Crooked ex-Council Member to forfeit pension

From the Daily News:

Crooked former New York City Councilman Larry Seabrook must cough up his public pension payments to satisfy the $418,252 judgment against him, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara recently moved to seize Seabrook's state and city pensions because he had yet to pay a cent of the forfeiture order.

The 63-year-old Seabrook, who also served as a state assemblyman and senator, had argued against the move, saying state law protected his taxpayer-funded pensions.

But U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel said federal law took precedence over state statutes.

Seabrook to slammer for 5 years

From the Politicker:

Councilman Larry Seabrook, who was convicted last July on 9 counts of wire and fraud charges, was sentenced in federal court today to 5 years in prison. Upon his conviction, Mr. Seabrook was immediately expelled from the legislative chamber.

“Councilman Larry Seabrook sacrificed the public trust on the altar of greed,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. “He was a flagrant and serial abuser of City Council discretionary funds in a far too familiar New York tale of corruption,” Mr. Bharara said of Mr. Seabrook. “Today’s sentence finally vindicates the interests of the constituents whose trust he so casually violated by his fraud. We remain committed to making those who are corrupted by power pay the price, and the public can expect more arrests of politicians who have not learned this lesson.”

This year in tweeding

From the NY Times:

With 2012 just about over, we in New York have reason to hold heads high. We showed over the past year that we remain a leader when it comes to political corruption. It’s not easy staying at the top of your game. But we New Yorkers proved, once again, that

First, let’s raise a cup to those this year who met the lofty standards of George Washington Plunkitt, the turn-of-the-last-century Tammany leader with a worldview that he neatly summed up this way: “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.”

Here’s to Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx (or maybe Westchester), who used to insist that corruption charges against him amounted to a satanic plot.

Let’s give a cheer to Hiram Monserrate of Queens, another state senator who helped make Albany synonymous with dysfunction.

Yet another state senator, Shirley L. Huntley of Queens, called a new conference in August to announce not that she had a bill to propose but, rather, that she was about to be indicted on corruption charges.

Jimmy K. Meng, once a Queens assemblyman, admitted in court last month that he’d solicited $80,000 to help a friend get off lightly in a criminal case.

Let’s hear it for Larry B. Seabrook, a Bronx city councilman convicted in July of orchestrating a corruption scheme. And for Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez of Brooklyn — Gropez in New York Post headlines — who is under criminal investigation for alleged sexual harassment.

"Cash-and-Carry Larry" convicted

From AM-NY:

Bronx City Councilman Larry Seabrook was convicted Thursday on nine counts of corruption and wire fraud in Manhattan Federal Court. in Manhattan.

Seabrook, 61, who was retried following a mistrial in December, misdirected $1.5 million of taxpayer money that was supposed to go to community groups to his own pocket, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.

"Today's conviction ensures that the Councilman will pay for betraying the public trust. Rooting out public corruption and restoring the public's faith in honest government remains a vital mission of this office," he said in a statement.

The mayor's office has indicated that Seabrook will be removed from office and a special election will be held to determine who will finish his term.

More pork doled out to favored council members

From the Daily News:

The heartiest eaters at the trough of City Council slush funds were named Tuesday in a good government group report which argues that the way the money's doled out gives the Council speaker too much sway over individual members.

Brooklyn Democrat Domenic Recchia, the powerful head of the council’s Finance Committee, was number one in FY 2012 with $12.1 million, according to Citizens Union.

Councilman Erik Martin Dilan (D-Brooklyn) came in second with $11.3 million and Councilman Lew Fidler (D-Brooklyn) was third with $10.7 million.

The Council allocated $459 (fixed) million in discretionary funds in FY 2012. Members gave the money to non-profits and used it for capital expenditures on city property.

Citizen Union head Dick Dadey said the funds should be handed out “more objectively” and with “greater equity” and that politics should be taken out of the process.

“The City Council speaker and some of the other leaders have too much say in what gets distributed,” he said. “One could argue that that’s a way to keep the Council in line as you try and move a legislative agenda forward.”

