#Judge rules Michael Cohen should be released to home confinement

Enlarge Image

Michael Cohen arrives at his Manhattan apartment in New York after being furloughed from prison in May
AP

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that Michael Cohen should be released to home confinement from federal prison, after agreeing that authorities sought to limit his right to free speech by blocking him from writing a tell-all book about President Trump.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a Manhattan federal court hearing that he believes the Bureau of Prisons and US Probation Office retaliated against Cohen by transferring to jail from home confinement earlier this month.

Hellerstein added that federal authorities specifically sought to infringe on Cohen’s First Amendment rights by blocking him from writing a tell-all book and speaking to the media as part of his terms of home confinement.

“It’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and discuss the book … on social media,” Hellerstein said.

Cohen will be sprung from federal lockup in Otisville by 2 p.m. Friday after taking a coronavirus test, Hellerstein said. His son is expected to drive him from the facility to his apartment in Midtown.

Cohen had been serving a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion, bank fraud, and lying to Congress, but was released on furlough in May after one year due to concerns over the spread of coronavirus in his prison.

He was brought back into custody this month at a meeting with US Probation officials and BOP authorities set up to establish provisions of his home confinement agreement.

The meeting was set up about a week after an exclusive Post report that included photos of the former fixer dining out near his apartment in Manhattan.

Judge Hellerstein said at Thursday’s hearing that the Post article likely contributed to the retaliatory measures imposed on Cohen.

“All of a sudden, when the New York Post article comes out and the Bureau of Prisons finds out Cohen is writing a book … he’s imposed with conditions,” Hellerstein said.

Cohen, who is being held in Otisville prison, had claimed he was brought into custody on July 9 because he objected to one term of a home confinement agreement that barred him from publishing a book and having contact with the media.

He filed a suit against Attorney General Bill Barr and the Bureau of Prisons after being remanded into custody, claiming the provision blocked his First Amendment rights to free speech.

In agreeing with Cohen’s claim, Hellerstein said he had never seen a home confinement agreement in his more than 20 years on the bench that blocked someone from writing a book.

“How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?” Hellerstein said at the hearing.

In a court filing Wednesday, prosecutors argued the officials who drafted his home confinement agreement had no clue he was writing a book — and only rearrested Cohen after he’d refused the terms to his home confinement.

“While I was aware that Cohen was a high-profile inmate, at the time I drafted the … Agreement I was not aware that Cohen was writing a book. I drafted the … Agreement without input from the BOP or anyone in the executive branch,” Probation Officer Specialist Adam Pakular wrote in court papers.