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Law360, New York (March 17, 2020, 6:08 PM EDT ) President Donald Trump's incarcerated former lawyer Michael Cohen criticized his former boss' response to the coronavirus pandemic Tuesday in a letter to a Manhattan federal judge that also asks for early release from prison.
The letter to U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III comes as part of Cohen's ongoing effort to get out of prison early. The 53-year-old former staunch ally of the Republican president is incarcerated at an upstate New York federal facility with a 2021 release date after being sentenced by Judge Pauley in 2018 to three years.
Cohen was sentenced for a "smorgasbord" of crimes, including paying off two women who said they had affairs with the president, lying to Congress about Russia and dodging taxes on $4.1 million of income. In his effort to leave prison, Cohen has already cited what he describes as extensive cooperation with the authorities in their investigations of the president — a contention prosecutors have rejected.
Tuesday's letter, written by Cohen lawyer Roger Adler, asks Judge Pauley to "consider my client's exposure to the coronavirus," arguing that inmates are "obliged to live in close quarters and are at an enhanced risk."
The letter doesn't specify any difference between Cohen and other federal inmates in relation to the outbreak of the virus that causes COVID-19, which as of Tuesday had infected more than 5,000 Americans — a number that is widely expected to rise sharply in coming days and weeks.
But the letter did go out of its way to criticize the president, who has come under fire from many quarters over his response to the burgeoning health crisis.
"In the absence of presidential leadership, judges should act thoughtfully and decisively," Cohen's letter said.
Trump has taken criticism for disbanding a White House team tasked with addressing global epidemic threats and for initially dismissing the coronavirus threat as a "hoax" in late February.
More recently, Trump has appeared to take the threat more seriously, weighing in on preventive steps Americans should take as well as working on ramping up testing and planning a potentially large economic stimulus package to combat damage to markets.
A request for comment from the White House was not immediately returned.
In an email to Law360, Adler said Cohen "finds himself at the same risk as every other 'guest' of the Bureau of Prisons."
"It is both understaffed, undertrained, and unschooled in following coronavirus protocols," Adler said of the BOP. "For too long federal judges have been told that the [bureau] is up to every conceivable medical challenge."
Prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office were expected to address Cohen's filings with Judge Pauley, as they have with his other letters.
Cohen is represented by Michael Monico of Monico & Spevack, Lanny Davis of Davis Goldberg & Galper PLLC and Roger Adler.
The government is represented by Thomas McKay, Nicolas Roos and Andrea Griswold of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
The case is USA v. Cohen, case number 1:18-cr-00602, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
--Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