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn pointed out in a statement that Council had already made changes to make its expense funds more transparent and was planning to do the same with capital funds.

From the NY Post:

A new analysis of how the City Council allocated more than $2 billion in discretionary funds between 2009 and 2012 has found a wide gulf between the haves and have-nots.

Dominic Recchia (D-Brooklyn), chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, was the biggest winner in the Citizens Union study, collecting $66.7 million to spend on capital projects and nonprofits of his choosing. Erik Dilan (D-Brooklyn), an ally of Brooklyn Democratic leader Vito Lopez, came in second with $37 million.

Dead last in 51st place were Dan Halloran (R-Queens) and his predecessor Tony Avella, now a state senator. Over the four-year period, they pulled in just $9.5 million for their constituents.

Avella, an outspoken critic of Council Speaker Christine Quinn, said the results should come as no surprise to anyone.

“Nothing is done by merit,” he said. “I was independent and took on the speaker.”

From the NY Post:

Council Speaker Christine Quinn is yanking Seabrook’s discretionary funds in the upcoming budget as the beleaguered Bronx politician gears up for a second federal trial on charges of extortion, money-laundering and fraud, The Post has learned.

“Council Member Seabrook and I have come to a mutual agreement that this year’s funding to his district will be determined by the Speaker’s Office and the Bronx delegation chair,” Quinn said in a prepared statement, reversing her position on the issue from several months ago.

“All allocations will undergo the appropriate review and vetting process, including by the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and city agencies,” she said.
In February 2010, federal prosecutors alleged that from 2002 through 2009, Seabrook funneled more than $1 million in council member items — also known as pork — to nonprofits he controlled, with about half that money lining the pockets of his girlfriend and family members.

Quinn has no regrets about Larry's money

From the NY Times:

A slightly testy City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn on Wednesday defended her decision not to strip Councilman Larry Seabrook of control over more than $350,000 in discretionary funds in the coming budget cycle, even as he awaits a second trial on corruption charges related to his use of such funds.

When she was asked, at a news conference before Wednesday’s Council meeting, whether the critique had given her any second thoughts, Ms. Quinn offered a one-word answer: “No.”

“We used to have a process in the City Council where basically Council members made requests to fund groups in their district, and it was a little bit of an honor system — there was the assumption that those were groups were qualified to do the work,” she said.

“We no longer have an honor system. We have a verification system, where the groups that are seeking funding from the Council are taken through an aggressive vetting process.”

In Mr. Seabrook’s case, Ms. Quinn said, none of what has been alleged “could have happened under the system we now have.”

“What we’re trying to do with member items is support many groups out there at the local level who are doing the work well, and make sure the money is scrubbed thoroughly, so it is going to those groups,” she said. “And I stand by that process.”

Quinn dishes pork out to thieves

From the NY Post:

City Council Speaker Chris Quinn, who presumes to the mayoralty, has just laid $350,000 in council pork on colleague Larry Seabrook — the Bronx Democrat under federal indictment for gross misuse of previous pork disbursements.

That is to say, for funneling $1.2 million in city funds from 2002 to 2009 to multiple fake non-profits he secretly controlled, while directing the bulk of the cash to salaries for his girlfriend and relatives.

He’s also the dude who billed city taxpayers $177 for a bagel and a Snapple.
He has no shame.

Which brings us back to Speaker Quinn — a serial aider-and-abetter of council chiselers and cheats.

Quinn’s $350,000 cash transfusion to Seabrook is — at best — a campaign contribution. If he chooses to spend it on $177 bagels and his girlfriend — well, he’s already done that, hasn’t he?

Then Quinn refilled his cash drawer.

Seabrook’s the miscreant, for sure.

But Quinn’s his enabler.

Should such obvious moral myopia be rewarded with the mayoralty?

Is Christine Quinn fit for the job?

So much for ethics

From the NY Post:

Jurors deadlocked recently on charges that City Councilman Larry Seabrook steered taxpayer funds to his mistress and relatives, but Albany last week did them one better — by conspiring actually to reward Brooklyn power-broker Vito Lopez for doing nearly the same thing.

