Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, returned to his New York home on Thursday after he was released from federal prison due to concerns over coronavirus exposure. Cohen, 53, had been serving a federal prison sentence at FCI Otisville in New York after pleading guilty to numerous charges, including campaign finance fraud and lying to Congress. He had completed about a year of a three-year sentence for his role paying hush money to two women – the adult film actor and producer Stormy Daniels and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal – who said they had sexual relationships with the president, as well as for financial crimes and lying to Congress. Trump has denied relationships with either woman. Cohen is expected to serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement, two sources familiar with the case said on condition of anonymity. Cohen had been eligible for release from prison in November 2021. “There is so much I want to say and intend to say. But now is not the right time. Soon,” Cohen said on Twitter after walking into his Manhattan apartment building, wearing a white surgical mask, blue jeans and a dark blazer. Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was released from a federal prison in Pennsylvania last week to finish his sentence at home due to similar concerns. A Cohen lawyer in March said the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has been “demonstrably incapable of safeguarding and treating BOP inmates who are obliged to live in close quarters and are at an enhanced risk of catching coronavirus”. Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, later turned on his former boss and cooperated with Democratic-led congressional inquiries. Trump has called Cohen a “rat”. Cohen has called Trump a “racist”, a “con man” and “a cheat”. Cohen pleaded guilty to the charges that led to his imprisonment. They also included lying to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Prison advocates and congressional leaders have been pressing the justice department for weeks to release at-risk inmates ahead of a potential outbreak, arguing that the public health guidance to stay 6ft away from other people is nearly impossible behind bars. The attorney general, William Barr, ordered the Bureau of Prisons in March and April to increase the use of home confinement and expedite the release of eligible high-risk inmates, beginning at three prisons identified as coronavirus hotspots. Otisville is not one of those facilities. A federal judge had denied Cohen’s attempt for an early release and said in a ruling earlier this month that it “appears to be just another effort to inject himself into the news cycle”. But the Bureau of Prisons can take action to move him to home confinement without a judicial order. The Bureau of Prisons said last week that more than 2,400 inmates had been moved to home confinement since Barr first issued his memo on home confinement in late March, and 1,200 others had been approved and were expected to be released in the coming weeks. Michael Avenatti, the attorney who rose to fame representing Daniels in lawsuits against Trump, was temporarily freed from a federal jail in New York City and is staying at a friend’s house in Los Angeles. Former New York state senate leader Dean Skelos, 72, who was also serving a sentence at Otisville, was released on home confinement after testing positive for the coronavirus.