An MS-13 animal pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Boston to racketeering conspiracy involving the murder of a 16-year-old boy in East Boston.
Jairo Perez, a/k/a “Seco,” 27, a Salvadoran national, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity, more commonly referred to as RICO or racketeering conspiracy. Perez admitted that his racketeering activity involved the Jan. 10, 2016, murder of a 16-year-old boy in East Boston.
Under the terms of the proposed plea agreement, Perez will be sentenced to 35 years in prison. At yesterday’s hearing, the Court accepted the defendant’s guilty plea but deferred acceptance of the plea agreement until the sentencing hearing. Perez will be subject to deportation proceedings upon completion of his sentence. U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV scheduled sentencing for Sept. 11, 2018.
The investigation revealed that Perez was a member of MS-13’s Trece Loco Salvatrucha (TLS) clique. Evidence showed that on Jan. 10, 2016, Perez and other MS-13 members murdered a 16-year-old boy whom they believed to be a member of the rival 18th Street gang. The victim was stabbed and shot multiple times. A few days after the murder, Perez was caught on tape admitting to stabbing the victim multiple times, and he was arrested soon thereafter. Perez was also recorded burying the knives used to murder the victim in a park on Deer Island in Winthrop.
After a multi-year investigation, Perez was one of dozens of alleged leaders, members, and associates of MS-13 named in a superseding indictment unsealed in January 2016 that targeted MS-13’s criminal activities in Massachusetts. Perez is the 48th defendant to be convicted as part of that ongoing prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts. To date, all eight defendants who have gone to trial have been convicted, and 40 other defendants have pleaded guilty.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Read More About #StreetsofCompton with "Born and Raised in the Streets of Compton"
A story of ghetto youth growing up in the city of Compton
, California, a place where the navigation of daily life is literally, a tightrope between life and death.
Born and Raised in the Streets of Compton, is a true story based upon many events among the urban black youth growing up amidst poverty in the notorious city of Compton, California. This story follows the path of a second generation Crip member, who weaves his journey into the context of the United States sociological history and governmental action that propagated the birth and escalation of gangs and gang violence, now careening out of control.
, California, a place where the navigation of daily life is literally, a tightrope between life and death.
Born and Raised in the Streets of Compton, is a true story based upon many events among the urban black youth growing up amidst poverty in the notorious city of Compton, California. This story follows the path of a second generation Crip member, who weaves his journey into the context of the United States sociological history and governmental action that propagated the birth and escalation of gangs and gang violence, now careening out of control.
Owe Money to the #Mafia? #Mobsters Foreclose on Your Body, Not Your House, #OrganizedCrime Gambling is Here to Stay #OperationFreeRoll
On the same morning last week that Senate President Dominick Ruggerio mused on talk radio about a possible future with sports betting parlors dotting the state, James Petrella stood before a court magistrate and pleaded out to organized criminal gambling.
Ruggerio’s remarks came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized sports betting.
Petrella’s change of plea came two years after Rhode Island’s last big underworld sports-betting bust, when, in April 2016, the state police arrested 20 people — including two minor-league baseball players — in “Operation Free Roll” and charged them in a multi-million-dollar bookmaking conspiracy.
While state lawmakers rush to take advantage of the high court’s ruling — Gov. Gina Raimondo wagered on its decision and included $23.5 million in anticipated sports betting revenue in her new fiscal budget — law enforcement officials, a former underworld figure and others say don’t bet on illegal gambling disappearing entirely.
Magistrate John F. McBurney III says there was no talk of irony or of the high court’s decision last week when Petrella, 33, of Narragansett, appeared before him in Kent County Superior Court and pleaded no contest to what may soon become a legitimate Rhode Island pastime.
Prosecutors alleged that gamblers used Petrella’s co-owned restaurant, Portside, along with the Cozy Grill, in Warwick, owned by Thomas Pilderian, to place and settle bets. Proceeds of the operation, says state police Lt. Col. Joseph Philbin, went to “remnants” of the Patriarca crime family, which for decades used bookmaking to finance its operation.
McBurney, a former state senator from Pawtucket and one-time member of the state Lottery Commission, says it’s too early to tell if legal sports betting will cut “into the organized crime element” and he sees fewer gambling cases before him.
He says he hopes the state “goes all the way” and legalizes all forms of sports betting now rather than take the “piecemeal” approach it used with casino gambling, first approving video-slots and only years later actual table games at Twin River Casino, in Lincoln.
For decades “there has been a lot of wringing of hands” about gambling, and consequently millions of dollars lost in state revenue, McBurney says, as lawmakers moved too cautiously with gambling at Twin River, and the video-slot parlor at Newport Grand Casino. Now that sports gambling has arrived, it’s time to go all in, McBurney says: “Whatever we can do to maximize what the Supreme Court has decided, we should.”
One former Providence mob associate, now in the federal Witness Protection Program, says underworld bookmaking will survive legal sports betting because of an exclusive benefit it offers gamblers: betting on credit.
Illegal bookmakers allow — in fact, encourage — their customers to bet on credit, he says; a simple phone call and the bet is made without any cash changing hands. That won’t happen with legal sports gambling, where customers will have to put money up front first to wager.
Often times the underworld gambler is already in credit trouble: “These guys don’t have credit cards,” the former mob associate said. “So when you’re a bookie, you want these guys to lose. Then they’re playing on credit and then they owe you. That’s how the mob infiltrates a lot of it. They get you in a position where you have to borrow money to keep your business going. That’s how you get in trouble.
“The mob is different from a bank, which will foreclose on your house if you owe them,” he says. “The mob forecloses on your body.”
State and local police say they spent months investigating the bookmaking operations at the Cozy Grill and Portside. They listened in on phone conversations as more than a thousand bets were made on everything from Providence College basketball to NASCAR races.
The bets were then often transferred to two online sports betting websites, based in Central America.
Steven O’Donnell was the state police superintendent during “Operation Free Roll,” and in his earlier years worked undercover as a bookie.
Nationally illegal gambling is a $150-billion industry and “statewide it’s a huge underground economy,” O’Donnell says. “I don’t know if anyone could put a figure on it, but over the years we’ve handled multi-million dollar bookmaking operations to the small-time ones. Ninety-nine percent of the ones we do are tied to traditional mafia.”
