NEW YORK — Michael Cohen asked a Manhattan appeals court Thursday to reconsider a ruling that spares the Trump Organization from having to pay his hefty legal bills.
Trump’s former personal attorney says the ex-president’s company must foot the bill for more than $1 million in unpaid lawyers’ fees incurred through the Mueller investigation, an FBI raid on Cohen’s office, and Cohen’s false testimony to Congress in 2018.
Asked how much he owes lawyers for his Trump troubles, Cohen declined to provide The New York Daily News an exact figure. He said it adds up to “over a million more than what has already been paid.”
Cohen claims the Trump Organization verbally promised to pay his lawyers as his legal troubles mounted in 2017. But once it became clear Cohen flipped on his boss, the company balked, he said, refusing to cover his bills.
The notice of appeal to the Appellate Division, First Department comes 10 days after Cohen’s release from home confinement.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joel Cohen wrote on Nov. 12 that the Trump Organization was not on the hook for Cohen’s fees.
“In a nutshell, Mr. Cohen’s legal fees arise out of his (sometimes unlawful) service to Mr. Trump personally, to Mr. Trump’s campaign, and to the Trump Foundation,” Justice Cohen wrote. “But not out of his service to the business of the Trump Organization, which is the only defendant in this case.”
Cohen, 55, spent the first year of his three-year sentence in Otisville prison, a medium-security lockup in Orange County. He was released into home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic, which ravaged state and federal jails across the country.
Hunter Winstead, a lawyer representing Cohen, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
