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Stanley Cohen, New York City lawyer sentenced in Syracuse to 18 months in prison for impeding the IRS.

(John O'Brien | jobrien@syracuse.com)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A federal judge in Syracuse today sentenced a lawyer who's represented accused terrorists to 18 months in prison for obstructing the IRS and not filing tax returns.

Stanley Cohen, 63, of New York City, maintained afterward that he's the victim of retaliation by the federal government because of the clients he's represented.

"I've been singled for punishment by this government for the positions I've taken," Cohen said after he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue. "It's designed to silence me. It will not."

Mordue ordered Cohen to report to federal prison on Jan. 6.

Two separate film crews accompanied Cohen to the courthouse. One is doing a documentary on lawyers who represent accused terrorists, the other is doing a film on Cohen's life, he said.

Cohen, a lawyer for 31 years, pleaded guilty in April in Syracuse to obstructing the Internal Revenue Service by not reporting cash payments totaling $20,000 from one client in 2008, and $15,000 from another client in 2010.

For 2004, Cohen filed a tax return in which he claimed his gross receipts were $289,000, prosecutors said. But investigators determined he had deposits of more than $426,000 for that year, prosecutors said.

Bank records revealed that Cohen accessed his safety deposit box 77 times from 2006 through 2008, and that he made cash deposits totaling $504,000 at that bank from 2004 to 2008, prosecutors said.

Cohen can no longer practice law in federal court in the 32-county Northern District of New York. It will be up to other federal courts and the state judicial system to decide whether his felony conviction will result in Cohen being barred from their courts.

The sentencing also covered Cohen's guilty plea in federal court in New York City in May to misdemeanor counts of willfully failing to file income tax returns in 2006 and 2007.

The amount Cohen owes the IRS has not yet been determined. Cohen said it's about $40,000 a year for five years.

The prison sentence appropriately accounted for "the extensive, somewhat stealthy and long-running offense" Cohen committed, federal prosecutors Stephen Green and John Duncan wrote in their sentencing memorandum.

Cohen has claimed he was not convicted of tax evasion. But the prosecutors called him a "common tax cheat" and described his crimes as the "common activities of a tax evader."

He avoided creating a paper trail or government detection in his financial dealings with his clients, prosecutors said. He also took advantage of "less financially sophisticated" defendants, many of whom were drug dealers with large amounts of cash, Green and Duncan wrote.

Cohen ran a large portion of his law practice as a cash business and failed to maintain records of client billing, the prosecutors said. His clients have told federal agents that, before he became their lawyer, Cohen solicited investments from them of more than $100,000 in cash each, the prosecutors wrote.

Cohen said he pleaded guilty to end the government's harassment.

"It had bankrupted me," he said outside the courthouse. "It had created enormous health issues for my family. I resolved this to get on with life. I will continue to fight this governmentt. I will continue to fight for human rights all over the world.This is one bump in the road."

His claim that he was the victim of retaliation will be supported with big international news in about two weeks, he said. It's related to a 17-day trip he just returned from to Jordan and Kuwait, he said. He would not be more specific.

Cohen admits he should have filed his tax returns and been more attentive to report his financial transactions, defense lawyer Donald Kinsella wrote in a sentencing memorandum. Cohen's busy practice resulted in his inattention to those obligations, Kinsella wrote.

"Mr. Cohen has made a career of zealously representing people who most lawyers would hesitate to represent -- in the great tradition of the legal profession," the sentencing memorandum said.

On his website, Cohen wrote in April that prosecutors went after him because of his clientele.

"There is no doubt I have made mistakes which allowed the witch hunt to continue, and to produce a result not imposed against other like persons, but that comes with the turf," he wrote. "This is not a loss but a predictable result of a lifetime of resistance. There is a price to pay when you say no."

In March, Cohen represented Osama bin Laden's son-in-law in a high-profile New York City criminal trial. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and of other terrorism charges. Cohen has also defended a half-dozen accused terrorists, including the political leader of Hamas.



Contact John O'Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 315-470-2187.