The Shocking Departure of Judge in Platinum Partners Trial, A Defense Ace-in-the-Hole

Intrigue surrounds NYC judge’s withdrawal from case against hedge fund founder who fleeced correction officers’ union

A Manhattan federal judge has abruptly withdrawn from a case involving a crooked hedge fund founder who screwed the correction officers’ union out of $20 million — and sources say it’s due to the judge’s close relationship with an executive who testified about the fund swindling investors.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, 86, transferred Murray Huberfeld’s case to another court Tuesday without explanation. The move came only weeks before Hellerstein was to re-sentence Huberfeld for his role in a bribery scheme involving former jails union boss Norman Seabrook and notorious Mayor de Blasio donor Jona Rechnitz.

Sources say that behind the scenes, defense attorneys argued Hellerstein should not be on the case because he is close with Andrew Kaplan, a former executive at Huberfeld’s hedge fund, Platinum Partners. Huberfeld recently hired a new attorney, Andrew Levander, records show.

“One of the defendants in the Platinum case … is Andrew Kaplan. I have known Andrew Kaplan since he was born. He and one of my daughters grew up together, went to school together, were friends together. His sister and my eldest daughter remain close friends. His father was a good friend of mine but passed away about five, six years ago, and his mother remains a very good friend of mine, so there is that relationship,” Hellerstein said at a 2018 hearing. “I can’t see that whatever happened, whatever conduct occurred at Platinum affects the issues of this case, which is an honest services issue.”

Online records show Kaplan and Hellerstein’s names on newsletters for The Jewish Center synagogue on the Upper West Side, as well as other charities.

The revelation came after Huberfeld pleaded guilty but had not been sentenced for his role in a $60,000 bribe to Seabrook in December 2014 in exchange for a $20 million investment of union money in Platinum Partners. The union lost its money when the hedge fund went bankrupt. The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association is still fighting in court to recover the loss. Seabrook asked last week to serve his 58-month sentence in home confinement due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Continue reading in the New York Daily News, click here.

Mr. Seabrook, Will It Ever Be More Clear Who Has Pull in New York? A Losing Appeal

Former jails union boss Norman Seabrook loses appeal in bribery case

Disgraced jails union boss Norman Seabrook is going to jail.

The former leader of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association lost an appeal Tuesday of his conviction for accepting a $60,000 bribe in exchange for a $20 million investment of members’ money in a doomed hedge fund.

Seabrook had been out on bail while he fought the case. The decision means it is highly likely he will have to begin serving his sentence of four years and 10 months.

His appeal had hinged on his belief at the time he made the investment that it would get good returns for correction officers. He said details of the loss suffered as a result of the hedge fund, Platinum Partners, going bankrupt prejudiced his right to a fair trial.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments. Seabrook, the three-judge panel noted, had suppressed warnings from a union lawyer that the investment was risky.

To continue reading, click here.

Murray Huberfeld, Another Questionable Platinum Ruling and An Appellate Court that is “Not Confident”?

Dear Readers:

The above pages are from the ruling of the Appellate Court in the Murray Huberfeld/Norman Seabrook Platinum Saga. In our opinion it is nothing short of a travesty of justice.

The victims were indeed the retirees who invested pension funds under Norman Seabrook’s guidance and control. The retirees are the very people who stand to gain equitably by compelling Murray Huberfeld to repay some of the losses they incurred on a failed investment from which he stood to gain. Those losses were realized because of the actions of Huberfeld.

And, when the lower court Judge stated that the sentence would have been the same regardless of which guidelines were used, the Appellate Judges should have accepted the lower court Judge’s credibility, integrity and the process he used. It is somewhat disheartening that they did not.  

Moreover, the ruling raises questions about the integrity of the process moving forward. The Appellate Court has basically undermined the credibility of the lower court Judge with the following statement, which we find unsettling at best:

Appeal from United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Alvin K. Hellerstein, J.), convicting Murray Huberfeld, after a guilty plea, of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. We hold that the district court erred at sentencing by applying the commercial bribery sentencing guideline based on an uncharged bribery scheme that the government dropped in exchange for Huberfeld pleading guilty to the wire fraud. Vacatur is warranted because we cannot be confident, despite the district court’s statement to the contrary, that it would have imposed the same sentence had it instead used the correct guideline.

