Trump listens as Cohen describes prison sentence
Michael Cohen said that after he pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges related to the Stormy Daniels payment -- as well as other tax charges -- he served 13 months in federal prison before being sent to home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump, sitting at the defense table, had his eyes closed as Cohen testified about his time in prison.
Cohen then testified that he was sent back to prison after he declined to sign an agreement that would have prohibited him from speaking or writing publicly.
"Didn't seem like a federal document," Cohen said, adding that it did not include any numbers and included several typos.
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Cohen suggested he was sent to solitary confinement around the time he was writing his book, prompting a sustained objection from defense lawyers.
Asked about the tax charges, Cohen told jurors that while he agrees his tax filings had an "error," he believes he was treated unfairly by prosecutors.
"I have constantly maintained that I did not dispute the fact there was an error in the taxable amount -- in the tax that was due," Cohen said.
"What I did dispute, and I continue to dispute, is for a first-time offender … never having been audited, that this would go immediately to a criminal charge. From the day that we found out, I was given 48 hours within which to plead guilty" -- or face an eighty-page indictment that would have included charges against his wife, he said.
"And I was going to protect my wife," Cohen said.