Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney, has been moved to solitary confinement after failing to win early release from federal prison due to the spread of COVID-19.
Cohen had a verbal altercation with another inmate, which precipitated the move, his attorney told NBC News.
"At a time when the Coronavirus rages, and (New York) leads the world in deaths, it is my hope that the (Bureau of Prisons) will begin a targeted initiative to test inmates, and release first offenders like Michael Cohen who were convicted of non-violent crimes, who have served a third of their judicially imposed sentences, and for whom home confinement is an available penological option," attorney Roger Adler said.
Cohen reported to a federal prison in upstate New York last May to serve a three-year sentence for tax evasion and campaign finance violations.
In mid-March, Cohen asked to finish his sentence at home, citing the spread of the coronavirus, which has sickened more than 150,000 people in New York state.
It took a federal judge just one week to reject his petition in scathing terms.
"That Cohen would seek to single himself out for release to home confinement appears to be just another effort to inject himself into the news cycle," Judge William Pauley wrote.
"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," Pauley added.
