A Birkin bag and attempts to bury negative stories: The case against Michael Cohen

That's one of the charges that Cohen, the former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, has pleaded guilty to, outlined by prosecutors from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in a court filing.

On Tuesday, Cohen pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to eight criminal counts, including tax evasion, false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations tied to his work for Trump. In a plea deal, he said that "in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office" he had kept information that would have been harmful to the candidate and the campaign from becoming public.

Here's how prosecutors detailed some of the government's allegations against Cohen.

A Birkin bag and property in a private aviation community

Prosecutors said that Cohen concealed various sources of income from the IRS and an accountant. That included roughly "$30,000 in profit made, in 2015, for brokering the sale of a Birkin Bag, a highly coveted French handbag that retails for between $11,900 to $300,000, depending on the type of leather or animal skin used," according to the filing.

The court filing also states that Cohen failed to disclose "a $100,000 payment received, in 2014, for brokering the sale of a piece of property in a private aviation community in Ocala, Florida."

Efforts to bury negative stories

The court filing never mentions Trump by name, but it refers multiple times to a person described as "Individual-1," described as "a candidate for federal office," who started his presidential bid on June 16, 2015 -- the day Trump launched his campaign -- and who, by January 2017, "had become the President of the United States."

The filing states that in August 2015, the chairman and chief executive of a media company that owned a tabloid magazine coordinated with Cohen and "one or more members of the campaign" in an effort "to help deal with negative stories" related to the candidate's "relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided."

Cohen worked with the media company to "arrange for the purchase of two stories so as to suppress them and prevent them from influencing the election," according to prosecutors.

The filing states that in June 2016, a model and actress referred to as "Woman-1" started trying to sell the story of an "alleged extramarital affair" that she claimed to have had with the candidate in 2006 and 2007.

Prosecutors say that the editor-in-chief of the tabloid started to negotiate to buy the story "at Cohen's urging," and the media company subsequently "entered into an agreement" to pay $150,000 to acquire the rights to the story of the woman's relationship with "any then-married man."

Shortly before the 2016 presidential election, The Wall Street Journal reported that American Media Inc., the company that owns The National Enquirer, paid $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who has claimed she had an affair with Trump, but did not run her story in a tabloid maneuver known as "catch and kill." The White House has said Trump denies any affair took place.

CNN has previously reported that McDougal has said the alleged affair took place from 2006 to 2007.

In another instance, the court filing states that in October 2016 a representative for an adult film actress, who is referred to only as "Woman-2," told the tabloid editor that the woman "was willing to make public statements and confirm on the record her alleged past affair with Individual-1."

The chairman of the media company and the editor reached out to Cohen and connected him with an attorney for the woman, and Cohen proceeded to negotiate an agreement totaling $130,000 intended to "purchase" the woman's "silence," according to the filing.

In February 2018, Cohen acknowledged that he had made a payment of $130,000 to former adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had a consensual sexual encounter with Trump, who denies any affair.

CNN reported at the time that Cohen described it as "a private transaction" and said he "used my own personal funds," and that "neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction."

After detailing Cohen's negotiations involving the two women, however, the court filing states that Cohen "caused and made the payments described ... in order to influence the 2016 presidential election. In so doing, he coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature and timing of the payments."