True, Gov. Cuomo and the legislative leaders last Monday proclaimed a new era in clean government — in the form of the state’s (umpteenth) ethics panel.

You can read Cuomo’s lips: “The Joint Commission on Public Ethics...will aggressively investigate corruption and help maintain integrity in state government,” Cuomo vowed, as he announced the new panel members’ names.

“I am confident that . . . the commission will be the toughest ethics enforcer in our state’s history,” he insisted.

Give them credit for the effort, we guess.

But how can anyone take the rhetoric seriously — when the state this month also showered nearly $850,000 in state funds on Lopez’s dubious social-service empire?

What Quinn should and could do

From the NY Post:

...the Seabrook scandal wasn’t an isolated action but part of a persistent pattern. The responsibility for deterring corruption in the City Council lies with Quinn, who has failed to hold her members accountable.

In April 2008, the putrid swamp of slush funds touched the speaker herself. Her office apportioned millions of member-item dollars for what The Post called “bogus” or “phantom” grant groups, so the speaker could ladle out the member-item gravy later, at more propitious political moments. Moreover, the speaker benefited from this trickery: The Post reported then that about a quarter of the mystery funds went to Quinn’s own district in Manhattan.

In June of 2009, it was revealed that Councilwoman Carmen Arroyo directed member-item dollars to a charter school headed by her nephew, who was forced to resign after being charged with embezzlement. The next month, Councilman Miguel Martinez resigned and pleaded guilty, admitting to stealing more than $100,000 that he had directed to a not-for-profit he controlled. More than half of those pilfered funds were member-item funds. Only after all that did the Seabrook case come to light.

A principled speaker would have connected these dots and moved decisively to close the doors for such abuses. But Quinn has instead preferred to go along to get along.

She keeps a breathless schedule of thinly veiled campaign stops, using her colleagues as validating props, rather than putting protections in place to protect taxpayers from her members’ avarice.

What could she have done differently?

First, set up an independent system to review the quality of member-item proposals. Independent eyes should provide a thumbs-up on substance before a project is funded.

Second, institute a system where no member item gets funded without a signed statement from the sponsoring member of the City Council. That statement would attest that the member (and also his or her family and staff) has no business relationship with and has received no money (even indirectly) from the entity receiving the member item.

Had this provision been in place, Arroyo and Seabrook’s actions would have been per se violations of City Council rules. This reform should be augmented by a state law, treating a violation as a felony.

Third, announce that no member items will be funded until both those reforms are enacted. Cutting off the slush-fund spigot would get her members’ attention.

In fact, if Quinn were serious about protecting taxpayers, she could put all three measures in place now.

That's quite a stretch

From CBS New York:

The evidence at the ongoing corruption trial of New York City Councilman Larry Seabrook includes a mundane $5.55 receipt from McDonald’s for a burger and a medium Sprite. A receipt from Dunkin’ Donuts shows a charge for an unremarkable $2.50.

But the one from a deli near City Hall for a Snapple and a bagel sandwich is harder to digest.

The total: $177.64.

Federal prosecutors say Seabrook submitted the receipt for reimbursement — and that it wasn’t an innocent misprint. Instead, they call it convincing proof of how he doctored expenses and used other tricks to line his pockets and line up jobs for his girlfriend, sister and others close to him.

The 60-year-old councilman “operated his own corrupt, City Council-funded friends and family plan,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in announcing the charges last year.

Seabrook has company: In the past two years, a steady parade of local and state lawmakers and their staffers has been accused in federal courthouses in Manhattan and Brooklyn of abusing their authority for personal gain.

The no-show council members

From the Daily News:

City council members are paid more than $100,000 to represent New Yorkers - but some often don't show up.

Councilman Charles Barron missed 28% of Council meeting and hearings he was supposed to attend in the last fiscal year.

Larry Seabrook (D-Bronx) missed 27% while under indictment on fraud charges, and Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera missed 19%, records show.

Barron, who missed 34 of 121 hearings and meetings last fiscal year, defended his record.

