Michael Cohen is probably going to prison for 5 or 6 years after federal prosecutors said that he had continually lied and showed no remorse over the crimes he committed while operating a cab company.
He had asked for no prison time because of all of his cooperation. The good news for Trump is that the federal prosecutors said that Mueller had overstated Cohen’s cooperation. Cohen pleaded guilty to tax and business fraud as well as donating an excessive amount allowed by law. The prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 51 to 63 months.
But they said they could accept the three and a half years suggested by the probation department.
“This range reflects Cohen’s extensive, deliberate, and serious criminal conduct,” prosecutors said in the memo. It added that while Cohen “should receive credit for his assistance” in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, he should still be given a “substantial term of imprisonment, one that reflects a modest downward variance from the applicable guidelines range.”
The filing acknowledged that while Cohen had cooperated with officials and disclosed important information to Mueller’s team, his cooperation was “overstated.”
“To be clear: Cohen does not have a cooperation agreement…and therefore is not properly described as a ‘cooperating witness,’ as that term is commonly used in this District,” the memo read.
The sentencing memo from the Southern District of New York comes just one week after Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about an abandoned Trump real estate project in Moscow as part of Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates in the 2016 presidential election.