Will Cohen Cooperate? Tenuous Finances May Provide Crucial Clues
[{"sender": "Richard Kahn | Ts", "recipients": ["jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "4/27/2018 8:25:30 PM", "subject": "Will Cohen Cooperate? Tenuous Finances May Provide Crucial Clues", "body": "shockingly it appears he has some money in real estate deals...\n\nwill cohen Cooperate? Tenuous Finances May Provide Crucial Clues\n2018-04-27 08:00:00.2 GMT\n\nBy Shahien Nasiripour and Caleb Melby\n(Bloomberg) -- In the two weeks since federal agents seized\n\nthe files of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal\n\nattorney and fixer, a question has hovered: will Cohen cooperate\nwith investigators?\n\nHis decision could depend in part on whether he can readily\nshoulder the enormous legal fees required to fight a federal\nprobe of this magnitude.\n\nAt first blush, Cohen looks like a pretty rich man. He\ndrives a white Rolls Royce, sports a $50,000 watch and owns a\nfair amount of Manhattan real estate.\n\nBut just as his loyalty to Trump is coming under scrutiny,\n\na more tenuous financial picture is emerging. A taxi business he\nand his wife built is deeply in debt and losing money daily, his\ncommercial real estate is throwing off only modest income, and\nhis legal and consulting work is on hold while he remains under\ninvestigation.\n\ncohen declined repeated requests to comment.\n\nThe owners of 32 New York City taxi licenses -- known as\nmedallions -- he and his wife, Laura, took out at least 16 loans\nbased on their once-soaring value, liens show. with the rise of\nUber and Lyft, the price of a medallion has fallen from more\nthan $1 million to around $163,000 in the past four years.\nIncome from the taxi business has plummeted, and millions of\n\ndollars of the Cohens’ loans went under water. Their bank said\n\nin a November public filing that it had loans out to three taxi\nborrowers, and all were at high risk of default.\n\nSuspended Medallions\n\nUnpaid taxes and fines have piled up at the Cohen taxi\ncompanies, triggering a suspension of about half of the\nmedallions, city records show, squeezing cash flow.\n\nwhatever monthly income the cabs once produced almost\ncertainly fell well short of the debt payments owed to Sterling\nNational Bank, their Montebello, New York-based lender. Sterling\nhas foreclosed on operators in similar situations and sued them\nbut appears to be taking a less-confrontational approach with\nthe Cohens. On Tuesday, the bank agreed to new loans for their\ncompanies and to Cohen personally, public filings show. Sterling\ndeclined to comment.\n\nThe taxi business isn’t the only part of Cohen's empire\nthat’s suffering. The law firm Squire Patton Boggs said it ended\n\nits \"strategic alliance” with Cohen after law enforcement raided\nhis offices, and the rest of his legal work could decline for\n\nthe same reason. Cohen, 51, makes others’ ugly problems\n\ndisappear, a practice that was previously lucrative. Essential\nConsultants LLC, a company affiliated with Cohen, was paid\n$250,000 after he negotiated a $1.6 million payment to a former\nPlayboy model on behalf of Republican National Committee\nofficial Elliott Broidy, according to a Wall Street Journal\nreport."}]