O’Donnell says, “I don’t really see how you take the organized crime element out of bookmaking” particularly since it operates on credit, players don’t need to report their winnings for tax purposes and the General Assembly may restrict legal sports gambling to Twin River in Lincoln and the company’s new casino, under construction in Tiverton, leaving ample room for illegal gambling to thrive.
“It will all depend what kind of legislation comes out of this,” he says, and how fast. He notes it took years for the state to grapple with its medical marijuana program and the lucrative black market that spun from it.
While lawmakers debate how to implement legal sports betting and professional leagues wrestle with how to protect the integrity of their games, O’Donnell wonders what college athletes will be told.
For years, O’Donnell says he visited Providence College, Bryant University and even the New England Patriots speaking with athletes about what area bars and restaurants to avoid and explaining how bookmaking works.
“What do you tell student athletes now that sports betting is legal?”
James Petrella was the last of the 20 suspects in “Operation Free Roll” to plead no contest to the charges, court records show. None went to prison. Petrella, like most of the others, received a suspended sentence and probation. His total fines came to $2,259.25
Thanks to Tom Mooney.
Ruggerio’s remarks came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized sports betting.
Petrella’s change of plea came two years after Rhode Island’s last big underworld sports-betting bust, when, in April 2016, the state police arrested 20 people — including two minor-league baseball players — in “Operation Free Roll” and charged them in a multi-million-dollar bookmaking conspiracy.
While state lawmakers rush to take advantage of the high court’s ruling — Gov. Gina Raimondo wagered on its decision and included $23.5 million in anticipated sports betting revenue in her new fiscal budget — law enforcement officials, a former underworld figure and others say don’t bet on illegal gambling disappearing entirely.
Magistrate John F. McBurney III says there was no talk of irony or of the high court’s decision last week when Petrella, 33, of Narragansett, appeared before him in Kent County Superior Court and pleaded no contest to what may soon become a legitimate Rhode Island pastime.
Prosecutors alleged that gamblers used Petrella’s co-owned restaurant, Portside, along with the Cozy Grill, in Warwick, owned by Thomas Pilderian, to place and settle bets. Proceeds of the operation, says state police Lt. Col. Joseph Philbin, went to “remnants” of the Patriarca crime family, which for decades used bookmaking to finance its operation.
McBurney, a former state senator from Pawtucket and one-time member of the state Lottery Commission, says it’s too early to tell if legal sports betting will cut “into the organized crime element” and he sees fewer gambling cases before him.
He says he hopes the state “goes all the way” and legalizes all forms of sports betting now rather than take the “piecemeal” approach it used with casino gambling, first approving video-slots and only years later actual table games at Twin River Casino, in Lincoln.
For decades “there has been a lot of wringing of hands” about gambling, and consequently millions of dollars lost in state revenue, McBurney says, as lawmakers moved too cautiously with gambling at Twin River, and the video-slot parlor at Newport Grand Casino. Now that sports gambling has arrived, it’s time to go all in, McBurney says: “Whatever we can do to maximize what the Supreme Court has decided, we should.”
One former Providence mob associate, now in the federal Witness Protection Program, says underworld bookmaking will survive legal sports betting because of an exclusive benefit it offers gamblers: betting on credit.
Illegal bookmakers allow — in fact, encourage — their customers to bet on credit, he says; a simple phone call and the bet is made without any cash changing hands. That won’t happen with legal sports gambling, where customers will have to put money up front first to wager.
Often times the underworld gambler is already in credit trouble: “These guys don’t have credit cards,” the former mob associate said. “So when you’re a bookie, you want these guys to lose. Then they’re playing on credit and then they owe you. That’s how the mob infiltrates a lot of it. They get you in a position where you have to borrow money to keep your business going. That’s how you get in trouble.
“The mob is different from a bank, which will foreclose on your house if you owe them,” he says. “The mob forecloses on your body.”
State and local police say they spent months investigating the bookmaking operations at the Cozy Grill and Portside. They listened in on phone conversations as more than a thousand bets were made on everything from Providence College basketball to NASCAR races.
The bets were then often transferred to two online sports betting websites, based in Central America.
Steven O’Donnell was the state police superintendent during “Operation Free Roll,” and in his earlier years worked undercover as a bookie.
Nationally illegal gambling is a $150-billion industry and “statewide it’s a huge underground economy,” O’Donnell says. “I don’t know if anyone could put a figure on it, but over the years we’ve handled multi-million dollar bookmaking operations to the small-time ones. Ninety-nine percent of the ones we do are tied to traditional mafia.”
O’Donnell says, “I don’t really see how you take the organized crime element out of bookmaking” particularly since it operates on credit, players don’t need to report their winnings for tax purposes and the General Assembly may restrict legal sports gambling to Twin River in Lincoln and the company’s new casino, under construction in Tiverton, leaving ample room for illegal gambling to thrive.
“It will all depend what kind of legislation comes out of this,” he says, and how fast. He notes it took years for the state to grapple with its medical marijuana program and the lucrative black market that spun from it.
While lawmakers debate how to implement legal sports betting and professional leagues wrestle with how to protect the integrity of their games, O’Donnell wonders what college athletes will be told.
For years, O’Donnell says he visited Providence College, Bryant University and even the New England Patriots speaking with athletes about what area bars and restaurants to avoid and explaining how bookmaking works.
“What do you tell student athletes now that sports betting is legal?”
James Petrella was the last of the 20 suspects in “Operation Free Roll” to plead no contest to the charges, court records show. None went to prison. Petrella, like most of the others, received a suspended sentence and probation. His total fines came to $2,259.25
Thanks to Tom Mooney.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Kurdish Pride Gang Reputedly Infiltrates Police Department in Nashville @MNPDNashville
The headline was alarming.
As news broke in mid-April — before Jiyayi Suleyman was ever arrested — of an internal investigation detailing how the Metro Nashville Police Department had determined its first Kurdish officer was a member of the Kurdish Pride Gang, members of the tight-knit community were caught off guard, said Drost Kokoye.
