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Benjamin accused of funneling state money to marketing campaign donor
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He has not gone on trial and key witness has died
By Luc Cohen
Dec 16 – The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to listen to Democratic former New York state lieutenant governor Brian Benjamin’s problem to corruption costs involving marketing campaign contributions from a developer in a case that includes the scope of federal bribery legislation, permitting the case to proceed.
The justices turned away Benjamin’s attraction of a decrease courtroom’s resolution that had revived the fees and had discovered that prosecutors sufficiently detailed his plan to direct state cash to a Harlem developer in trade for the marketing campaign donations. Benjamin has not but gone on trial and the developer has died.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s workplace in 2022 charged Benjamin with funneling a $50,000 state grant to developer Gerald Migdol in trade for the marketing campaign contributions.
In Benjamin’s problem to the indictment, U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken dismissed probably the most critical costs – bribery, sincere wire fraud and conspiracy costs – after discovering that prosecutors had merely “implied” an settlement between Benjamin and Migdol. The choose didn’t dismiss two different costs within the indictment, accusing Benjamin of falsifying information.
The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March reversed Oetken’s resolution, saying prosecutors had “sufficiently alleged an specific quid professional quo” between Benjamin and Migdol, who died in February.
In urging the Supreme Court to take up the case, Benjamin’s legal professionals wrote that as a result of marketing campaign contributions had been protected underneath the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections without cost speech, any corruption cost stemming from such a donation have to be based mostly on a transparent and unambiguous settlement between the events, not one merely implied.
“Constituents give to candidates they hope will take actions aligned with their pursuits. Candidates, if elected, take actions that always additional the pursuits of those that helped elect them. This is just not bribery; it’s democracy,” Benjamin’s legal professionals wrote in a authorized submitting to the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Justice Department, defending the indictment, advised the Supreme Court in a submitting that the First Amendment doesn’t shield the trade of official acts for marketing campaign contributions.
In Benjamin’s case, prosecutors stated he directed the $50,000 grant in June 2019 to a charity Migdol ran in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood when Benjamin was a state senator representing the world. Prosecutors stated that grant was in trade for Migdol’s contributions to 2 of Benjamin’s campaigns.
The Supreme Court has issued a number of rulings in recent times that make it tougher for federal prosecutors to deliver corruption instances towards authorities officers. It dominated in June that it was not against the law for a state or native official to just accept gratuities as tokens of appreciation for an official motion, siding with an Indiana metropolis’s mayor who was convicted for accepting $13,000 from a truck firm that acquired greater than $1 million in contracts throughout his tenure. The Supreme Court in 2023 overturned the conviction of a onetime aide to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a call that restricted the flexibility of prosecutors to cost personal people near authorities officers with bribery.
Prosecutors have acknowledged that Migdol’s loss of life would have an effect on a trial for Benjamin, because the developer was anticipated to be a key witness. But they stated they haven’t any plans to desert the fees.
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