If Michael Cohen[1] ever goes to jail, he will likely be surrounded by some familiar faces.
A judge has recommended that President Trump’s former personal lawyer — sentenced to three years for tax fraud and other crimes — serve his time in the minimum-security prison at the Federal Correctional Institution Otisville, in New York State.
The facility, 70 miles from Manhattan in Orange County, is currently home to “Jersey Shore” star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino[2], Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland[3] and Dean Skelos, the former Republican leader of the state Senate convicted of corruption[4].
“It’s not fancy. They live in trailers. But there are no walls, no bars,” a lawyer familiar with the facilities told me. “Visiting is very lax and lenient. When the weather is nice, families come up and picnic.”
About half the 110 beds at Otisville go to Jews, who require kosher food and religious services, because the Bureau of Prisons “kind of unofficially designated it to meet the needs of Orthodox Jews,” according to Aleph Institute’s prison outreach director, Rabbi Menachem Katz.
Among Otisville’s alumni is Kenneth Starr, the money manager who defrauded Al Pacino and Sylvester Stallone[5].
Former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi did his time at Mid-State, another upstate white-collar facility in a Town & Country roundup[6] of frequented spots for when “high fliers need to lie low.” Political consultant Hank Morris, who worked with Hevesi, told reporters that at his upstate facility he walked miles every day, worked out at the gym, read 250 books and wrote a TV show pilot and a screenplay during his two-plus years behind bars.
But there is a possibility that Cohen,