Former Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson – who is being sentenced next week on a bribery conviction – also broke the law for years by not living in the legislative district he was elected to represent, prosecutors contend in shocking legal filings Thursday.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara in the filing says Stevenson lied to probation officers by claiming he “rented a room” at a Prospect Avenue address in the 79th Assembly District from 2000 until June 2013. He said officers interviewed the man who lives in the apartment and the building’s longtime superintendent – and neither knew Stevenson.
“This misrepresentation is even more troubling in light of Stevenson’s apparent motive: The Prospect Avenue address is within Stevenson’s former Assembly District 79, and it appears that Stevenson misled the Probation Office regarding his true address in order to conceal the fact that he was not living in Assembly District 79, as required, either time he ran for an Assembly seat in that district,” Bharara wrote in a sentencing submission recommending roughly four to five years of jail for Stevenson.
Stevenson – who was found guilty of pocketing more than $22,000 in bribes to help Bronx developers open adult day-care centers – denied any wrongdoing Thursday.
“This is the first I’m hearing of it,” he told The Post. “Of course I lived there. Otherwise I’d be breaking the law.”