"I have perfect attendance in my community," the Brooklyn Democrat said. "You don't get your attendance checked on going to crises in the community when people are shot and killed."

Seabrook - awaiting trial on federal corruption charges - missed 32 of 118 hearings. He could not be reached.

Other Council members had personal reasons including James Gennaro (D-Queens), who had the third worst attendance. He is the primary caregiver for a family member with a chronic medical condition.

Pol tries to hand out rancid pork

From the Daily News:

While awaiting trial on corruption charges, Bronx Councilman Larry Seabrook is trying to steer taxpayer money to an unlicensed, unproven after-school program run by a crony.

The $66 billion budget approved by the City Council last week includes a $10,000 earmark from Seabrook to "Maria Gems," which calls itself an "innovative community program" that provides "music and health nutrition services" to kids after school.

"I found out that children were not eating fruits and vegetables...so I created a healthy nutrition program," said director Johnnie Goff, a nursery school owner and longtime Seabrook supporter who has an unpaid job as the councilman's liaison to the local education council.

A member of Community Board 12 in the Bronx, Goff briefly ran against Seabrook in 2009 before ending her campaign and working for his reelection.

Maria Gems does not appear to be a licensed after-school program, city and state officials say.

It also has not registered as a charity with the state attorney general, meaning it cannot solicit government or private money.

That means Seabrook's efforts to send pork to the program could get snagged by the new screening process City Council Speaker Christine Quinn implemented after a Council slush-fund scandal.

Don't you find it amazing and sad that the Congressional Democratic leadership bullied Weiner out of his job for sending out raunchy pictures of himself but the Council Democratic leadership not only stays silent about this corrupt jerk but also approves his shady spending?

A little on the side

This comes from the Gotham Gazette. Interesting ranges there...

Budgetary winners and losers

From Gotham Gazette:

When it comes to bringing home the bacon, some City Council members do a lot better than others.

According to an analysis by Gotham Gazette, Councilmember and Finance Committee chair Domenic Recchia sponsored more individual member items than any other council member in this year's budget (more on its approval here). Recchia raked in nearly $1.3 million for nonprofits of his choice.

Recchia was one of four members -- Lewis Fidler, Leroy Comrie and James Oddo are the others -- who topped the million-dollar mark in member items, often referred to as council pork.

At the other end of the spectrum, Elizabeth Crowley garnered the least amount of money with $358,321, falling behind recently indicted Larry Seabrook, who had $362,276. Vincent Gentile, Gale Brewer, Margaret Chin and Helen Foster also got less than $400,000

Crowley's pot supposedly got chopped because she pissed off her royal highness, Christine Quinn.

Indicted pol makes expensive move

From the NY Post:

The path to Larry Seabrook's new district office must be paved in gold.

The indicted Bronx city councilman spent nearly $20,000 of taxpayer money to move into new digs last month, just after he was slapped with a 13-count indictment for extortion, fraud, and money laundering.

In March, Seabrook ditched his $3,500-a month district office on White Plains Road -- which he continued to work out of even though he'd leased it to a non-profit he controlled -- for more expensive space in an office building on Boston Road.

The indictment accuses both him and the non-profit of overcharging the city for rent.

The equipment he purchased includes 10 acrylic nameplates and a 24-inch high-definition TV, the Post has learned.

His staff said the high cost of heating the old office necessitated the move.

Photo from the Daily News

Honest graft in the Bronx

From the NY Post:

Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who has been identified as a target of an ongoing Department of Investigation corruption probe, collected $8,000 in campaign donations from executives at Eastmond Corp., the same firm that federal prosecutors say paid Seabrook $50,000 to win a Yankee Stadium contract, according to campaign finance records.

Even though the company was virtually blacklisted after the Mayor's Office of Contracts Services issued two "cautionary" advisories about its questionable activities, Arroyo publicly has gone to bat for it.

Arroyo -- who funneled more than $80,000 to her nephew's nonprofit group only to see him indicted last year for embezzlement -- helped get a corner of Leggett Avenue in The Bronx renamed after Eastmond's founder, Arlington Leon Eastmond, in 2008.

