Michael Cohen is reporting to prison. He'll serve time with a Jersey Shore bro and a Fyre Festival fraudster.

The federal prison in Otisville, New York

(Image credit: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 6 May 2019

Michael Cohen has to report to the minimum-security Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, by 2 p.m. on Monday to begin serving his three-year prison term for violating campaign finance laws and lying to Congress, both done to protect President Trump, for whom Cohen used to work. Before going to jail, Cohen, 53, will give a press conference, he told reporters Sunday as he walked through Manhattan followed by paparazzi-like cameras.

Cohen, who has also lost his law license, will spend three years without his family or freedom, but he could have drawn a shorter straw. "Forbes once ranked Otisville as one of 'America's 10 Cushiest Prisons,'" The Associated Press reports, and its amenities include tennis courts, horseshoes, and bocce ball. Cohen's prison stint will overlap for a few months with Jersey Shore star Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, who began his eight-month sentence for tax fraud in January, and Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland will still be in Otisville after Cohen is released.

Not that any prison is all that cushy. He'll be assigned a job and sleep in a bunk-bed-lined hall. "There's no free time to work on your book, or whatever," former Otisville employee Don Drewett told AP. "You get your downtime when you're supposed to be sleeping or when you can exercise, but that only happens at certain windows of the day. It's not where in the middle of the day you can just opt to not go to work and go work out. That's not the way that works."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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