We sincerely hope that the lower court will use another process and come to the same conclusions, the same sentence or even one that is longer, with greater restitution to be paid. The sentencing guidelines allowed the sentence imposed. It should remain. These were not victimless crimes. 

 

Platinum, Witness Tampering, Alleged Federal Overreach, Claims that Investors Were Warned, Due Diligence and Links

Dear Readers:

Over the past few years we have not covered the witness tampering aspect of Platinum Partners, the fund or the individuals. We were contacted many times by a number of witnesses and whistle-blowers, at least one of whom was genuinely frightened for his/her safety, her/his reputation and his/her livelihood. So, we have no doubt that Platinum’s Partners made a concerted effort to keep anyone who voiced concerns about the fund silenced. 

The Nordlicht defense team has tried to paint the Feds as responsible parties claiming leaked evidence in 2016. A Boston journalist called the investigation “Federal overreach”. That is in an abundance of arrogance. Anyone who obsessed over the numbers, the patterns of each and every scheme, dating back to Optionable (the original backer for Platinum) and on forward would have seen the same exact pattern just repeating itself like a broken record. There was no difference between Optionable, Black Elk, Glacial Energy, Echo Therapeutics and the list goes on and on. It was simply a matter of financial gymnastics and business plan semantics. There was nothing that the Feds or anyone else could have said or done that would have made the picture any clearer, except perhaps to the unsavvy investor and in that case, they may have saved some ill-equipped investors significant heartache, if indeed they leaked evidence that a smart journalist did not uncover on his own.

To claim that the investors were warned, a claim of the defense team, is to perpetuate a fraud on the court, the justice system and every investor who invests in the stock market, either regularly or on occasion. The investors who took each and every scheme in a vacuum and who did not do deep-dive due diligence on the people in whom they were entrusting their money would have had no reason to think that Platinum was a radioactive hedge fund. Every investment document has standard language regarding risks, so much so that the language has become mundane.

Anyone who wants due diligence on a hedge fund, an investment, an investment vehicle or the people involved, going forward, should contact the site and we will provide you with some attorney advertising and a place to go for that information. There are those among us who obsess over the fraudulent and dishonest within the financial system and markets and are hell bent on protecting the less savvy and most vulnerable. That is the very heart of this site.  

We have provided you with links to some further reading below, to another site (with which we have absolutely NO connection). The Platinum related articles may be of interest, including the witness tampering that has today led Mark Nordlicht to jail. Their take on Platinum Partners, the charges against the people involved, and Seabrook is accompanied by a thorny sense of humor. We are not reposting but providing you with the links as follows:

[Please note by way of disclaimer that we are neither endorsing that site or their views nor are we assuming in any way that they endorse ours.]

We cannot vouchsafe the research behind the articles or the authors. Their perspective has some similarities and some differences from ours but the sense of humor and biting sarcasm is worth the read if only to take it for what it’s worth. 

Platinum Partners

HEDGE FUNDS

Ex-Union Boss Resorts To Fundraising Methods Beyond Hedge-Fund-Bribes-In-Handbag

Plus, it’s unclear whether the $100K Norman Seabrook’s family needs would fit into a Ferragamo.

• BY JON SHAZAR

HEDGE FUNDS

Judge Gifts World A Third Platinum Partners Trial

Two would have been too confusing.

• BY JON SHAZAR

HEDGE FUNDS

Platinum Partners Lawyers Learn Judges Are Actually Kind Of Touchy About Witness Intimidation

Maybe the best advice for defense lawyers thinking about sending cryptic letters to key government witnesses is: don’t.

• BY OWEN DAVIS

HEDGE FUNDS

Feds Kindly Ask Platinum Partners Founder’s Lawyers To Refrain From Intimidating Key Witness

No “veiled threats” either, please.

• BY OWEN DAVIS

HEDGE FUNDS

Det. Whitney Tilson Would’ve Caught These Platinum Scammers Years Ago

“Just another thing ma’am…Your returns, they’re nonsense.”

• BY JON SHAZAR

HEDGE FUNDS

Penis-Proud Former Energy CEO With Ties To Platinum Partners Pleads Guilty To Tax Fraud

Gary Mole has revealed something else, it seems.

