The former Queens prosecutor under fire for his role at a controversial Hurricane Katrina charity insists he’s being scapegoated by frightened superiors at the fund and denied any wrongdoing yesterday.
“I was only an administrator!” said an exasperated Claude Stuart, 48, of Dix Hills, LI. “I didn’t control the money. I don’t know why the focus is on me.”
Stuart — a Seton Hall Law School grad who was bounced from the Queens District Attorney’s Office in 2002 after misleading a judge during a murder trial — said his role at the fund was minimal.
“You are looking in the wrong direction,” he said. “There were other people in control. There was a treasurer and board members.”
On the advice of his lawyer, William Keahon, Stuart would not comment on any specifics about the fund’s functioning or allocation of donations.
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The nonprofit’s treasurer, the Rev. Edwin Reed, has told The Post that he can’t remember how donations to the charity were dispersed. “I can’t recall any details,” he said last month.
The Post first reported that New Yorkers Organized to Assist Hurricane Families paid out only $1,392 of the roughly $31,000 it raised for victims of the 2005 New Orleans catastrophe.
Stuart, who is currently employed as a math teacher at Queens Vocational and Technical HS and earns $61,333 a year, was selected by Sen. Malcolm Smith to serve as director of the New Direction Local Development Corp. in 2006.
Established by both Smith and Rep. Gregory Meeks, the nonprofit and its offshoot Katrina charity are now the subjects of a federal probe by the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office.
Stuart joined the Queens DA’s Office in 1988 but was forced to resign in 2002 after he told a judge during a murder trial that he hadn’t spoken to a witness despite having met with her only days before.
Despite Stuart’s history, Smith still hired him in 2003 to serve as a special assistant in the state Senate, where he earned $2,000 every two weeks.
Stuart also worked at the Garden City law firm of Brand, Glick & Brand but was terminated in 2005 after he was barred for three years from practicing law in New York, New Jersey and Washington, DC, for the 2002 incident and other alleged ethical missteps.
A former co-worker at the firm said Stuart was a bright and capable attorney who wrecked his own career. “He was actually a nice guy,” she said. “It’s a shame.”
Stuart’s wife, Michelle, said yesterday that some of her husband’s political associates abandoned him after the Katrina controversy broke.
“Unfortunately, some people want to take others down with them,” she said.
Stuart, who once served as a policy adviser to Gov. Paterson, told The Post last month that he had advised the charity to either reshuffle its board or dissolve completely. He did not indicate why.
Stuart added that New Direction, which was all but defunct at the close of 2008, is in the formal process of shutting down operations completely.