Campaign records show that his son, Arlington Leon Eastmond Jr., the current president of the boiler company, donated the maximum amount of $2,750 to Arroyo's campaign last year. Two people listed as affiliates of the firm also donated: Tyren Eastmond, manager of the company, gave her $2,750 and Robert Reyes, listed on the company's Web site as a former manager, gave her $2,500.

Will she truly reform the council?

From the NY Post:

Embezzling $1.2 million in taxpayer cash -- as Bronx Councilman Larry Seabrook allegedly did -- violates even the ludicrously lax standards of the New York City Council.

According to federal prosecutors, Seabrook funneled the money to himself, his family members and a girlfriend by setting up a series of sham nonprofit corporations, which he then larded up with council pork.

But count on this: Seabrook never would've gotten away with it for so long if a lot of his council colleagues weren't neck-deep in much of the same muck.

All members get hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to slather all over their districts. It's a time-honored legislative tradition in New York.

Sure, most of them may not be lining their own pockets (as far as is known). At least some of the nonprofits they fund may even do valuable work.

Nonetheless, it's still profoundly corrupting -- with the bulk of the cash going straight to folks the pols know will be useful come election season.

What's more, it's no coincidence that such a system breeds Seabrook-level corruption. If everyone's gorged with pork, it's in everyone's interest to turn a blind eye to the worst apples.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn is especially culpable: She says she's instituted "reforms," but pork remains her No. 1 tool for enforcing discipline. She was even caught budgeting cash for made-up groups in order to quietly dispense it to allies later.

...at City Hall, Quinn can start cleaning house at once -- by cutting off all pork-barrel appropriations.

Sure, such a move would require her members to start representing the interests of their constituents, instead of acting like glorified cash machines.

But with the system's corruption exposed so fully, she'll have no better chance than this one.

It's your move, Madame Speaker.

Councilman Larry Seabrook indicted by the Feds

From The Wonkster:

Councilmember Larry Seabrook, who served in the state Assembly and just started his third term at the City Council, is being charged with money laundering, extortion and fraud, according to an indictment released today by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District.

Some of the charges directly stem from the City Council’s slush fund scandal — which brought down former Councilmember Miguel Martinez last year.

But they also go beyond that.

According to the indictment, Seabrook also solicited payments from a Bronx subcontractor competing for a boiler contract for the new Yankee Stadium and subsequently used the payments for personal expenses.

Beyond that, the indictment alleges Seabrook directed more than $2.5 million in the City Council’s discretionary funding to nonprofits he in fact controlled. Seabrook negotiated office space for the groups (which was reported in the Times last year) and often made decisions for the groups, the indictment states.

Through these nonprofits, Seabrook paid “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to his girlfriend, sisters, nephews and brother in consulting fees. At the same time, these groups fell far short of meeting goals laid out in the council’s discretionary funding initiatives.

It's just honest graft...please move along...

From NYC Council Watch:

Sources close to the action report that indictments are being prepared against one or more members of Council Member Larry Seabrook's office, possibly including the Member himself.

We have previously discussed the scandal in the Seabrook office regarding the nesting of bogus community operations within City-funded office space, which was then sublet to groups existing in name only. These phony groups then billed the City for their rent, with Member Seabrook or his operatives pocketing the extra money.

The US Attorney's office had no comment either way about the indictments. Neither did the office of Member Seabrook.

Questionable use of councilmanic funds

From the New York Times:

Since City Councilman Larry B. Seabrook and two associates incorporated it as a nonprofit organization some 10 years ago, the African-American Bronx Unity Day Parade has left the lightest of footprints.

It has never received I.R.S. approval to actually operate as a nonprofit. It has never filed a tax return. And, it seems, it has never run a parade.

But in recent years it has netted more than $100,000 in city money by leasing space at one price from Bronx landlords and then subleasing it at a far higher price to three nonprofit groups whose rents were later reimbursed by the city, according to public records and interviews.