NEW YORK – Michael Cohen, the former lawyer to US President Donald Trump, has been given a 36-month prison sentence and ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution.
Cohen had pleaded guilty to multiple crimes, including lying to Congress about a possible Trump business deal in Moscow – and buying the silence during the 2016 presidential campaign of women who alleged affairs with the future president.
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He is the first member of Trump’s inner circle to be jailed over the special counsel’s inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the US election.
He has pleaded guilty to crimes including campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
The hearing in New York City before US District Judge William H. Pauley III began just before 11am local time and Cohen was joined in the courtroom by his wife, daughter and son.
The 52-year-old made a tearful apology during the hearing, but decried what he called a “blind loyalty” to his former boss “that led me to choose a path of darkness over light.”
He told the court his “weakness was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump” and that he “felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds”.
“I take full responsibility for each act that I pled guilty to, the personal ones to me and those involving the president of the United States of America.”
The judge gave Cohen until 6 March to report to jail at the Otisville prison in upstate New York.
