Michael Cohen ordered back to prison after breaking house arrest

Michael Cohen reporting to prison in 2019: (Reuters)
Michael Cohen reporting to prison in 2019: (Reuters)

Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen has been returned to federal custody after he allegedly violated the terms of his coronavirus-related release to serve the remainder of his sentence at home.

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and campaign finance violations by facilitating hush money payments to women who alleged affairs with the president, which Mr Trump has denied.

He began a three-year sentence late last year but was among nonviolent offenders who were released from prison amid Covid-19 pandemic fears in US detention centres.

Photographs recently published by The New York Post showed Cohen dining at a Manhattan restaurant earlier this month

His sentence is set to expire on 22 November 2021.

Paul Manafort, the president's former campaign manager, was also released from prison in May over coronavirus concerns after serving only a fraction of a seven-year sentence following his convictions on charges related to tax violations and foreign lobbying.

Both men were central to FBI special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into foreign influence in 2016 elections.

The president's former attorney was among his most prominent defenders before he implicated his client in payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.

On behalf of his client, Cohen claims to have paid Ms Daniels $130,000, and he arranged $150,000 to Ms McDougal from the publisher of the National Enquirer in an effort to quash the publication of politically damaging stories that could impact the president's election chances.

Cohen's attorneys wrote that he was an "enabler" for the Trump Organisation and lured by its "magnetic, charismatic and powerful" figurehead.

In a six-page sworn affirmation filed in a US District Court in December, Cohen said that everything he "thought was important and valuable has been painfully revealed as derived" from a "Faustian bargain" in which he cast the president as the Devil, to whom Cohen "sold his soul" and "foolishly frittered away his integrity" on behalf of the president.

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