 The charge carried a maximum sentence of ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine; on December 15, Judge William Bryant fined Felt $5,000 and Miller $3,500, but imposed no jail time for either.Writing an OpEd piece in "The New York Times" a week after the conviction, attorney Roy Cohn claimed that Felt and Miller were being used as scapegoats by the Carter administration and it was an unfair prosecution.Cohn wrote the break-ins were the "final dirty trick" of the Nixon administration, and there had been no "personal motive" to their actions.