Free-flowing matzo ball soup and gefilte fish, a full-time personal rabbi and an occasional visit home. An expensive resort? No.
It’s jail.
By Howard M. Riell
At least it is for Michael Cohen, comfortably ensconced in a luxury resort at which he will do hard time for the next three years is unique in the federal system. Forbes once called it one of America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons.
President Trump’s former attorney turned squealer will be reporting to the Federal Correctional Institute in Otisville, New York, about 70 miles northwest of New York City, on Monday. When he gets there, he will be ushered into his new and decidedly comfortable dorm-like accommodations inside the minimum-security camp. Prison consultants – yes, there is such a thing – say Otisville has earned a reputation as the in place for Jewish criminals.
“He’s going to what I like to refer to as ‘Jewish heaven,’” said Larry Levine, founder of Wall Street Prison Consultants, who served a 10-year prison sentence that ended in 2007 for racketeering and other crimes, in an interview with Reuters. Celebrity bunkmates will include Jersey Shore star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland.
Cohen, of course, was sentenced in December for orchestrating payments to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal shortly before the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Reuters notes.
The nearly posh accommodations came at the request of Cohen’s then-attorney, Guy Petrillo.
According to the Otisville facility’s web site, the menu offers matzo ball soup, gefilte fish and rugelach, along with Doritos tortilla chips and Diet Sprite soda – all of it, of course, meeting the highest standards of kashrus. No word yet on whether or not chocolate is left on the pillows.
Jack Donson, a former manager at the prison who now runs a prison consulting firm, told Reuters that the camp was “a great place for white-collar Jewish guys.” The institution also provides “contract rabbis” over and above its regular, full-time rabbi.
Otisville’s newest inmate “spent his final weekend of freedom trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy — leaving his Manhattan apartment building on Saturday with his son to go to a coffee shop and then to a barbershop,” Fox News reports. “They both got haircuts. Cohen’s next stop was the pricy store Barneys New York, where he told journalists that he plans to hold a news conference Monday before heading to prison.”
In March, Cohen’s lawyers reportedly contacted prosecutors about meeting to reduce his sentence. They never got together, however. “That snub,” noted voanews.com, “might be the best evidence yet that Cohen’s months-long campaign to sell himself as a potential witness hasn’t paid off.”
