Michael Cohen, the longtime attorney to President Trump who now finds himself facing mounting legal issues as federal prosecutors pick through his businesses, has put up his Park Avenue apartment as collateral for loans previously secured by his struggling New York taxi business.
Through his taxi company, Cohen and his wife had loans worth as much as $12.8 million to Sterling National Bank that had been extended in 2014. But now that the value of those medallions have nosedived, as much as 80 percent since Uber and Lyft entered the New York market, and a mortgage document filed last month shows the apartment being offered as additional collateral, according to Bloomberg. The filings show the family apartment, a consolidation of three units on the 10th floor of Trump Park Avenue at 502 Park Avenue, is valued at $9 million.
“With all due respect, you don’t remotely understand my loan,” Cohen responded in a text message to the news outlet.
The move spells out further pressures on the embattled lawyer, who paid $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 after she threatened to go public with claims of an affair with Trump. In a news report Tuesday, Cohen is said to have received $500,000 through the same shell company he used to pay Daniels by a company tied to a Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg. The payment to the company, Essential Consultants LLC, was one of several received including payments by AT&T, which is seeking to close on a merger with Time Warner, according to The New York Times.
It follows a raid by FBI agents on an apartment last month at the Loews Regency in Manhattan where Cohen was staying. Federal agents were seeking records relating to his business activities and investigating possible bank fraud. Cohen sought a temporary restraining against the federal investigators to limit the scope of records and correspondences they can review, in part by asserting attorney-client privilege. But a U.S. District Attorney rebuffed his request, adding “It is neither apparent (i) that Cohen, in his capacity as an attorney, has many, or any, attorney-client relationships other than with President Donald Trump.” [Bloomberg] — David Jeans