Michael Cohen could have faced up to 15 years in prison for stealing $60K from Trump: experts
Michael Cohen could have faced up to 15 years in prison if he’d been charged and convicted of stealing from his former longtime boss Donald Trump — as he admitted to doing in his testimony Monday, legal experts said.
Cohen, 57, told jurors in the hush money trial against the former president, that he stole $60,000 from the Trump Organization after overstating how much he needed to be repaid for fronting funds to a poll-rigging tech company called Red Finch.
He also acknowledged, during the cross-examination by Trump attorney Todd Blanche, that he never had to plead guilty to larceny, despite telling multiple prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office about the incident.
Cohen could have been charged with second-degree grand larceny for stealing an amount over $50,000. A class C felony, the charge carries a sentence ranging from probation to as much as 15 years behind bars.
But “practically speaking this would never get prosecuted unless Donald Trump cooperated” said Jeremy Saland, a criminal defense attorney and former Manhattan prosecutor.
The five-year statute of limitations for grand larceny has since expired, but Michael Bachner, another former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, said it was still effective for Trump’s defense to get Cohen to admit to pilfering from his longtime former employer.
Blanche did a “good job” of demonstrating “that not only is [Cohen] a liar and a thief but he’s motivated by money in everything that he does. They are trying to demonstrate that he is always trying to monetize his relationship with Donald Trump,” Bachner, a seasoned criminal defense attorney, said.
“In one way [Cohen is] trying to take [Trump’s] money, in another, he’s trying to take his freedom,” Bachner told The Post.
Cohen testified that he gave a brown paper bagged stuffed with $20,000 worth of cash to the Red Finch CEO in exchange for alleged services including rigging 2016 election polls in then-candidate Trump’s favor.
When then-Trump Org finance chief Allen Weisselberg asked Cohen if he needed a $50,000 reimbursement for fronting the cash, Cohen went along with it and was paid $60,000 in income to account for the taxes that would be withdrawn from the amount, he testified.
“You did steal from the Trump Organization based on the expected reimbursement from Red Finch, correct?” Blanche, his voice rising to a high pitch, asked Cohen.
“Yes, sir,” Cohen calmly replied.
Cohen also admitted he never returned the money to the Trump Org.
Saland said Trump wouldn’t likely agree to work with prosecutors in a case against Cohen for the theft because “it would expose him to what appears to be misconduct” as it would require him coming clean about the fact he was paying Red Finch for alleged shady favors.
But he agreed Cohen’s confession was “another data point that we have a lying, conniving, stealing, jerk of a witness that a jury shouldn’t trust or like.”
During several days on the stand, Cohen — the star prosecution witness — admitted to a slew of lies and misdeeds and also told jurors about his previous convictions.
He served prison time after taking two guilty pleas in 2018 in federal cases for tax evasion, making false statements to a bank, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. Cohen, who was freed in November 2021, was disbarred because of those convictions.
“This type of information has a cumulative effect,” Bachner said.
“Eventually a jury could feel this is the straw that broke the camel’s back” and they might chose not to believe any of Cohen’s testimony, he said.
“I think the evidence is there to convict [Trump] if they believe Michael Cohen,” Bachner added.
Prosecutors claim Trump falsified business records by trying to cover-up that he had Cohen pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the lead up to the 2016 election to keep her quiet about her claim she once slept with the real estate tycoon.
Trump, 77, denies the charges and has maintained that the DA’s case rests on the word of Cohen, an ex-con admitted liar.