• BY THORNTON MCENERY

The Platinum Investors and the Ultimate Swindle, Blame it on the Victim? And More to Come

The Investors Knew the Risks? Nonsense… Another Platinum Colored Misrepresentation – To the Legal and Judicial Community – Follow the Money

 

Opinion and Analysis – LM – 30.4.19

The claim that investors in the litany of Platinum swindles [Echo Therapeutics, Black Elk, Seabrook’s COBA Fund , Glacial Energy Holdings and Agera Energy LLC, among many others] knew the risks is absurd, utterly absurd. Perhaps if one argues that they should have known that they were dealing with swindlers and therefore the Ponzi Scheme was foreseeable, there is some logic; but no. Such an argument does not hold water, particular in the environment of fiduciary duty and fair dealing. The entire premise is akin to blaming any victim for a crime perpetrated upon him or her. The major difference between the Platinum Ponzi Schemes and brutal, violent crimes is that the investors in Platinum Partners were disavowed of their finances with a measure of finesse, charm and savior faire.  These guys did a better job of conning their victims out of money than Madoff. Madoff’s reputation preceded him, the impossible-to-believe-he-could-do-it criminal. With the Platinum Partners, for those of us who did years of research, it was obvious. For investors, the elegance of the schemes was extraordinary, which makes these crimes almost worse than a violent serial robber, thief or rapist. These guys based their entire swindle on betraying the trust of others.

While Platinum Partners’ investor group was comprised of a fair share of “big-boys” people who were accredited investors or otherwise knew the rules of the investment road, many who were dragged in were friends and people who trusted Platinum’s partners. They “put a little faith in their friends,” far too much faith. Many still do. And those entrusted with the money were pathological scammers, godless characters who thought little of their victims. Friends were nothing more than income sources at the end of the day; or a name to drop for legitimacy purposes. 

Mark Nordlicht, Murray Huberfeld, Uri Landesman, David Levy are brilliant financiers, master manipulators, incredibly savvy and largely charming individuals. Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg were peddling the Platinum wares with their friends in high places offering up a glamorous life to anyone dumb enough to take the bait. Jona Rechnitz began his career working side-by-side with diamond magnate Lev Leviev, one of the initial investors in Platinum through Africa Israel, a class-A mentor and the basis for an unbeatable resume. That Jona Rechntiz has made lying into an art form was just another piece to the greater picture of how this entire scheme was orchestrated.

The whole Platinum Partners endeavor had an air of legitimacy that even most savvy and experienced investors would have had a hard time seeing through.  The Platinum Partners’ partners had friends and friends of friends and big names behind them. They painted a very rosy picture and very few high level newspapers covered the unrealistic nature of Platinum’s returns, one of the exceptions being Reuters (Reuters).   

And Platinum chose their investors wisely. People like Norman Seabrook, the head of COBA, were simply not savvy enough to understand that all of the wining and dining was a show of just how stupid Murray Huberfeld thought Seabrook was. We have opined on this before. Sadly, Seabrook was nothing more than a dumb “shvartze” in the eyes of Huberfeld and Nordlicht. It’s a horrible and racist comment, admittedly. But, when examining the nature of the Platinum swindle, it’s simply reality. Seabrook did not have the financial savvy to understand he was being completely steamrolled with the investment being offered to him. And, well… the wining and dining and show of wealth, the trips to Israel and greetings from the un-“pious ones” at the Western Wall was too much temptation when coupled with the returns he was likely being promised and the side money and items being gifted. And with his investment into Platinum, the partners could turn around and show the next guy that they had value. If the head of the COBA investments gave his blessing to the fund, it had to be legitimate. 

The NFL football players, and the payday loans offered to them by a link of Platinum associated entities, was another of the many schemes, a little more unsettling than the others. Investors who were inserting the flow of capital while being guaranteed returns of high interest and fees from NFL players who were on strike and would inevitably be paid. It was a “no-fail” cool trick. While the football players were paying interest rates and savage fees, the Platinum or associated investors were being showered with money. The Platinum associated fund that offered the loans and corresponding investment opportunities was allowing its investors a proverbial taste of fine wine, enticing as it was, and easy money. Little could those investors know that they were being hustled into other more dangerous financial waters.  

