US ends former New York lieutenant governor’s bribery case after witness dies

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors on Friday dropped their corruption case in opposition to former New York Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, following the demise of a key witness.

Benjamin, 48, had been anticipated to face trial in Manhattan federal courtroom after being accused of funneling a $50,000 state grant to an actual property developer in change for marketing campaign contributions.

However the developer, Gerald Migdol, who pleaded responsible to bribery and fraud prices and was cooperating with the federal government, died final February.

In a courtroom submitting, prosecutors mentioned that primarily based on a overview of the proof and in mild of Migdol’s demise, “the federal government has decided that it could actually now not show, past an affordable doubt, the costs within the indictment.”

U.S. District Choose Paul Oetken authorized the dismissal request late Friday afternoon.

Benjamin, a Democrat, had confronted prices together with bribery, trustworthy providers wire fraud and conspiracy.

“Immediately’s vindication of Brian Benjamin is a well timed reminder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s well-known phrases: “The arc of the ethical universe is lengthy, but it surely bends towards justice,'” Benjamin’s attorneys Barry Berke, Dani James and Darren LaVerne mentioned in a joint assertion. “We at all times believed at the present time would come.”

Migdol had been an actual property developer in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, the place Benjamin was as soon as a state senator.

Governor Kathy Hochul, additionally a Democrat, tapped Benjamin in August 2021 for the state’s No. 2 job, which she had held earlier than succeeding Andrew Cuomo as governor. Benjamin resigned in April 2022 when the prison prices had been introduced.