Defense lawyers arguing that Mayor Bloomberg didn’t care about a measly $1.1 million allegedly swiped from his $110 million re-election campaign got a jolt yesterday when a prosecutor revealed the mayor had secretly testified before the grand jury that handed up an indictment in the case.
“That was quite frankly something of a surprise to us,” admitted Dennis Vacco, a lawyer for political operative John Haggerty Jr., who’s accused of pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds earmarked for a ballot-security operation in 2009.
In a two-hour hearing before Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Ronald Zweibel, Vacco pointed out that Bloomberg never questioned what Haggerty did with the mayor’s money until The Post began raising questions in early 2010 and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. launched an investigation.
“The victim in this case has never complained about it,” Vacco told the judge. “He’s never asked for his money back.”
But Assistant DA Eric Seidel disclosed that the mayor cared enough to appear before the grand jury that indicted Haggerty. While Seidel didn’t provide details of Bloomberg’s testimony, Seidel did conclude that the grand-jury minutes “support the charges” that Haggerty was nothing more than a thief.
Zweibel reserved decision until March 14 on Vacco’s motion to toss the charges.
The case is shaping up as one of the strangest and most intriguing in the city’s political history.
Until his indictment, Haggerty had been one of Bloomberg’s most trusted campaign aides. Even prosecutors described him as a “highly regarded professional” with a national reputation.
While others were collecting six-figure salaries and six-figure bonuses, Haggerty enlisted as an unpaid volunteer in Bloomberg’s bid for a third term.
So when Haggerty drew up a budget for a nearly $1.1 million ballot-security operation on Election Day in meetings with Deputy Mayor Patti Harris and then-Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, no one blinked.
It was Sheekey who suggested funneling the funds through a $1.2 million contribution to the Independence Party, which had the effect of hiding the transaction from the public until after the election.
Raymond Castello, another Haggerty lawyer, argued that once the money left the mayor’s hands, he was out of the picture under campaign rules.
Haggerty ended up spending just $62,000, while allegedly keeping hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy his father’s old house in Forest Hills, Queens.
“There is no crime in coming in under budget,” Castello said.
Mayoral aides never asked Haggerty for an accounting until getting calls from The Post.
Seidel produced a series of e-mail exchanges between The Post and Ken Gross, Bloomberg’s campaign lawyer, who transmitted them to Haggerty with requests for spending records.
Seidel said all the figures provided — first to Gross and then to The Post — “were a lie.”
“He got caught and it’s as if he’s squirming around in the trap that he built for himself,” said Seidel.