President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen filed a petition on Monday saying that he deserves early release from home confinement.
In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, Cohen claims that he “could be eligible for release in a matter of weeks or months” under the bipartisan First Step Act, a prison reform bill signed into law in 2018 by the president.
He argues that he has earned time credits under the sweeping act, which encourages inmates to participate in programs aimed at reducing recidivism.
Cohen is currently serving a three-year sentence for campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and lying to Congress.
Cohen said he was told in a letter from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons last week that he is “not entitled to any credits for his work performed at FCI Otisville,” where he served more than a year.
“This absurd response by the government is nothing more than a stonewall tactic,” Cohen wrote in the suit. It’s possible, he added, “that he has already served well past his release date.”
“This ‘calculation’ is nothing more than another delay tactic, as it goes against the plain language of the statute, as Petitioner is absolutely entitled to credit under the act,” Cohen’s petition states.
“Depending on the Bureau of Prisons’ calculations, Petitioner could be eligible for release in a matter of weeks or months, making the harm suffered by Petitioner—incarceration past his release date—near immeasurable and potentially immediate,” it continues.
The Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.
Late July, Cohen and federal prosecutors reached an agreement that allowed Trump’s former personal attorney to write his book “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” speak to the media, and use social media during the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.
Cohen’s memoir, released in September, has been described by the White House as “fan fiction.”
