Yesterday, the mayor took the witness stand against political consultant John Haggerty and called him a million-dollar campaign cash thief; today, Haggerty’s former mistress testified against him, telling jurors she believed he was fiscally honest — at least at the time.
“I said this looked reasonable,” former Bloomberg campaign CFO Fiona Reid testified she told top campaign aides of Haggerty’s $1.1 million budget for a mayor-funded poll security operation.
Asked whether Haggerty had ever told her that he actually planned to use the mayor’s money to buy himself a house — as prosecutors allege — the blonde and pretty numbers cruncher answered, simply, “No.”
With today’s testimony, Haggerty’s grand larceny trial has kicked him from the fire into the frying pan, as a nervous-sounding Reid testified tersely about how love bloomed among the campaign spreadsheets during Mayor Bloomberg’s 2009 run for re-election.
The testimony was allowed over the heated objections of defense lawyers, who complained it would be too salacious for jurors to hear.
“Do you see Mr. Haggerty in this courtroom now?” prosecutor Vanessa Richards asked Reid. “Yes,” she answered shyly, identifying him as “He’s in the middle chair” at the defense table.
“Could you please describe your relationship with Mr. Haggerty,” the prosecutor asked.
“Objection!” shouted Haggerty defense lawyer Raymond Castello. After a brief out-of-jurors’-earshot discussion among the parties, the prosecutor began a far more reined-in inquiry about the fling.
Jurors were barred by the judge from hearing that Haggerty was and remains married — to State Liquor Authority commissioner Noreen Healey, who has not attended the trial, though her lawyer, too, had asked the testimony be barred as too “painful.”
Reid had begun her fling with Haggerty in August, ’09, and Haggerty would have been aware that she was CFO for the campaign, she told jurors.
Asked by prosecutors about how and when the relationship ended, she answered, “In January, when the investigation [into the alleged theft] started. The investigation started, and my lawyer advised me to stop.”
Prosecutors are alleging that Haggerty sought Reid out and pressed her during the affair for inside details on winning the ballot security gig, and Reid confirmed that, to a degree, for jurors.
“John had asked about what should be presented,” she told jurors, speaking about an Oct. 30, 2009 meeting in which Haggerty pitched his ballot security budget to top campaign aide Allison Jaffin.
“I said more details is better — more information,” she testified.
Reid said that she believed — as Jaffin yesterday had testified to believing as well — that Haggerty had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the operation by the time of the meeting. Prosecutors say Haggerty only ever spent about $30,000 of the mayor’s money on what he’d promised.
She also disputed Haggerty’s claim that the $1.1 million budget wasn’t a real budget, but instead was his example of what he would not be providing.
“Do you remember him saying that this [the $1.1 million budget] was the Rolls Royce of initiatives, and that you would be getting the Hyundai?” the prosecutor asked. “No,” she answered.
On cross, Castello clarified with Reid that she only assumed he’d spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the security operation in advance — Haggerty never personally told her that, she testified.
“Is it fair to say that you didn’t know how the Independence Party would use the money?” Castello asked, to which Reid answered “No.”
Haggerty is arguing that by paying for the $1.1 million ballot security operation via a donation to the state Independence Party’s housekeeping account, Bloomberg lost all legal control over how the money would be used, and so cannot have been robbed.
Haggerty faces a potential maximum prison term of 25 years if convicted of the top grand larceny charge. Testimony continues tomorrow.