share this article!

The government can be held accountable for the negligent or wrongful acts or omissions of its workers when working within the extent of their employment, according to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Inmates in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons are covered by the same law (BOP). Federal offenders make the assertion more frequently than most people realize, but for less obvious reasons. Inmates file FTCA claims against the Bureau of Prisons for things like personal goods lost during transfers between institutions or extended stays in the Special Housing Unit (SHU). These claims are reviewed by the BOP, and if they are determined to be valid, they can be settled by the BOP with compensation of up to $50,000, or by the courts for higher sums.

Michael Cohen, a former personal attorney, has filed documents alleging that the BOP violated his First… [+] Amendment rights by arresting him after approving him for home confinement.
courtesy of Getty Images
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, filed an FTCA administrative claim against the BOP for seeking to limit his freedom of speech last month, while still detained by the BOP but serving the remainder of his sentence on home confinement. Cohen claims the BOP wrongfully returned him to prison from home confinement in order to prevent the release of his pending book, Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, and to keep him out of the spotlight during the tumultuous 2020 presidential campaign.
In May 2020, Cohen was transferred to home confinement under the CARES Act, which allowed the BOP to release select minimal security federal detainees who were at risk of an adverse COVID-19 reaction due to underlying medical issues. Cohen was one of them, and the Bureau of Prisons sent him to home confinement to finish his sentence (due to be released in November 2021). During the 2020 election, however, Cohen, who has been on major news sources (CNN and MSNBC), Jimmy Kimmell Live!, and has a popular podcast (Mea Culpa), became an ardent critic of Trump.
Cohen’s Tort claim against the BOP for allegedly attempting to muzzle his free speech during a presidential election is not the first time the agency has been accused of doing so. Brett Coleman Kimberlin, a convicted marijuana smuggler, was sentenced to jail in 1978 for trafficking marijuana and carrying out a series of bombs at Speedway convenience stores in Indianapolis. Just days before the 1988 presidential election, Kimberlin, who was serving a 50-year sentence in FCI El Reno, OK, was preparing to lead a telephonic press conference claiming that he once sold marijuana to and smoked marijuana with then-vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle while Quayle was a student at Indiana University Law School, was preparing to lead a telephonic press conference claiming that he once sold marijuana to and smoked marijuana with Quayle (1971-1973). Quayle denied using the drugs and claimed he had never met Kimberlin. That did not stop the BOP’s then-Director J. Michael Quinlan from canceling the phone conference and incarcerating Kimberlin in El Reno’s stringent Special Housing Unit (SHU). Kimberlin was freed from SHU a few days later, but was returned to SHU on the day of the 1988 presidential election as a “precaution.”
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR YOU
Kimberlin requested an FTCA, but the BOP denied it, claiming that Kimberlin had engaged in “telephone abuse” and had been reprimanded “in accordance with applicable Bureau of Prisons regulation.”
The inspector general of the Justice Department eventually concluded that federal prison authorities treated Kimberlin unfairly and that “Director Quinlan’s personal involvement in overriding the decision of a local warden in this case was highly exceptional.” The examination also found that Bush/election Quayle’s teams had no participation in the situation. “It was clearly established in November 1988 that, absent special circumstances, federal prison inmates have a First Amendment right to be free from governmental interference with their contacts with the press if that interference is based on the content of their speech or is based on the content of their speech or is based on the content of their speech or is based on the content of their speech or is based on the content of their speech or is based on the content of their speech or is based on the content of their speech or is The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit clearly stated in 1975 that “prison officials are prohibited from authorizing or denying a prisoner’s interview with the press based on the content of such interview.”
Kimberlin was eventually victorious against the BOP. Quinlan resigned as BOP director in 1992, as the investigation into his actions against Kimberlin was in full swing and two months after a former BOP assistant director Steven McPeek settled a sexual harassment claim against him. Quinlan had a distinguished career at the BOP, including oversight of the Cuban detainee prison riots. Quinlan indicated that he left the BOP due to health concerns, but that he was able to reemerge as an executive at Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), now known as CoreCivic). Despite the compensation, Quinlan has always refuted McPeek’s charges.
Cohen was approached by a Bronx halfway house director in July 2020, while still on furlough from the BOP, regarding his impending home detention. At his residence, a meeting was held to ensure that he had a landline phone and that the premises were appropriate… which they were. Cohen, like the other people on home confinement, was supposed to get an ankle device to track his travels. A US Probation official contacted Cohen the next day, telling him that instead of the halfway home, he needed to report to 500 Pearl Street, the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. Cohen consulted his longtime friend and attorney, Jeffrey K. Levine, who agreed that the change in venue was unique and that the two should go together. Cohen’s initial transfer to home confinement under the CARES Act was made possible by Levine.
Cohen was required to sign a list of conditions he would follow under home confinement while on US Probation, including a few that specified he would not write a book, avoid contact with the media, and ensure friends and relatives did not contact the media. “When I read the now-famous restriction phrase addressing no contact with the media or publishing a book, Michael and I realized what was going on and said, ‘this appears to have been written particularly for me… say hello to Bill Barr [then-Attorney General],” Levine said in an interview.
Cohen told the probation officer that his book had already been sent to the publisher and that his testimony before Congress had prompted numerous demands for him to be interviewed by major news organizations. Cohen did not refuse to sign the document, but three US Marshals arrived and took him into jail as he discussed his options with Levine. Cohen was brought to MCC New York, where he lingered for days before being egregiously returned to Otisville, NY, where he had been serving a three-year jail sentence and from which Levine had just seven weeks previously extricated him to be placed on home confinement.
Cohen filed a motion to return home, and his case was heard by U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York (SDNY), who said in a hearing that in his 21 years on the bench, he had “never seen” a clause requiring a candidate for home confinement to agree not to speak to the media. Cohen has been under home confinement since leaving Otisville. His book was released last fall, and he is frequently interviewed on television networks for his thoughts on Trump’s past. He’s also testified in front of Congress and nine other government agencies looking into Trump, his businesses, and his allies. Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was recently indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which also visited Cohen when he was in the Otisville prison camp.
“Judge Hellerstein’s ruling of our government’s unlawfulness and retaliation (which was not appealed) will act as a stepping stone in our pending FTCA claim and upcoming Bivens action to further explore how, why, and by whom Mr. Cohen was targeted—names will be named, and the rule of law must continue to prevail by holding the retaliation in place,” Levine said of the FTCA claim.
According to the BOP, FTCA claims can take up to 6 months to process from the date of submission, and if no response is received by that time, the inmate can assume the claim has been denied and file a lawsuit in the relevant U.S. District Court.
In this case, it’s the SDNY.
Cohen’s complaint is anticipated to name current BOP Director Michael Carvajal, a Trump nominee, and former Attorney General William Barr. Carvajal was widely chastised for his testimony before the Senate and House earlier this year, as well as his leadership of the agency during the COVID-19 disaster, which infected tens of thousands of convicts and personnel and resulted in the deaths of 240 inmates./nRead More

share this article!