The internal investigation, first reported on by WSMV, outlined allegations by Nashville police that Suleyman, 29, was part of the gang and had conducted unauthorized searches on its members in a state criminal information database.
Suleyman had resigned in March, though his resignation letter states only that he had decided to begin a new career.
Kokoye, an activist and friend of Suleyman's family, believes that Suleyman was unfairly targeted. She began encouraging fellow Kurds to call police Chief Steve Anderson and Mayor David Briley to inquire about what had prompted the investigation. Then Suleyman was charged.
On April 27, a Davidson County grand jury returned indictments charging Suleyman with 57 counts of official misconduct related to "excessive inquiries" of the state criminal justice portal system, said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which conducted the criminal investigation into Suleyman.
He was arrested May 8 and booked into jail in Nashville under a $75,000 bond, which he posted through a bondsman.
Suleyman, whose family arrived in Nashville as refugees, was hired by Nashville police in 2012 as the department's first Kurdish officer. Early last year, former Mayor Megan Barry hailed his contribution to the city.
About 15,000 Kurds live in Nashville, more than in any other city in the United States. The community is largely concentrated in the south part of the city.
"It felt like a step in the right direction," said Kokoye, who is similar in age to Suleyman, about Suleyman's hiring. "It felt like we were able to have some level of accountability with Metro Nashville Police Department."
The late 1990s and early 2000s had marked the beginning of the Kurdish Pride Gang, a small group of teenagers accused of being behind a number of crimes in the city.
Kirmanj Gundi, a Tennessee State University professor and Kurd who immigrated to Nashville in the 1970s, said many of the teenagers involved came from strict and stable families but became part of the gang at school.
From the mid-2000s to 2012, police in Nashville identified around two dozen Kurdish Pride Gang members whom the police department ultimately sued, declaring them a public nuisance and prohibiting them from meeting in specific public locations in the Paragon Mills area.
The police gang unit, along with civic groups within the Kurdish community and the Kurdish mosque, the Salahadeen Center, worked with youth and their families to stifle much of the gang activity that had gripped parts of South Nashville.
If you ask Kokoye, the Kurdish Pride Gang in recent years has been joked about as somewhat of an urban legend among Kurdish young people in Nashville.
While Metro police say they found photos of Suleyman previously taking part in making gang gestures and wearing clothing associated with Kurdish Pride colors, Kokoye said he certainly isn't the only Kurdish person from her era of high school who has posed in a similar manner.
Kokoye, who graduated from Antioch High School in 2009, can dig up photos from her time there in which she and her Kurdish friends — sometimes wearing matching yellow bandannas and often sitting together at pep rallies and other events — would jokingly flash gang hand gestures.
"It was kids trying to be cool, kids trying to be associated with something that was cool," she said.
It's unclear when the photos of Suleyman were taken.
According to Nashville police's specialized investigations division, the 2012 injunction against the Kurdish Pride Gang disrupted its traditional structure, but didn't dissolve it.
"Information gleaned by MNPD’s gang unit has led to detectives’ conclusion that the KPG remains active, but more secretive than before," said police spokesman Don Aaron, declining to provide an estimate on how many members remain.
Metro police say Kurdish Pride members are suspected of continually being involved in drug distribution and burglaries, and remain on the gang unit's radar.
"They are around in different ways," Gundi said. "Before they were more violent. What I've heard is they are smaller in size and capacity, but unfortunately they are still around."
At the request of District Attorney General Glenn Funk, on March 13, a week before Suleyman handed in his notice of resignation, TBI had begun investigating the case.
In an investigative summary in Suleyman's personnel file, Nashville police officials alleged that:
While Nashville police say Suleyman failed to disclose alleged ties to the Kurdish Pride Gang, Kokoye said he is being punished for natural connections with Kurdish friends and family. "They're criminalizing him for the relationship he has in the community," Kokoye said.
When reached about the case, Hamid Hasan, owner of House of Kabob, denied that there was any gang activity going on at the restaurant, but noted that anybody can come in and patronize a business.
Hasan said one of his employees got in legal trouble roughly a year ago related to the sale of a firearm, but the incident occurred on the employee's own time and not at the restaurant. "I cannot control people's lives," Hasan said, declining to speak further about the allegations outlined in the department's investigative summary.
The court system has no record of an attorney listed for Suleyman, and USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee was unable to determine who is representing him.
Though their perspectives on the legitimacy of the Nashville police and TBI investigations vary, both Gundi and Kokoye said the community now has little choice but to wait and see how the case plays out in the court system.
Kokoye believes the arrest of Suleyman has damaged the Kurds' relationship with police in Nashville. "This attack against Jiyayi isn’t just an attack against Jiyayi," she said. "The claim that he is a KPG member is an attack on our entire community."
Gundi said that if both local and state law enforcement have investigated Suleyman in one capacity or another, that they must have a legitimate reason and probable cause to do so, though he believes no one should jump to conclusions that Suleyman is guilty.
He said he hopes the case against Suleyman doesn't hurt the reputation of the local Kurdish community as a whole. "It's horrible charges, and of course I certainly am ashamed, although we have all our problems like any other immigrant community," Gundi said. "For the most part, our community has been a community that has relied on themselves and tried to do good. Unfortunately, some of our youth have taken advantage of the freedom they have in this country."
Thanks to Natalie Allison.
As news broke in mid-April — before Jiyayi Suleyman was ever arrested — of an internal investigation detailing how the Metro Nashville Police Department had determined its first Kurdish officer was a member of the Kurdish Pride Gang, members of the tight-knit community were caught off guard, said Drost Kokoye.
The internal investigation, first reported on by WSMV, outlined allegations by Nashville police that Suleyman, 29, was part of the gang and had conducted unauthorized searches on its members in a state criminal information database.
Suleyman had resigned in March, though his resignation letter states only that he had decided to begin a new career.
Kokoye, an activist and friend of Suleyman's family, believes that Suleyman was unfairly targeted. She began encouraging fellow Kurds to call police Chief Steve Anderson and Mayor David Briley to inquire about what had prompted the investigation. Then Suleyman was charged.
