NEW YORK , Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen won’t be charged any legal fees by the company. Cohen became a vocal critic and was sent to prison for pleading guilty tax and other crimes.
Judge Joel M. Cohen dismissed Cohen’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against Trump Organization. He rejected Cohen’s claims that the company had promised that it would cover his legal expenses and found that he was responsible for the fees incurred as a result the criminal investigation into Trump’s conduct.
In the March 2019 lawsuit, Michael Cohen claimed that Trump Organization owed him $1.9 million to cover his defense costs. In his ruling, the judge pointed out that Trump’s company paid some of Cohen’s bills after the lawsuit was filed.
In his decision, the judge stated that Mr. Cohen’s legal expenses stem from his (sometimes illegal) service to Donald Trump personally, to his campaign and to the Trump Foundation. However, he was not a defendant in the case for his business with the Trump Organization.
The judge and Michael Cohen are not related.
Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen’s lawyer, posted that the decision was unfair and requested contributions to a GoFundMe account set up in 2018 for Cohen’s legal defense. The page has so far raised over $217,000.
The Trump Organization released a statement describing the ruling as “incredible victory” while stating that it would seek “monetary damages against Mr. Cohen to pay for his deplorable conduct.”
“Mr. Cohen tried to invent a way to require the Trump Organization pay his legal fees for personal crime conduct (including perjury),” said the company. “Mr. Cohen’s efforts at self-enrichment have failed again.
Cohen claimed that the Trump Organization stopped paying him his legal fees after he started cooperating with federal prosecutors during investigations into Trump’s Russian business dealings and attempts to silence women by telling embarrassing stories about his private life.
According to the lawsuit, Cohen’s legal defense costs were stopped by the company two months after an FBI raid of Cohen’s office and home. According to the lawsuit, Cohen was discussing privately with family members and friends that he was contemplating cooperating with Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors from New York around the time he was raided by FBI agents.
Cohen pleaded guilty to tax crimes, lying before Congress, and campaign finance violations in August 2018. Some of these included his involvement in arranging payments to two women to prevent them talking about Trump’s alleged affairs.
Cohen spent about a year in jail before being released to home confinement to stop the spread COVID-19 in federal prisons. He’s been keeping track of the days until his home confinement ends on social media. He posted that he had nine days left as of Friday.
Cohen sued to claim that Trump’s company had agreed to insure him for work related to his company. It claimed that the Trump Organization had initially kept its word and paid Cohen’s legal fees for more than $1.7million.
Cohen sued for $1.9million in legal fees. He was also ordered to forfeit $1.9million as part of his sentence. Cohen claimed that Cohen’s actions were motivated by the Trump Organization and its principals and directors.
Cohen was Trump’s closest advisor and lawyer for 10 years until 2018. Cohen was a close adviser to Trump’s lawyers for a decade, until the public split in 2018.
