24 Jul 2020 12:35 pm
Retaliatory.........Judge Orders Michael Cohen Released, Citing ‘Retaliation’ Over Tell-All Book
When Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s one-time lawyer and fixer, met with probation officers this month to complete paperwork that would have let him serve the balance of his prison term at home, he found a catch.
Mr. Cohen was already out on furlough because of the coronavirus.
But to remain at home, he was asked to sign a document that would have barred him from publishing a book during the rest of his sentence.
Mr. Cohen balked because he was, in fact, writing a book — a tell-all memoir about his former boss, the president.
The officers sent him back to prison.
On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the decision to return Mr. Cohen to custody amounted to retaliation by the government and ordered him to be released again into home confinement. Mr. Cohen is expected back in his Manhattan apartment on Friday.
“I make the finding that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory,” the judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said in court.
“And it’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and to discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and with others.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/nyre ... -book.html