NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — Michael Cohen cannot hold his former boss, Donald Trump, liable for allegedly jailing him in retaliation for writing a memoir, an appeals court said Tuesday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said it will not revive a lawsuit that a lower-court judge rejected. The law did not seem to provide a damages remedy for most claims that someone was jailed in retaliation for criticism of a U.S. president.
A panel concluded Cohen already obtained relief by getting a judge to order his release from imprisonment to home confinement several weeks after he was put behind bars. The government claimed he had violated severe restrictions on his public communication. It said the law did not provide an outlet for more relief than that.
Cohen served more than a year of a three-year sentence in federal prison, after pleading guilty in 2018 to tax evasion, campaign finance charges and lying to Congress. He claimed Trump directed him to arrange the payment of hush money to a pornography actor to eliminate damage to a 2016 presidential bid.
Cohen was returned to prison weeks later when authorities claimed he failed to accept specific terms of his release.
After serving 16 days in solitary confinement, Cohen was freed on the orders of a judge who said he’d been jailed in retaliation for his desire to publish a book critical of the president and to discuss it on social media.
Cohen sued Trump and then Attorney General William P. Barr, along with prison and probation officials.
Cohen said Tuesday he plans to appeal the decision to U.S. Supreme Court.
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