earn so much good behavior time. If this is a correct calculation, it means that a sentence of three years is in-reality a term of 18 months.

    1. In New York, you earn 1 day for each day you serve beyond your minimum sentence, so (without recorded infractions), they generally have to release you 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through your maximum sentence. The thing is, though current practice allows them to strip you of good behavior time for arbitrary reasons. We had a friend whose son served a full 14 years sentence rather than the 10.5 years he was due because corrections department authorities insisted that he had to participate in some social work / therapy program to be deemed to be in ‘good behavior’. Since the program required you sign a confession (and he maintained he was wrongfully convicted) he declined to attend. Cost him 3.5 years. Much about the criminal justice system is shameful.

  12. He is 52 and does not have a high BMI. This is not right.

  13. Spring em. It’s springtime. There is an old song out there titled Springtime For Hitler in Germany! Autumn for Poland and France!

    So it’s Autumn for Trump.

  14. everyone has lost a large measure of faith in the efficacy of incarceration as punishment for crime. me too!

    we need to bring back flogging. or, caning, as practiced in Singapore, one of the most desirable locations in the world for productive and law abiding people to reside.

    1. The cane, the birch, and the pillory may be appropriate as punishments for minor crimes committed by the young. I’d be very chary about using them on a person of Cohen’s age or an offender on his scale. For white collar crime, incarceration (without any club fed amenities) conjoined to restitution or forfeiture should be the order of the day.

      1. a proper legislature could work out appropriate criminal penalties with prudence.

        but don’t hold your breath for a lot of good legislatures to suddenly take shape

        and then the article III blackrobed tyrants like “Sullivan” would scotch it anyways

        1. Legislators are slobs who play footsie with each other and accomplish very little. That’s true at all levels, though the U.S. Senate is the worst of the worst.

    2. No, people who don’t want to punish others have ‘lost faith’ in incarceration. It’s a pose.

      1. incarceration is a band aid for a lot of festering, purulent social problems that actually call for an amputation

        1. incarceration is a band aid for a lot of festering, purulent social problems that actually call for an amputation

          No, it’s part and parcel of containing aspects of the human condition. There is no solution. There is merely better security or worse security.

  15. I”m posilutely, abstitively, unequiquocally, un ceremonoiusly certain that the name Cohen had nothing whatsosomething to do with his early release. Fifty years from now relatives will claim descendancy of a COVID “DEATH CHAMBER SURVIVOR and be seeking “compensation” from the USA, and off course.China!

  16. “Cohen has run cons his entire career.”

    Yes, JT and many of them for the President

    I don’t know how our poor leader is constantly being helped by these thugs. Can’t they leave him alone!

    1. re: don’t know “how our poor leader is constantly being helped by these thugs.”.. My concern is from the opposite perspective – that is how “poor leader” allows himself to be associated with such ( ) in the first place. Understand a need for a “fixer” but for heaven’s sake … character matters..

    1. Nope. What’s disconcerting about Madoff’s scams is that our single best guess is they were carried off by fewer than 10 people and ran on for 40 years. One of the perpetrators was a woman he hired in 1968. She said she did precisely the same things for him for the entire time she worked for him. The original Ponzi scheme back in 1922 collapsed after less than a year, and pyramid schemes generally don’t last long. It’s amazing he could keep it up for as long as he did and fool a boatload of financial professionals in the process. Fooling the SEC seems to have been a piece of cake, I suspect because their salient personnel (including the woman Harry Markoplolous talked to in 2004) are lawyers who are largely innumerate. Markopolous later said he’d talked to a number of men who ran equity trading desks who told him Madoff’s operation was fraudulent, but they hadn’t attempted to trigger an investigation. Markopolous made two attempts and got nowhere.

      1. The SEC has nowhere near the resources they need. Nor does any state regulator.

        Moreover, they have no police powers. For fraud operators who have crossed the line into active criminality, they are not a big worry. FBI should be working harder at white collar crimes and less hard at taking political scalps like General Flynn.

        1. It wasn’t for ‘lack of resources’ that that bimbo securities lawyer listened to Markoplous and then did nothing. It was incompetence and bad judgment.

          1. I have seen enough frauds in my practice to know a thing or two about them. And yes, the
            the SEC is lacking in resources. And so are the state regulators. They are all mostly just going through the motions and faking it to keep up appearances. Frauds who have embraced criminality do not fear them at all.

            I could give them an assignment if they aren’t busy enough. Scratch the surface of some of the “promising early vaccine results” of the past month and see if they were bogus pump and dump stunts. No names mentioned!

            Fraud cases are difficult. Hard work compared to the usual stuff. Both for paper-watchers like the SEC and FBI agents to investigate and DOJ lawyers to prosecute. Even slam dunk cases can generate a massive fight in sentencing.

            Of course fraud takes on a lot of forms. Political fraud is the hardest to prove and you can see how when the press shoves manure in front of people’s faces, at least 40% of people think they are smelling roses.

            I would like for example to see any of the liars in the press or this web page to show me a valid double blinded placebo controlled study of hydroxychloroquinone with zpac and zinc, which demonstrates to a degree of statistical signficance, that the therapies are not efficacious in either pre-exposure or post-exposure prophylaxis.

            I won’t hold my breath because there are none. they could have easily been done by now but all we have are some lower quality “studies” that were had flawed and incompetent design from the start. Which in spite of their low quality, and the empirical evidence coming in from around the globe, the press has jumped on hcq as “dangerous” which is false. This is fake news and it’s on a tear this month.

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