Judge Orders Prosecutors to Release Cohen Documents Tuesday
Judge Orders Prosecutors to Release Cohen Documents on Tuesday
(Bloomberg) -- Prosecutors in New York must release documents related to the FBI’s search of Michael Cohen’s home, office and hotel room, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley issued the order Monday, allowing for personal information such as email addresses, Cohen’s phone number, apartment number and safety deposit number to be blacked out.
Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, is set to report to prison in May to begin a three-year sentence after having pleaded to nine felonies, including tax evasion and violating campaign-finance laws, relating to his role in paying two women to keep quiet about their alleged sexual encounters with Trump, before he became president.
Pauley’s one-paragraph order follows his Feb. 7 ruling that the documents must be disclosed to the public, with redactions to protect ongoing investigations.
"The public interest in the underlying subject matter of the materials -- which implicates the integrity of the 2016 presidential election -- is substantial," Pauley said in the earlier ruling. The judge gave the government until Feb. 28 to file the materials under seal, with proposed redactions for him to review.
At that time, Pauley said the sealed warrant materials identify people who dealt with Cohen in his taxi medallion business, banks to which he made misstatements and firms that paid him consulting fees.
The case is U.S. v. Cohen, 18-cr-00602, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Heather Smith at hsmith26@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider
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