45.0°,
Partly Cloudy Lawrence native Michael Cohen speaks to House Oversight Committee
Former Five Towner and Trump lawyer is disbarred
Michael Cohen, who went from growing up in Lawrence and attending schools in the Five Towns to working as President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, is on his third day of testifying on Capitol Hill..
Cohen, 52, met privately with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday. He met in a public session before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Wednesday and now a closed meeting with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty last year of breaking campaign finance laws, tax evasion and lying to Congress, among other charges. He was also ordered to pay $1.39 million in restitution, forfeit $500,000 and pay a $50,000 fine. Originally he was to report to prison on March 6. That was moved to May 6, because of the surgery Cohen is to undergo for a shoulder problem.
The guilty pleas to the federal felony charges have now resulted in his disbarment as a lawyer in New York state after an Appellate Division, First Department's Grievance Committee decision that was announced on Feb. 26.
As a boy growing up in the Five Towns, he attended Hillel, a Jewish Day School that was in Lawrence. That school merged with the Hebrew Institute of Long Island of Far Rockaway to form the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway in 1978. Cohen also graduated from the Woodmere Academy in Woodmere — class of 1984 — that then merged with Lawrence Country Day School to become the Lawrence Woodmere Academy in 1990.
The Herald attended the Feb. 27 public hearing at the Capitol. There were be periodic reports #Herald DC on Twitter @NassauEditor and the Nassau Herald Facebook page.
A comprehensive story will appear in the March 7 edition of the newspaper.
