Judge orders Michael Cohen released from prison after DOJ ‘retaliation’ over his Trump book
A federal New York judge ordered Thursday that Michael Cohen must be released from prison because the Department of Justice threw him back behind bars in an act of “retaliation” over his forthcoming tell-all book about President Trump.
In a virtual court hearing, Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the government attempted to curtail the former Trump attorney’s First Amendment rights by pressuring him earlier this month to sign a home confinement agreement that would’ve barred him from publishing the book before November’s election, speaking with journalists or using social media.
“I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release,” Hellerstein said. “Why would the Bureau of Prisons ask for something like this ... unless there was a retaliatory purpose?”
The judge ruled Cohen should be let loose from the prison camp in upstate Otisville by 2 p.m. on Friday after undergoing a COVID-19 screening.
Cohen, 53, was first released from the Otisville lockup in late May to serve out the rest of his three-year sentence in home confinement as part a federal effort to thin out prison populations amid the pandemic.
Judge orders Michael Cohen released from prison after DOJ ‘retaliation’ over his Trump book
It's not an administration; it's organized crime.
A federal New York judge ordered Thursday that Michael Cohen must be released from prison because the Department of Justice threw him back behind bars in an act of “retaliation” over his forthcoming tell-all book about President Trump.
In a virtual court hearing, Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the government attempted to curtail the former Trump attorney’s First Amendment rights by pressuring him earlier this month to sign a home confinement agreement that would’ve barred him from publishing the book before November’s election, speaking with journalists or using social media.
“I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release,” Hellerstein said. “Why would the Bureau of Prisons ask for something like this ... unless there was a retaliatory purpose?”
The judge ruled Cohen should be let loose from the prison camp in upstate Otisville by 2 p.m. on Friday after undergoing a COVID-19 screening.
Cohen, 53, was first released from the Otisville lockup in late May to serve out the rest of his three-year sentence in home confinement as part a federal effort to thin out prison populations amid the pandemic.
Judge orders Michael Cohen released from prison after DOJ ‘retaliation’ over his Trump book
It's not an administration; it's organized crime.
