Michael Cohen's guilty plea in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday drew strong reactions-not just because he implicated the President of the United States in federal crimes, but because there was no clear answer as to why he pleaded guilty to so many offenses.
Well, there's a pretty good possible reason for why Cohen pleaded guilty.
According to the criminal information against Cohen filed by federal prosecutors, Cohen wasn't the only one who signed his name to false documents.
Regarding Counts 1-5 of the information, which dealt with tax evasion, prosecutors said, "Both COHEN and his wife signed a Form 8879 for tax years 2013 through 2016, and filed manually for tax year 2012." It was during those years that Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income to avoid taxes.
Regarding Count 6 of the information, which described providing a false statement to a financial institution, prosecutors said Cohen "Together with his wife, represented a positive net worth of more than $40 million, again omitting the $14 million in medallion debt with Bank-2 and the Credit Union."
For those wondering why the dirt on Trump wasn't worth more, and why Cohen couldn't have used it as leverage to get himself a better deal, I'd say 1) we don't know what kind of sentence prosecutors will recommend and 2) as juicy as it is, in reality it isn't worth a whole lot to prosecutors.
There are a number of reasons why Cohen could have made the decision he did.
https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/here-could-be-the-real-reason-why-cohen-agreed-to-cop-a-plea/
Well, there's a pretty good possible reason for why Cohen pleaded guilty.
According to the criminal information against Cohen filed by federal prosecutors, Cohen wasn't the only one who signed his name to false documents.
Regarding Counts 1-5 of the information, which dealt with tax evasion, prosecutors said, "Both COHEN and his wife signed a Form 8879 for tax years 2013 through 2016, and filed manually for tax year 2012." It was during those years that Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income to avoid taxes.
Regarding Count 6 of the information, which described providing a false statement to a financial institution, prosecutors said Cohen "Together with his wife, represented a positive net worth of more than $40 million, again omitting the $14 million in medallion debt with Bank-2 and the Credit Union."
For those wondering why the dirt on Trump wasn't worth more, and why Cohen couldn't have used it as leverage to get himself a better deal, I'd say 1) we don't know what kind of sentence prosecutors will recommend and 2) as juicy as it is, in reality it isn't worth a whole lot to prosecutors.
There are a number of reasons why Cohen could have made the decision he did.
https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/here-could-be-the-real-reason-why-cohen-agreed-to-cop-a-plea/
No comments:
Post a Comment