NYTimes is reporting that disbarred attorney Evgeny Freidman, a business associate of Michael Cohen’s who managed his various taxi medallions, had been facing multiple charges including $5 Million in tax fraud and grand larceny which potentially meant 25 years in jail for each charge has now pleaded guilty to a single charge of just $50,000 in tax evasion in exchange for just 5 years of probation and agreeing to cooperate with the New York State Attorney General’s office. Sweet deal.
A significant business partner of Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, has quietly agreed to cooperate with the government as a potential witness, a development that could be used as leverage to pressure Mr. Cohen to work with the special counsel examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Under the agreement, the partner, Evgeny A. Freidman, a Russian immigrant who is known as the Taxi King, will avoid jail time, and will assist government prosecutors in state or federal investigations, according to a person briefed on the matter.
…
Mr. Freidman has been Mr. Cohen’s partner in the taxi business for years, managing cabs for him even after New York City regulators barred Mr. Freidman last year from continuing to manage medallions.
Mr. Freidman, who was disbarred earlier this month, had been accused of failing to pay more than $5 million in taxes and faced four counts of criminal tax fraud and one of grand larceny — all B felonies. Each carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 25 years in prison.
Instead, he appeared in court in Albany on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to a single count of evading only $50,000 worth of taxes; he faces five years of probation if he fulfills the terms of his agreement, the judge, Patrick Lynch of Albany County court, said during the roughly 20-minute proceeding.
Right, so Trump had “nothing to do with Russia” except for that time his personal lawyer’s Russian business partner was committing $Millions worth of tax evasion involving his lawyer’s personal taxi businesses which he of course knows nothing about.
And of course Cohen knows nothing about it also even though it involves his own taxi medallions.
Or at least that’s exactly what he’s likely to say in response to Freidman’s testimony against him which could put him personally at risk for that magically missing $5 Mil. Good luck with that pal.
Unless of course Cohen decides to finally squeal to the fuzz about everything he knows about walking the head of the Qatar Sovereign Investment Fund into Trump Tower to offer them a possible bribe, trying to hump the Trump Tower Moscow deal all the way to July 2016 when Trump finally won the RNC Nomination, brokering a peace plan for Russia with Ukraine that would end sanctions which would conincidentally green light #TTowerMoscow again — even though last I noticed, he wasn’t a fucking diplomat — taking $Millions in pay-to-play consulting fees for lobbying Trump from Russian oligarch affiliated and others companies at a rate that was as much as 4 times what they paid their regular lobbyists — when, oh by the way, he’s not a fucking lobbyist — not to mention paying off porn star Stormy Daniels as well as Playboy Playmates Karen McDougal and Shera Bechard using the mystical Trump patented volcanic Bimbo eruption slush fund — and I mean that with the greatest respect to legitimate hard working Bimbos and also Volcanos, God Love ‘em — and finally admit what other sort of shady frack he’s been hooked up with all this time.
I mean, assuming he’s actually done some shady frack now and again. I’m just saying.
Also note this is a NY State case, so Trump doesn’t have the ability to use his pardon power to protect Cohen on this issue.