A state appellate panel today unanimously upheld the money laundering and larceny convictions of disgraced political consultant John Haggerty — ordering that he begin serving his original sentence of at least one and one-third years prison.
A surrender date has yet to be set for Haggerty, who has remained at liberty pending today’s appellate decision.
“He is disappointed with this outcome and weighing his options,” as to whether he will seek leave to appeal further, to the state Court of Appeals, his lawyer, Paul Shechtman, told The Post.
Haggerty was convicted back in October, 2011, of stealing $750,000 in campaign cash from Mayor Bloomberg.
His trial that year had included testimony by the mayor and his top advisors; jurors found that Haggerty had promised the mayor he’d conduct a massive, election day 2009 ballot security operation that never materialized.
Bloomberg told jurors that he’d understood he was paying for the ballot security operation when he made a $1.1 million donation to the state Independence Party, and that he never expected $750,000 of that money to go straight into Haggerty’s pocket.
Haggerty used the stolen loot to buy his childhood home in Forrest Hills, Queens. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel had ordered Haggerty at sentencing to pay back the $750,000 by selling the home within six months; 14 months after the sentencing, Haggerty has yet to do so, his lawyer conceded today.
In upholding Haggerty’s conviction, the appellate judges found that the jury’s verdict was based on legally sufficient evidence.
“The indictment, the proof at trial, the prosecutor’s summation and the court’s instructions were all based on the theory that defendant Haggerty stole money from Mayor Bloomberg by making false representations that the money that the Mayor transferred to the Independence Party would be used for an extensive ballot security operation costing about $1.1 million,” the judges said in their written decision.
“Although the Mayor could not have controlled how the Independence Party used that money, the theft was committed when Haggerty used false representations to cause the Mayor to transfer the money to the Party,” they wrote.
“While Haggerty also deceived the Independence Party in to believing that it was paying a vendor for ballot security services when it transferred the money to Haggerty’s shell corporation, the Mayor remained the true victim of Haggerty’s deception,” they wrote.