U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in Manhattan stated the Department of Justice did not allege an specific “quid pro quo” between Benjamin and Gerald Migdol, an actual property developer in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, to help bribery, sincere companies wire fraud and conspiracy charges within the indictment.
Oetken stated prosecutors can pursue two falsification of information charges against Benjamin, in regards to the identities of marketing campaign contributors and a background examine to grow to be lieutenant governor.
Benjamin, chosen by Governor Kathy Hochul in August 2021 for the state’s No. 2 job, resigned as lieutenant governor on April 12 when the charges had been introduced. He pleaded not responsible.
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan declined to remark.
Barry Berke, a lawyer for Benjamin, stated his shopper was “thankful for his vindication” and appeared ahead to additional serving New York and his Harlem neighborhood, after what the lawyer known as the “flimsy and unwarranted” charges unfairly price him his job.
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court, which has grown extra skeptical of federal prosecutions of public corruption, appeared poised to impose additional limits on such prosecutions when it heard arguments in a case involving Joseph Percoco, a former aide to Hochul’s predecessor Andrew Cuomo.
Prosecutors stated Benjamin directed a $50,000 state grant in June 2019 to a charity Migdol ran in Harlem, the place Benjamin was then a state senator, in alternate for contributions to his 2020 re-election marketing campaign and unsuccessful 2021 bid to grow to be New York City comptroller.But Oetken stated the federal government merely “implied” an settlement between the lads, and the awarding of the grant was not “proof” there had been one.
Migdol pleaded responsible to bribery and fraud charges and cooperated with prosecutors.
The case is U.S. v. Benjamin, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 21-cr-00706.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Howard Goller)
By Jonathan Stempel