Michael Cohen set to begin serving sentence at cushy prison

Former President Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is scheduled to check in Monday at a federal lockup in Otisville, NY, where he will begin serving a three-year stint for crimes including campaign finance violations tied to hush-money payments made on Trump’s behalf.

Cohen, 53, who once vowed to “take a bullet” for Trump, whom he now calls a “con man,” will step inside the medium-security Federal Correctional Facility Otisville, in the Catskills about 70 miles from Manhattan, by his 2 p.m. deadline.

The president’s former “fixer” was originally scheduled to start his sentence in March, but a judge granted him a two-month delay so he could recover from surgery and get his affairs in order before entering a cushy minimum-security prison camp at Otisville.

Cohen is the only person charged with a crime involving the hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom allegedly had affairs with Trump. The president has denied the affairs.

This disbarred lawyer also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a Trump Tower project in Moscow, as well as to charges of tax evasion and bank fraud.

Once he gets to prison, he will undergo medical and mental health screenings and be assigned a job, such as mowing the grounds, emptying the garbage or cleaning up the visiting room.

Cohen will be housed in dorm-like accommodations at the camp, which prison consultants say has become a destination for Jewish inmates due to its proximity to the Big Apple’s Jewish and upstate’s Orthodox Jewish enclaves.

“He’s going to what I like to refer to as ‘Jewish heaven,’” Larry Levine, founder of Wall Street Prison Consultants, who served a 10-year sentence for racketeering and other crimes, told Reuters.

Jack Donson, a former manager at the prison who now runs a prison consulting firm, said the facility is “a great place for white-collar Jewish guys.”

Unlike most federal penitentiaries, which use part-time “contract rabbis,” Otisville has a full-time rabbi, Levine told Reuters.

Another thing that sets Otisville apart is the grub.

“The availability for kosher food is much greater,” said Michael Frantz, another former inmate, who founded Jail Time Consulting.

The commissary menu on the prison’s website advertises matzo ball soup, gefilte fish and rugelach pastries. Kosher items are marked throughout with the letter K.

Forbes once ranked Otisville as one of “America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons,” but former employees and inmates say it’s hardly “Club Fed.”

“There’s no free time to work on your book, or whatever,” said former staffer Don Drewett. “You get your downtime when you’re supposed to be sleeping or when you can exercise, but that only happens at certain windows of the day. It’s not where in the middle of the day you can just opt to not go to work and go work out. That’s not the way that works.”

Cohen’s fellow inmates will include “Jersey Shore” star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, who is serving eight months for tax fraud, and Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland, who’s serving a six-year sentence.

But Cohen’s particular celebrity could make his experience different from the other high-profile inmates.

“There will certainly be some prisoners who will be enamored by his status, being the former personal lawyer to the president of the United States,” said Justin Paperny, a former inmate whose consulting firm White Collar Advice has clients at the camp.

With Post Wires

Source: Read Full Article