Michael Cohen, former attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, was ordered to be sent back to federal custody after he allegedly breached the conditions of his coronavirus-linked release to serve the rest of his sentence at the confines of his home.
Cohen had pleaded guilty for lying to Congress and campaign financing fraud by aiding hush payments to women who alleged they had affairs with Trump, and other tax and bank fraud charges unrelated to the president, which Trump has denied.
Cohen started a three-year sentence late in 2019 but was among non-violent offenders who were released from jail in May in the wake of pandemic fears in U.S. prison facilities. A father of two children in their 20s, Cohen had been serving his sentence at the Otisville Federal Correctional Institution in New York.
His return to detention comes days after he was seen having dinner with his wife and another couple on July 2 on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The New York Post reported that he and his wife stayed until closing time, and wore face masks to hug the other couple before they left.
His lawyer, Jeffrey Levine, disclosed the terms would have prevented Cohen from issuing any statements to media organizations or posting on social media. Cohen's sentence will expire on November 22 next year.
Cohen appeared in court early Thursday to arrange for this furlough to be converted to house arrest, but there was disagreement over the conditions, reports disclosed.
In a statement by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it said that Cohen had "refused the terms of his home confinement and as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility," BBC News reported.
Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, was also released from detention in May over virus concerns after serving only a fraction of a seven-year jail term after his convictions on charges in connection to tax violations and foreign lobbying.
Both men were central to special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into foreign influence in the 2016 elections.
Trump's former legal counsel was among his most staunch defenders before he implicated his client in bribery linked to alleged affairs with Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult actress Stormy Daniels.
The former fixer, who once disclosed that he would take a bullet for Trump, was the first member of the president's inner circle to be imprisoned during a justice department-led investigation into alleged Russian intervention in the 2016 U.S. election.
