U.S. prosecutors recommended a three-month prison sentence for a former Internal Revenue Service analyst who pleaded guilty to illegally disclosing suspicious activity reports related to the private banking information of Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer of President Donald Trump.
John C. Fry, who worked in the IRS’s law enforcement arm in San Francisco, shared the data in 2018 with Michael Avenatti, the attorney who was then representing adult actress Stormy Daniels in a legal battle over a hush payment agreement to keep her from disclosing a tryst she says she had with Trump in 2006. Avenatti released the information publicly on his Twitter account in May 2018.
Fry set aside his “training and experience, and committed crimes in violation of the law he was sworn to uphold,” prosecutors said Wednesday in a memo to a judge who is set to sentence Fry next week. “It is critical that people understand and believe that when a law enforcement officer is caught doing these kind of things, he will be dealt with severely by the system he was once a part of.”
While Cohen (pictured) sought more than $14 million in restitution from Fry, the government said Cohen failed to show he or his business were harmed. Prosecutors said Fry should spend three years on probation and pay a $10,000 fine.
