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Henry “Hank” Morris, disgraced Democratic political consultant and top adviser to former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, pleaded guilty yesterday to felony securities fraud as mastermind of the state pension fund pay-to-play scandal.
Under the plea deal struck with lawyers for Attorney General and Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo in Manhattan Supreme Court, Morris must immediately pay back $19 million in fees he pocketed between 2003 and 2006 while selling access to the state’s massive $130 billion retirement pool.
Morris is also barred from ever again dealing in securities in New York and faces anywhere from no jail time to a prison term of between 1 1/3 and 4 years when he’s sentenced Feb. 1 on a single count of violating the state’s Martin Act.
Had the crooked consultant not taken the plea and instead been convicted of the top charge he was indicted on in 2009 — enterprise corruption — he would face a maximum of 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison.
“I intentionally engaged in fraud, deception, concealment, suppression, false pretense and fictitious and pretended purchase and sale and made material false representations and statements with intent to deceive and defraud,” Morris admitted in his plea, speaking in a soft but firm voice.
His pretty, younger, wife watched from the audience with a pained expression.
“This court has made no determination at this time as to what it is going to do,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone said of the time behind bars Morris may or may not get upon sentencing.
But Stone has been highly critical of Morris in past writings.
“Morris was the central figure of the criminal enterprise, and as one who was involved in each of the [pension] investments in question and who received approximately $19 million for his alleged criminal efforts, he is hardly in a minor role,” the judge wrote back in July.
Cuomo yesterday called Morris’ plea the capstone in his three-year influence-peddling prosecution.
Only equity and hedge funds that were willing to pay massive brokerage fees to Morris and his accomplices were able to do business with the state under the scheme.
Morris’ is the eighth and final guilty plea in the case. Hevesi, 70, pleaded guilty in October to gaining nearly $1 million in gifts and favors in the scheme and faces the same liability — anywhere from zero to four years — when he’s sentenced on Dec. 16.
Former pension-fund honcho David Loglisci pleaded guilty in March to favoring firms that made donations to the Hevesi campaign.
“Hank Morris used his influence at the New York State Comptroller’s Office to stockpile millions in fees for himself from state pension fund investments,” Cuomo said.
“Through his scheme, Morris personified pay-to-play corruption. With this plea, funds will be rightly restored to the state of New York, and justice will be served.”