The feds claim former New York Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. coached a woman to lie before a federal grand jury investigating corruption allegations against him, The Post has learned.
Although witness tampering is a crime, Brooklyn federal prosecutors are not charging Espada with new counts stemming from the incident — but they want the jury in his upcoming corruption trial to hear about the alleged misconduct.
Prosecutors identified the witness as one of the top executives at Soundview Healthcare Network, Espada’s not-for-profit medical firm, which was financed by taxpayer dollars.
Late in 2010, the woman — who also previously sat on Soundview’s board of directors — received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury probing Espada’s private business activities, prosecutors wrote in a recent court filing.
“Just prior to her appearance, Espada summoned her to meet with him,” Assistant US Attorney Roger Burlingame wrote.
“During the meeting, Espada informed [the woman] of the questions he believed she would be asked in the grand jury and of the ‘correct’ answers to those questions,” Burlingame wrote.
The discussion revolved around the feds’ suspicions that Espada had engaged in bid rigging when Soundview hired SME — his private janitorial company — for cleaning services, prosecutors said.
The feds say that by using this bid-rigging scheme, SME and Espada stole more than $100,000 a year out of Soundview’s corporate funds.
Espada told the woman to testify that “there were three bidders” for the janitorial contract and that Espada’s firm had submitted the cheapest bid for the cleaning contract, prosecutors say.
At the time the cleaning contract was awarded to Espada’s janitorial firm, the woman was sitting on the board that approved the deal, prosecutors say.
The woman “felt uncomfortable at the meeting because she believed that Espada — her boss and a respected authority figure in her life — was attempting to influence her grand-jury testimony,” Burlingame wrote.
“Shortly thereafter, she appeared before the grand jury and falsely testified.”
Prosecutors say that the woman — whom they describe as a young mother who has worked at Soundview for most of her adult life — will be testifying as a leading prosecution witness at Espada’s trial.
The feds are asking Judge Frederic Block to allow the testimony about the alleged witness tampering, arguing that it demonstrates Espada’s “consciousness of guilt.”
Espada is accused of embezzling government funds by allegedly using his health-care business as a personal bank.
Soundview Healthcare Network received about $1 million a year in federal funds, officials said.
Prosecutors have indicated they plan to use charts prepared by an FBI analyst at Espada’s trial to explain the alleged bid-rigging schemes.
The former state senator’s attorney, Susan Necheles, has said that Espada is steadfast in his desire to fight the charges and maintains that he is not guilty of any misdeeds.
Necheles did not immediately return a call for comment.
The judge has not yet ruled on the witness issue.