New York, May 13 (Reuters/GNA) – Donald Trump’s estranged former fixer Michael Cohen is expected to begin giving testimony on Monday that could determine whether jurors convict the former U.S. president of illegally hiding a payment to silence a porn star who said they had a sexual encounter.
For nearly a decade Cohen, 57, worked as an executive and lawyer at Trump’s New York-based family real estate company and once said he would take a bullet for Trump, a Republican trying to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in this year’s Nov. 5 U.S. election.
Trump’s personal lawyer from the start of the White House years in 2017, Cohen broke with him when federal prosecutors probing Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign honed in on Cohen, now one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, frequently disparaging him on social media and on podcasts.
On Friday, Justice Juan Merchan urged prosecutors to tell Cohen to stop making public statements about the case after defense lawyer Todd Blanche said Cohen had spoken on social media while wearing a T-shirt showing Trump behind bars.
Cohen’s $130,000 hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election about a 2006 sexual encounter she says she and Trump had is at the center of the trial, which began on April 15 in New York state criminal court in Manhattan.
Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office say Trump falsely labeled his reimbursement payments to Cohen in 2017 as legal expenses in his New York-based real estate company’s books.
GNA/Credit: Reuters