Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen gets 3 years jail

Former lawyer of US President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen delivered a blistering attack on his former boss as he was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday for multiple crimes.

“It was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds,” Michael Cohen said in a statement as he pleaded for leniency before US District Judge William H Pauley III.

52-year-old Cohen, said he was taking responsibility for his crimes “including those implicating the President of the United States of America.”

Earlier during the trail, Cohen’s lawyers had asked for no jail time after he pleaded guilty to tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress.

But Judge William H Pauley III did not budge and sentenced Cohen to three years in jail.

One of the charges against Cohen was making ‘hush money’ payments to two women who had threatened to go public during the 2016 presidential election campaign with claims they had affairs with Trump.

Trump, however, this week sought to minimise the importance of the payments saying they were a ‘simple private transaction’ and that they were ‘wrongly’ being called campaign contributions.

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