HARRISBURG, PA — A former Blair County attorney has been sentenced to up to three years in prison after state prosecutors said he fabricated a court order to help a client illegally alter a child custody arrangement.
Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that Michael B. Cohen, 42, of Hollidaysburg, was sentenced Friday to one month to three years in state prison after pleading guilty in September to forgery. Cohen was also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and cover prosecution costs.
Prosecutors said Cohen created a fraudulent custody order that prompted his client to violate an existing court-approved custody agreement by moving her child out of the county. The falsified document contained significantly altered custody terms and bore the name of a judge to make it appear legitimate.
“The defendant’s actions were not a simple lapse in judgement,” Sunday said. “As an attorney, he knew the law, yet time and time again, he attempted to falsify legal documents for his own personal gain.”
The sentence marks one of five imposed on Cohen over the past three months stemming from a series of state and federal convictions. In February 2021, a client paid Cohen $10,000 to represent her in a Blair County custody matter. In December 2022, Cohen sent the client a photograph of the fake custody order, which investigators later determined he created on his own computer.
Authorities became involved after the child’s father contacted police when the mother failed to appear for a scheduled custody exchange. Cohen later sent a letter to the presiding judge acknowledging that his client acted on advice he provided based on the fabricated order.
In interviews with investigators, Cohen admitted he drafted the false custody order himself and added a judge’s name to make it appear official, prosecutors said.
Cohen’s legal troubles extend beyond the custody case. In October, he pleaded guilty in Bedford County to theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received and was sentenced to five years of probation. Last month, he was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release, after admitting to forging the signature of a United States District Judge on two separate occasions.
The forgery sentence handed down Friday will run concurrently with Cohen’s federal prison term. A separate county sentence of six to 23 ½ months in jail on two additional cases prosecuted by the Blair County District Attorney’s Office will also be served concurrently.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Deputy Attorney General Megan McGoron.
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