The feds are calling disgraced ex-City Councilman Larry Seabrook’s bluff, saying he’s over-reaching in a desperate bid to overturn a fraud conviction and that his stories just don’t add up.
Assistant US Attorney Andrew Goldstein wrote Manhattan federal Judge Deborah Batts Sunday saying the government believes Seabrook is off base in his claim that he was denied a fair trial when convicted in 2012 in a fraud scheme involving more than $1 million in taxpayer money.
Goldstein asked that Batts hold a fact-finding conference in which Seabrook would be required to prove his assertions after a federal appeals panel on June 26 asked the judge to review whether the bagel-loving ex-pol was denied a fair trial.
“It was not until … 21 months after trial that Mr. Seabrook had identified a single person who had come forward claiming to have been excluded from the courtroom, and that the affiants claimed that they were excluded under a different theory and different timeline than Mr. Seabrook had argued in his initial brief to the Second Circuit [Court of Appeals],” Goldstein wrote Batts.
The Bronx Democrat — who is serving a five-year prison sentence — had appealed to the appellate panel that his constitutional rights were violated at trial when a deputy clerk asked his brother, Oliver, a friend and a constituent to leave the courtroom during part of jury selection. He also claimed the media was wrongfully excluded from courtroom during jury selection.
Goldstein said Seabrook should be “required to put on evidence,” including witness testimony from those who were allegedly told to leave. He also pointed out that Sea brook’s three witnesses suspiciously signed affidavits that were all but identical except for the names.
Seabrook was booted off the Council after his conviction and previously served in the state Assembly and Senate.
A jury found Seabrook guilty on nine counts of conspiracy and fraud for three separate schemes to loot council “slush” funds and programs to boost minority employment and diversity in the city Fire Department.
But he beat the rap for a fourth alleged scam that included allegations that he doctored a receipt to get reimbursed $177 from his political club for a bagel sandwich and Diet Snapple.
Batts declined to slap Seabrook with a fine but ordered him to pay more than $619,000 in restitution to the city for funneling public funds to shady nonprofits that employed his then-mistress, family members and friends.
The feds had sought to hold Seabrook accountable for more than $1.1 million, which they said represented a “conservative analysis” of what he scammed.