On April 27, a Davidson County grand jury returned indictments charging Suleyman with 57 counts of official misconduct related to "excessive inquiries" of the state criminal justice portal system, said the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which conducted the criminal investigation into Suleyman.
He was arrested May 8 and booked into jail in Nashville under a $75,000 bond, which he posted through a bondsman.
Suleyman, whose family arrived in Nashville as refugees, was hired by Nashville police in 2012 as the department's first Kurdish officer. Early last year, former Mayor Megan Barry hailed his contribution to the city.
About 15,000 Kurds live in Nashville, more than in any other city in the United States. The community is largely concentrated in the south part of the city.
"It felt like a step in the right direction," said Kokoye, who is similar in age to Suleyman, about Suleyman's hiring. "It felt like we were able to have some level of accountability with Metro Nashville Police Department."
The late 1990s and early 2000s had marked the beginning of the Kurdish Pride Gang, a small group of teenagers accused of being behind a number of crimes in the city.
Kirmanj Gundi, a Tennessee State University professor and Kurd who immigrated to Nashville in the 1970s, said many of the teenagers involved came from strict and stable families but became part of the gang at school.
From the mid-2000s to 2012, police in Nashville identified around two dozen Kurdish Pride Gang members whom the police department ultimately sued, declaring them a public nuisance and prohibiting them from meeting in specific public locations in the Paragon Mills area.
The police gang unit, along with civic groups within the Kurdish community and the Kurdish mosque, the Salahadeen Center, worked with youth and their families to stifle much of the gang activity that had gripped parts of South Nashville.
If you ask Kokoye, the Kurdish Pride Gang in recent years has been joked about as somewhat of an urban legend among Kurdish young people in Nashville.
While Metro police say they found photos of Suleyman previously taking part in making gang gestures and wearing clothing associated with Kurdish Pride colors, Kokoye said he certainly isn't the only Kurdish person from her era of high school who has posed in a similar manner.
Kokoye, who graduated from Antioch High School in 2009, can dig up photos from her time there in which she and her Kurdish friends — sometimes wearing matching yellow bandannas and often sitting together at pep rallies and other events — would jokingly flash gang hand gestures.
"It was kids trying to be cool, kids trying to be associated with something that was cool," she said.
It's unclear when the photos of Suleyman were taken.
According to Nashville police's specialized investigations division, the 2012 injunction against the Kurdish Pride Gang disrupted its traditional structure, but didn't dissolve it.
"Information gleaned by MNPD’s gang unit has led to detectives’ conclusion that the KPG remains active, but more secretive than before," said police spokesman Don Aaron, declining to provide an estimate on how many members remain.
Metro police say Kurdish Pride members are suspected of continually being involved in drug distribution and burglaries, and remain on the gang unit's radar.
"They are around in different ways," Gundi said. "Before they were more violent. What I've heard is they are smaller in size and capacity, but unfortunately they are still around."
At the request of District Attorney General Glenn Funk, on March 13, a week before Suleyman handed in his notice of resignation, TBI had begun investigating the case.
In an investigative summary in Suleyman's personnel file, Nashville police officials alleged that:
- While investigating House of Kabob, a Middle Eastern restaurant on Thompson Lane, they determined that Suleyman was associating with individuals involved in the sale of drugs and illegal firearms.
- During a search of suspect's house, police found what they describe as photos of Suleyman — taken before he was hired in 2012 — "participating in gang activities."
- Detectives found phone records showing regular communication with known Kurdish Pride members.
- By the department's own investigative standards, Suleyman would be considered a confirmed gang member.
While Nashville police say Suleyman failed to disclose alleged ties to the Kurdish Pride Gang, Kokoye said he is being punished for natural connections with Kurdish friends and family. "They're criminalizing him for the relationship he has in the community," Kokoye said.
When reached about the case, Hamid Hasan, owner of House of Kabob, denied that there was any gang activity going on at the restaurant, but noted that anybody can come in and patronize a business.
Hasan said one of his employees got in legal trouble roughly a year ago related to the sale of a firearm, but the incident occurred on the employee's own time and not at the restaurant. "I cannot control people's lives," Hasan said, declining to speak further about the allegations outlined in the department's investigative summary.
The court system has no record of an attorney listed for Suleyman, and USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee was unable to determine who is representing him.
Though their perspectives on the legitimacy of the Nashville police and TBI investigations vary, both Gundi and Kokoye said the community now has little choice but to wait and see how the case plays out in the court system.
Kokoye believes the arrest of Suleyman has damaged the Kurds' relationship with police in Nashville. "This attack against Jiyayi isn’t just an attack against Jiyayi," she said. "The claim that he is a KPG member is an attack on our entire community."
Gundi said that if both local and state law enforcement have investigated Suleyman in one capacity or another, that they must have a legitimate reason and probable cause to do so, though he believes no one should jump to conclusions that Suleyman is guilty.
He said he hopes the case against Suleyman doesn't hurt the reputation of the local Kurdish community as a whole. "It's horrible charges, and of course I certainly am ashamed, although we have all our problems like any other immigrant community," Gundi said. "For the most part, our community has been a community that has relied on themselves and tried to do good. Unfortunately, some of our youth have taken advantage of the freedom they have in this country."
Thanks to Natalie Allison.
Friday, May 18, 2018
History of Michael Cohen's Criminal Ties #RussianMafia
Michael Cohen, President Trump's long-time lawyer and personal "pit bull," was brought to heel when federal agents raided his office in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center. The U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, acting on a referral from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is investigating Cohen for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations that stem, at least in part, from a $130,000 payment Trump's attorney made to hush up a porn star who says she slept with the president. ("I will always protect Mr. Trump," Cohen said.) Meanwhile, Mueller is investigating a $150,000 "donation" that Cohen arranged for Trump's foundation in 2015 from a Ukrainian billionaire named Victor Pinchuk. "Attorney-client privilege is dead!" Trump tweeted. It's not dead, but the raid on Cohen's home, office and swanky Park Avenue hotel room is an extraordinary step that underscores his decade-long role as Trump's heavy, fixer and connector.
Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006, and eventually became Trump's personal lawyer, a role once occupied by Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's heavy-lidded hatchet man during the Red Scare who advised Trump in the 1980s. Michael Cohen's bare-knuckled tactics earned him the nickname of "Tom," a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Mafia Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and like Tom Hagen spent a childhood around organized crime, specifically the Russian Mafia. Cohen's uncle, Morton Levine, was a wealthy Brooklyn doctor who owned the El Caribe Country Club, a Brooklyn catering hall and event space that was a well-known hangout for Russian gangsters. Cohen and his siblings all had ownership stakes in the club, which rented for years to the first Mafiya boss of Brighton Beach, Evsei Agron, along with his successors, Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. (Cohen's uncle said his nephew gave up his stake in the club after Trump's election.)
I spoke to two former federal investigators who told me Cohen was introduced to Donald Trump by his father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ukraine who arrived in the U.S. in 1975. Shusterman was in the garment business and owned a fleet of taxicabs with his partners, Shalva Botier and Edward Zubok – all three men were convicted of a money-laundering related offense in 1993. "Fima may have been a (possibly silent) business partner with Trump, perhaps even used as a conduit for Russian investors in Trump properties and other ventures," a former federal investigator told me. "Cohen, who married into the family, was given the job with the Trump Org as a favor to Shusterman." ("Untrue," Cohen told me. "Your source is creating fake news.")
Shusterman, who owned at least four New York taxi companies, also set his son-in-law up in the yellow cab business. Cohen once ran 260 yellow cabs with his Ukrainian-born partner, the "taxi king" Simon V. Garber, until their partnership ended acrimoniously in 2012. Glenn Simpson, the private investigator who was independently hired to examine Trump's Russia connections during the real estate mogul's presidential run, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that Cohen "had a lot of connections to the former Soviet Union, and that he seemed to have associations with organized crime figures in New York and Florida – Russian organized crime figures," including Garber.
A curious episode in Cohen's life came in 1999 when he received a $350,000 check from a professional hockey player named Vladimir Malakhov, who was then playing for the NHL's Montreal Canadiens. According to Malakhov, the check was a loan to a friend. The friend, however, swore in an affidavit that she never received the money and never even knew the check had been written until it was discovered years later in a Florida lawsuit. So what happened to the money? One interesting lead was an incident involving Malakhov, who was approached in Brighton Beach and shaken down for money by a man who worked for the Russian crime boss, Vyacheslav Ivankov. "Malakhov spent the next months in fear, looking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed, avoiding restaurants and clubs where Russian criminals hang out," according to testimony an unnamed Russian criminal gave to the U.S. Senate in 1996. Cohen, who said he didn't know Malakhov or anyone else in the case, offered his own theories as to the origin and fate of the check in a 2007 deposition with Malakhov's attorneys.
Q. You don't recall why this check was written to you for $350,000 in 1999 and how these funds left your trust account in any way, shape or form?
A: Clearly Vladimir Malakhov had to have known somebody who I was affiliated to and the only person I can—and I mentioned my partner's name, Simon Garber, who happens also to be Russian.
Regardless of what he did or didn't know Cohen was able to purchase a $1 million condo at Trump World Tower in 2001, persuading his parents, his Ukrainian in-laws and Garber to do the same in other Trump buildings. Cohen's in-laws Fima and Ania Shusterman bought three units in Trump World Tower worth a combined $7.66 million (one of which was rented to Jocelyn Wildenstein, the socialite known as "Catwoman" for undergoing extreme facial plastic surgery to please her cat-loving husband). Cohen later purchased a nearly $5 million unit in Trump Park Avenue. In a five-year period, he and people connected to him would purchase Trump properties worth $17.3 million. All the frenzied buying by Cohen and his family caught the attention of the New York Post, often described as Trump's favorite newspaper. "Michael Cohen has a great insight into the real-estate market," Trump told a reporter in 2007. "He has invested in my buildings because he likes to make money – and he does." Trump added, "In short, he's a very smart person."
During Trump's presidential run, reporters noticed a curious thing about Cohen. Questions about Trump's business or his taxes went to his chief legal officer or another staffer, but Cohen handled questions about Russia. "One of the things that we learned that caught my interest," Simpson testified to Congress in November 2017, "serious questions about Donald Trump's activities in Russia and the former Soviet Union went to Michael Cohen, and that he was the only person who had information on that subject or was in a position to answer those questions."
In the 1990s, there was an informal group of federal and local law enforcement agents investigating the Russian Mafiya in New York that called themselves "Red Star." They shared information they learned from informants. It was well known among the members of Red Star that Cohen's father-in-law was funneling money into Trump ventures. Several sources have told me that Cohen was one of several attorneys who helped money launderers purchase apartments in a development in Sunny Isles Beach, a seaside Florida town just north of Miami. This was an informal arrangement passed word-of-mouth: "We have heard from Russian sources that … in Florida, Cohen and other lawyers acted as a conduit for money."
A year after Trump World Tower opened in 2002, Trump had agreed to let Miami father-and-son developers Gil and Michael Dezer use his name on what ultimately became six Sunny Isles Beach condominium towers, which drew in new moneyed Russians all too eager to pay millions. "Russians love the Trump brand," said Gil Dezer, who added that Russians and Russian-Americans bought some 200 of the 2,000 or so units in Trump buildings he built. A seventh Trump-branded hotel tower built up Sunny Isles into what ostensibly has become a South Florida Brighton Beach.
An investigation by Reuters found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in the seven Trump-branded luxury towers. And that was a conservative estimate. At least 703 – or about one-third – of the 2044 units were owned by limited liability companies, or LLCs, which could conceal the property's true owner. Executives from Gazprom and other Russian natural resource giants also owned units in Trump's Sunny Isles towers. In an observation that several people I spoke with echoed, Kenneth McCallion, a former prosecutor who tracked the flows of Russian criminal money into Trump's properties, told me, "Trump's genius – or evil genius – was, instead of Russian criminal money being passive, incidental income, it became a central part of his business plan." McCallion continued, "It's not called 'Little Moscow' for nothing. The street signs are in Russian. But his towers there were built specifically for the Russian middle-class criminal."
