Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen taken into custody after restaurant jaunt
Michael Cohen landed back behind bars Thursday after The Post’s exclusive report on his evening out at a Manhattan restaurant led federal officials to review his release from prison, a source familiar with the matter revealed.
“That dinner caught the eye of those at [the Bureau of Prisons] who feel he was released on furlough only due to the coronavirus situation but is acting like he’s a free man and not out under supervision,” the source said.
“The Post article was a catalyst to take a closer look.”
Cohen, 53, was taken into custody during a meeting with federal probation officials in Lower Manhattan, defense lawyer Jeffrey Levine said.
When asked outside the Manhattan federal courthouse if the Post’s expose led to the move, Levine didn’t dispute it, CNN reported.
“I would leave that to your viewers,” Levine said.
Levine also suggested that “it probably has to do with the optics of everything,” CNN reported.
The stunning development came less than a week after a photograph of President Trump’s former personal lawyer dining out with his wife and another couple at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side was published on Page One of The Post.
“Today, Michael Cohen refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility,” a BOP spokesperson said.
Last week, Levine claimed that Cohen’s July 2 meal at a sidewalk table outside Le Bilboquet, around the corner from his Park Avenue apartment, “did not violate any of the terms and conditions of his release.”
But experts told The Post that the brazen, leisurely dinner — which didn’t end until around 11:30 p.m., as workers were preparing to close the eatery — might be enough to send him back to prison.
Another Cohen defense lawyer, Roger Adler, told The Associated Press that his jailing was an “overly draconian response to what was at worst poor judgment.”
Adler also said that Cohen thought that being on medical furlough “did not prohibit venturing beyond his apartment and dining out.”
A memo issued Thursday by the federal Residential Reentry Management Office in Brooklyn — and shown to reporters outside the Manhattan federal courthouse by Levine — said that Cohen had “failed to agreed to the terms of Federal Location Monitoring.”
The memo said that the “BOP is requesting remand for failure to comply” and authorized his “immediate transfer” to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, “pending further designation.”
Video of Cohen and Levine entering the Manhattan federal courthouse Thursday morning was recorded by MSNBC, which reported that Cohen said he was going inside to sign paperwork and possibly be fitted with an ankle bracelet.
Cohen claimed he would be out in about 30 minutes, but hadn’t emerged two hours later — with his son waiting for him outside, MSNBC said.
A woman who answered a phone listed in the name of Cohen’s wife, Laura, hung up when contacted by The Post.
Cohen is supposed to be serving a three-year sentence for crimes that include tax evasion, bank fraud and lying to Congress, as well as covering up hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.
But the Bureau of Prisons released him due to the coronavirus crisis on May 20 — even though a judge had refused to reduce his sentence for the same reason two months earlier.
“Ten months into his prison term, it’s time that Cohen accept the consequences of his criminal convictions for serious crimes that had far reaching institutional harms,” Manhattan federal Judge William Pauley wrote.