Article snippet: NEW YORK — For weeks, Michael Cohen sought to portray himself as a man who’d found his ‘‘true north’’ after years of shady business dealings and pit-bull loyalty to President Donald Trump. Prosecutors offered a vastly different assessment Friday of the president’s former fixer, dismissing him as a duplicitous figure who badly misplayed his hand. In an excoriating court filing ahead of Cohen’s sentencing next week, they assailed him as a greedy opportunist who rode Trump’s coattails to wealth and is now exaggerating his level of cooperation with investigators. They said the ‘‘pattern of deception that permeated his professional life’’ was hidden from three dozen friends and relatives who wrote letters to the court hailing Cohen as ‘‘the true meaning of a ‘mensch,’’ a ‘‘consummate patriarch’’ and a selfless servant ‘‘whose manner and bearing is reminiscent of a more gracious era.’’ ‘‘After cheating the IRS for years, lying to banks and to Congress, and seeking to criminally influence the Presidential election, Cohen’s decision to plead guilty - rather than seek a pardon for his manifold crimes - does not make him a hero,’’ they wrote. Cohen, 52, is facing the possibility of roughly four years in prison at a sentencing Dec. 12 for crimes that include tax evasion and helping to coordinate hush money payments to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. His lawyers said Cohen decided to plead guilty, cooperate with the special inquiry into Russian meddling... Link to the full article to read more