Cohen joined the Trump Organization around the time that the second Sunny Isles tower was being built. A few years earlier, he had invested $1.5 million in a short-lived Miami-based casino boat venture run by his two Ukrainian business partners, Arkady Vaygensberg and Leonid Tatarchuk. Only three months after its maiden voyage, it would become the subject of a large fraud investigation. But Cohen was saved from his bad investment by none other than Trump himself, who hired Cohen as an attorney just before his casino ship sank. A source who investigated Cohen's connections to Russia told me, "Say you want to get money into the country and maybe you're a bit suspect. The Trump organization used lawyers to allow people to get money into the country."
Residents at Sunny Isles included people like Vladimir Popovyan, who paid $1.17 million for a three-bedroom condo in 2013. Forbes Russia described Popovyan as a friend and associate of Rafael Samurgashev, a former championship wrestler who ran a criminal group in Rostov-on-Don in southeastern Russia. Peter Kiritchenko, a Ukrainian businessman arrested on fraud charges in San Francisco in 1999, and his daughter owned two units at Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach worth $2.56 million. (Kiritchenko testified against a corrupt former Ukrainian prime minister who was convicted in 2004 of money laundering.) Other owners of Trump condos in Sunny Isles include members of a Russian-American organized crime group that ran a sports betting ring out of Trump Tower, which catered to wealthy oligarchs from the former Soviet Union. Michael Barukhin, who was convicted in a massive scheme to defraud auto insurers with phony claims, lived out of a Trump condo that was registered to a limited liability corporation.
Selling units from the lobby of the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles was Baronoff Realty. Elena Baronoff, who died of cancer in 2015, was the exclusive sales agent for three Trump-branded towers. Glenn Simpson, who spent a year investigating Trump's background during the campaign, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that Baronoff was a "suspected organized crime figure."
An Uzbek immigrant who arrived in the United States as a cultural attaché in public diplomacy from the Soviet Union, Baronoff became such a well-known figure in Sunny Isles Beach that she was named the international ambassador for the community. Baronoff accompanied Trump's children on a trip to Russia in the winter of 2007–2008, posing for a photo in Moscow with Ivanka and Eric Trump and developer Michael Dezer. Also in the photo, curiously, was a man named Michael Babel, a former senior executive of a property firm owned by Oleg Deripaska, the Russian metals tycoon Paul Manafort allegedly offered personal updates on Trump's presidential campaign. Babel later fled Russia to evade fraud charges.
Baronoff had interesting connections to Sicily. She reportedly met her friend, the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, there. Baronoff was also close with Dino Papale, a local businessman, who described himself to The New York Times as "president of Trump's Sicilian fan club," while sporting a red "Make America Great Again" cap. Days after Trump's election in November, the local newspaper, La Sicilia, quoted Papale at length describing Trump's secret visit to the island in 2013. Papale hinted that he organized meetings between Trump and Russians.
Michael Cohen's in-laws, the Shustermans, also bought real estate in Sunny Isles. The development was paying off. Trump's oldest son, Don Jr., would later note, "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." There is no question Trump owed his comeback in large part to wealthy Russian expatriates.
Cohen and Felix Sater have known each other for nearly 30 years. They met in Brighton Beach when Cohen started dating his future wife, Shusterman's daughter, Laura, who Sater says he knew from the neighborhood. When Cohen joined the Trump organization, Sater had become a fixture in the office. Sater was developing Trump SoHo, a hotel-condo in lower Manhattan that later would be consumed by scandal, and had earned Trump's trust. Trump asked him to look after his children, Ivanka and Don Jr., on a 2006 visit to Moscow. (It was during the Moscow trip that Sater used his Kremlin connections to impress Trump's daughter. Sater would later boast: "I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin's private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin.") When Sater's criminal past was exposed in The New York Times, Trump suddenly looked and acted like a man with something to hide. Despite laying claim to "one of the great memories of all time," he seemed to be having trouble recollecting who Sater was. "Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it," Trump told The Associated Press in 2015. "I'm not that familiar with him." Sater flatly contradicted Trump's version of their relationship. In a little-noticed interview with a Russian publication, Snob, Sater was asked if his criminal past was a problem for Trump. "No, it was not. He makes his own decision regarding each and every individual."
In the midst of Trump's presidential run, Sater was shopping a deal to build a Trump World Tower Moscow. Between September 2015 and January 2016, Sater tried to broker a deal for a Moscow company called IC Expert Investment Company. (Sater worked for IC Expert's owner, Andrei Rozov, after he left Bayrock.) Trump signed a letter of intent in October with IC Expert Investment for a Moscow hotel-condo with the option for a "Spa by Ivanka Trump." Providing financing was VTB, a Russian bank subject to U.S. sanctions. Sater's contact at the Trump Organization was his old friend, Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen. In mid-January, Sater urged Cohen to send an email to Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin's press secretary, "since the proposal would require approvals within the Russian government that had not been issued." Cohen sent the email, got no reply, and said he abandoned the proposal two weeks later.
What Cohen called his old friend's "colorful language" attracted attention from congressional investigators and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office: "Michael I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin," Sater emailed Cohen in November 2015. "I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this."
Sater gave an unsatisfactory answer to BuzzFeed about why he wrote this email. "If a deal can get done and I could make money and he could look like a statesman, what the fuck is the downside, right?"
Shortly after Trump took office, Sater teamed up with Cohen to submit a Ukrainian peace plan to then national security advisor Michael Flynn that would have opened the door to lifting sanctions on Russia. What happened to the plan? The lawyer at first told The New York Times that he left the plan in Flynn's office. Then, after the story became an embarrassment, he called the Times story "fake news" and claimed he pitched the plan into the trash.
Cohen has always acted to protect Trump, and he likely believed that he could always rely on the impenetrable shield of attorney-client privilege. Arguably, no one who has worked with Trump over the past decade knows more about the president's past business dealings in Russia and elsewhere abroad than Cohen. Now that prosecutors have him in their sights, here's the question: Will Cohen's shield, now broken, become a sword?
Thanks to Seth Hettena.
Cohen joined the Trump Organization in 2006, and eventually became Trump's personal lawyer, a role once occupied by Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy's heavy-lidded hatchet man during the Red Scare who advised Trump in the 1980s. Michael Cohen's bare-knuckled tactics earned him the nickname of "Tom," a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Mafia Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland, and like Tom Hagen spent a childhood around organized crime, specifically the Russian Mafia. Cohen's uncle, Morton Levine, was a wealthy Brooklyn doctor who owned the El Caribe Country Club, a Brooklyn catering hall and event space that was a well-known hangout for Russian gangsters. Cohen and his siblings all had ownership stakes in the club, which rented for years to the first Mafiya boss of Brighton Beach, Evsei Agron, along with his successors, Marat Balagula and Boris Nayfeld. (Cohen's uncle said his nephew gave up his stake in the club after Trump's election.)
I spoke to two former federal investigators who told me Cohen was introduced to Donald Trump by his father-in-law, Fima Shusterman, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ukraine who arrived in the U.S. in 1975. Shusterman was in the garment business and owned a fleet of taxicabs with his partners, Shalva Botier and Edward Zubok – all three men were convicted of a money-laundering related offense in 1993. "Fima may have been a (possibly silent) business partner with Trump, perhaps even used as a conduit for Russian investors in Trump properties and other ventures," a former federal investigator told me. "Cohen, who married into the family, was given the job with the Trump Org as a favor to Shusterman." ("Untrue," Cohen told me. "Your source is creating fake news.")
Shusterman, who owned at least four New York taxi companies, also set his son-in-law up in the yellow cab business. Cohen once ran 260 yellow cabs with his Ukrainian-born partner, the "taxi king" Simon V. Garber, until their partnership ended acrimoniously in 2012. Glenn Simpson, the private investigator who was independently hired to examine Trump's Russia connections during the real estate mogul's presidential run, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that Cohen "had a lot of connections to the former Soviet Union, and that he seemed to have associations with organized crime figures in New York and Florida – Russian organized crime figures," including Garber.
A curious episode in Cohen's life came in 1999 when he received a $350,000 check from a professional hockey player named Vladimir Malakhov, who was then playing for the NHL's Montreal Canadiens. According to Malakhov, the check was a loan to a friend. The friend, however, swore in an affidavit that she never received the money and never even knew the check had been written until it was discovered years later in a Florida lawsuit. So what happened to the money? One interesting lead was an incident involving Malakhov, who was approached in Brighton Beach and shaken down for money by a man who worked for the Russian crime boss, Vyacheslav Ivankov. "Malakhov spent the next months in fear, looking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed, avoiding restaurants and clubs where Russian criminals hang out," according to testimony an unnamed Russian criminal gave to the U.S. Senate in 1996. Cohen, who said he didn't know Malakhov or anyone else in the case, offered his own theories as to the origin and fate of the check in a 2007 deposition with Malakhov's attorneys.
Q. You don't recall why this check was written to you for $350,000 in 1999 and how these funds left your trust account in any way, shape or form?
A: Clearly Vladimir Malakhov had to have known somebody who I was affiliated to and the only person I can—and I mentioned my partner's name, Simon Garber, who happens also to be Russian.
Regardless of what he did or didn't know Cohen was able to purchase a $1 million condo at Trump World Tower in 2001, persuading his parents, his Ukrainian in-laws and Garber to do the same in other Trump buildings. Cohen's in-laws Fima and Ania Shusterman bought three units in Trump World Tower worth a combined $7.66 million (one of which was rented to Jocelyn Wildenstein, the socialite known as "Catwoman" for undergoing extreme facial plastic surgery to please her cat-loving husband). Cohen later purchased a nearly $5 million unit in Trump Park Avenue. In a five-year period, he and people connected to him would purchase Trump properties worth $17.3 million. All the frenzied buying by Cohen and his family caught the attention of the New York Post, often described as Trump's favorite newspaper. "Michael Cohen has a great insight into the real-estate market," Trump told a reporter in 2007. "He has invested in my buildings because he likes to make money – and he does." Trump added, "In short, he's a very smart person."
During Trump's presidential run, reporters noticed a curious thing about Cohen. Questions about Trump's business or his taxes went to his chief legal officer or another staffer, but Cohen handled questions about Russia. "One of the things that we learned that caught my interest," Simpson testified to Congress in November 2017, "serious questions about Donald Trump's activities in Russia and the former Soviet Union went to Michael Cohen, and that he was the only person who had information on that subject or was in a position to answer those questions."
In the 1990s, there was an informal group of federal and local law enforcement agents investigating the Russian Mafiya in New York that called themselves "Red Star." They shared information they learned from informants. It was well known among the members of Red Star that Cohen's father-in-law was funneling money into Trump ventures. Several sources have told me that Cohen was one of several attorneys who helped money launderers purchase apartments in a development in Sunny Isles Beach, a seaside Florida town just north of Miami. This was an informal arrangement passed word-of-mouth: "We have heard from Russian sources that … in Florida, Cohen and other lawyers acted as a conduit for money."
A year after Trump World Tower opened in 2002, Trump had agreed to let Miami father-and-son developers Gil and Michael Dezer use his name on what ultimately became six Sunny Isles Beach condominium towers, which drew in new moneyed Russians all too eager to pay millions. "Russians love the Trump brand," said Gil Dezer, who added that Russians and Russian-Americans bought some 200 of the 2,000 or so units in Trump buildings he built. A seventh Trump-branded hotel tower built up Sunny Isles into what ostensibly has become a South Florida Brighton Beach.
An investigation by Reuters found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in the seven Trump-branded luxury towers. And that was a conservative estimate. At least 703 – or about one-third – of the 2044 units were owned by limited liability companies, or LLCs, which could conceal the property's true owner. Executives from Gazprom and other Russian natural resource giants also owned units in Trump's Sunny Isles towers. In an observation that several people I spoke with echoed, Kenneth McCallion, a former prosecutor who tracked the flows of Russian criminal money into Trump's properties, told me, "Trump's genius – or evil genius – was, instead of Russian criminal money being passive, incidental income, it became a central part of his business plan." McCallion continued, "It's not called 'Little Moscow' for nothing. The street signs are in Russian. But his towers there were built specifically for the Russian middle-class criminal."
Cohen joined the Trump Organization around the time that the second Sunny Isles tower was being built. A few years earlier, he had invested $1.5 million in a short-lived Miami-based casino boat venture run by his two Ukrainian business partners, Arkady Vaygensberg and Leonid Tatarchuk. Only three months after its maiden voyage, it would become the subject of a large fraud investigation. But Cohen was saved from his bad investment by none other than Trump himself, who hired Cohen as an attorney just before his casino ship sank. A source who investigated Cohen's connections to Russia told me, "Say you want to get money into the country and maybe you're a bit suspect. The Trump organization used lawyers to allow people to get money into the country."
Residents at Sunny Isles included people like Vladimir Popovyan, who paid $1.17 million for a three-bedroom condo in 2013. Forbes Russia described Popovyan as a friend and associate of Rafael Samurgashev, a former championship wrestler who ran a criminal group in Rostov-on-Don in southeastern Russia. Peter Kiritchenko, a Ukrainian businessman arrested on fraud charges in San Francisco in 1999, and his daughter owned two units at Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach worth $2.56 million. (Kiritchenko testified against a corrupt former Ukrainian prime minister who was convicted in 2004 of money laundering.) Other owners of Trump condos in Sunny Isles include members of a Russian-American organized crime group that ran a sports betting ring out of Trump Tower, which catered to wealthy oligarchs from the former Soviet Union. Michael Barukhin, who was convicted in a massive scheme to defraud auto insurers with phony claims, lived out of a Trump condo that was registered to a limited liability corporation.
Selling units from the lobby of the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles was Baronoff Realty. Elena Baronoff, who died of cancer in 2015, was the exclusive sales agent for three Trump-branded towers. Glenn Simpson, who spent a year investigating Trump's background during the campaign, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that Baronoff was a "suspected organized crime figure."
An Uzbek immigrant who arrived in the United States as a cultural attaché in public diplomacy from the Soviet Union, Baronoff became such a well-known figure in Sunny Isles Beach that she was named the international ambassador for the community. Baronoff accompanied Trump's children on a trip to Russia in the winter of 2007–2008, posing for a photo in Moscow with Ivanka and Eric Trump and developer Michael Dezer. Also in the photo, curiously, was a man named Michael Babel, a former senior executive of a property firm owned by Oleg Deripaska, the Russian metals tycoon Paul Manafort allegedly offered personal updates on Trump's presidential campaign. Babel later fled Russia to evade fraud charges.
Baronoff had interesting connections to Sicily. She reportedly met her friend, the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, there. Baronoff was also close with Dino Papale, a local businessman, who described himself to The New York Times as "president of Trump's Sicilian fan club," while sporting a red "Make America Great Again" cap. Days after Trump's election in November, the local newspaper, La Sicilia, quoted Papale at length describing Trump's secret visit to the island in 2013. Papale hinted that he organized meetings between Trump and Russians.
Michael Cohen's in-laws, the Shustermans, also bought real estate in Sunny Isles. The development was paying off. Trump's oldest son, Don Jr., would later note, "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." There is no question Trump owed his comeback in large part to wealthy Russian expatriates.
Cohen and Felix Sater have known each other for nearly 30 years. They met in Brighton Beach when Cohen started dating his future wife, Shusterman's daughter, Laura, who Sater says he knew from the neighborhood. When Cohen joined the Trump organization, Sater had become a fixture in the office. Sater was developing Trump SoHo, a hotel-condo in lower Manhattan that later would be consumed by scandal, and had earned Trump's trust. Trump asked him to look after his children, Ivanka and Don Jr., on a 2006 visit to Moscow. (It was during the Moscow trip that Sater used his Kremlin connections to impress Trump's daughter. Sater would later boast: "I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin's private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin.") When Sater's criminal past was exposed in The New York Times, Trump suddenly looked and acted like a man with something to hide. Despite laying claim to "one of the great memories of all time," he seemed to be having trouble recollecting who Sater was. "Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it," Trump told The Associated Press in 2015. "I'm not that familiar with him." Sater flatly contradicted Trump's version of their relationship. In a little-noticed interview with a Russian publication, Snob, Sater was asked if his criminal past was a problem for Trump. "No, it was not. He makes his own decision regarding each and every individual."
In the midst of Trump's presidential run, Sater was shopping a deal to build a Trump World Tower Moscow. Between September 2015 and January 2016, Sater tried to broker a deal for a Moscow company called IC Expert Investment Company. (Sater worked for IC Expert's owner, Andrei Rozov, after he left Bayrock.) Trump signed a letter of intent in October with IC Expert Investment for a Moscow hotel-condo with the option for a "Spa by Ivanka Trump." Providing financing was VTB, a Russian bank subject to U.S. sanctions. Sater's contact at the Trump Organization was his old friend, Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen. In mid-January, Sater urged Cohen to send an email to Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin's press secretary, "since the proposal would require approvals within the Russian government that had not been issued." Cohen sent the email, got no reply, and said he abandoned the proposal two weeks later.
What Cohen called his old friend's "colorful language" attracted attention from congressional investigators and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office: "Michael I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin," Sater emailed Cohen in November 2015. "I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this."
Sater gave an unsatisfactory answer to BuzzFeed about why he wrote this email. "If a deal can get done and I could make money and he could look like a statesman, what the fuck is the downside, right?"
Shortly after Trump took office, Sater teamed up with Cohen to submit a Ukrainian peace plan to then national security advisor Michael Flynn that would have opened the door to lifting sanctions on Russia. What happened to the plan? The lawyer at first told The New York Times that he left the plan in Flynn's office. Then, after the story became an embarrassment, he called the Times story "fake news" and claimed he pitched the plan into the trash.
Cohen has always acted to protect Trump, and he likely believed that he could always rely on the impenetrable shield of attorney-client privilege. Arguably, no one who has worked with Trump over the past decade knows more about the president's past business dealings in Russia and elsewhere abroad than Cohen. Now that prosecutors have him in their sights, here's the question: Will Cohen's shield, now broken, become a sword?
Thanks to Seth Hettena.
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