While the payday loan piece of the Platinum Partners story has not gotten much press coverage in the grand Platinum fraud, nor have the football players involved, neither the investors nor the players themselves were savvy enough to know that they were being disenfranchised. The players sadly were vulnerable to both the NFL on one side and the fund that was backing them while they were on strike on the other. And these guys did not have the financial savvy or upper-crust white wealthy background to grasp that the millions they were to receive from the NFL was all too easily spent. The Platinum Partners were sharp enough in this game to know, understand and manipulate the mentality, the vulnerabilities and the financial struggles of these players.  Many of those players lost thousands of dollars. All the while, a bunch of hedge fund guys and their investors sat in cushy Herman Miller chairs in their gilded offices and laughed all the way to the bank. The investors who were smart enough to get out might not have lost their shirts. Those who decided to try the next proverbial bottle of wine, were hooked both to the adrenaline and to the returns, little did they know, unless they did. 

And what of the religious investors who saw the Yeshiva connection as a sign of integrity? Torah Usemorah loaned money to a failing hedge fund while the partners donated money to a different yeshiva, or not. Of course if a Yeshiva is going to loan money to a hedge fund, the fund must be worth its weight in salt, yes? No. This was just another part of the swindle. It gave the entire venture a different level of credibility, that of the religious kind.  How were investors supposed to know that the Platinum Partners’ promised returns were a sham when the men in charge looked like G-d-faring philanthropists? 

They couldn’t. 

The picture that was painted was glorious and quite irresistible to investors and adrenaline junkies who sought high returns. Huberfeld’s friendships with Charlie Kushner (albeit a red flag for some) gave him some Wall Street cred. Few remembered that he had hired someone to take his SEC exams years earlier. And the forgiveness he got from the SEC was enough to show the world that if he was donned with his various SEC credentials, whatever he did was worth the forgiveness. And it was not. Someone who does ample due diligence would have stayed far away. But while Murray Huberfeld was convincing his Chabad friends to invest, Jona Rechnitz was peddling Platinum investments to people via his connections with seemingly credible organizations (Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Brooklyn Shomrim, his multiple connection to de Blasio and his Leviev history).

Mark Nordlicht was using his connections to the Westchester Torah Academy and a variety of his long-standing friendships with prominent Jewish families made him look like a reliable place to put some money. He wasn’t. He isn’t. He will never be. We will be surprised if Westchester Torah Academy doesn’t lose its shirt in the end also.

To blame the investors by stating that they knew the risks is a travesty, an affront to morality, ethics and the law. These men spent years and years cultivating and perfecting their ability to defraud the financial system, almost like a master fly fisherman does as sport. The difference is the the fly fisherman is an honest sportsman and doesn’t generally turn around and blame the fish for taking the bait. 

The outcome of this case with all of its many tentacles and the various webs woven will determine how the next aspiring fraudster views the investment climate. If the SEC, the judicial system, and the taxing authorities do not take this seriously and are somehow swayed by the argument that “they knew the risks” the next fraud will be worse and it will likely come from the same people who will either be directly guilty or guilty by mentoring.

Platinum’s partners knew the “friarim” (loose translation – “suckers”) in the system and they are playing those adjudicating these cases for absolute fools. Our financial system is based upon trust. The Investors, defrauded of millions should be able to trust in the system and get justice. The money that was filtered out of these funds can be traced to the personal accounts and trust of the partners, their friends, their shuls or their children. It is not gone and it should be recovered with whatever means are necessary. No one should be fooled here.

To the legal and judicial community, you now know the risks of letting this go without justice.

 

LAW360 – By subscription only

Ex-AG Mukasey Won’t Testify At Platinum Founder’s Trial

Law360 (April 26, 2019, 9:10 PM EDT) — A New York federal judge accused Platinum Partners co-founder Mark Nordlicht on Friday of trying to “dazzle” a jury by having former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey testify at his criminal trial, knocking down a subpoena targeting Mukasey and another attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton.

U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan granted Mukasey’s bid to quash a subpoena from Nordlicht, on trial for fraud related to the $1 billion hedge fund’s collapse, who’d said in a letter one day earlier that he wanted Mukasey, now of counsel for Debevoise, to testify about his representation of Platinum during a five-month period in 2013 that was “during the heart of the alleged conspiracy.”

Nordlicht said in his letter that “the mere fact of [Mukasey’s] representation is critical and of course has bearing.”
Read more at: https://www.law360.com/securities/articles/1154097/ex-ag-mukasey-won-t-testify-at-platinum-founder-s-trial?

District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein Got It Right, Those Who Think Otherwise Are Missing the Point

Murray Huberfeld in November 2017 outside federal court in lower Manhattan. Photo Credit: Charles Eckert

Dear Reader:

We believe, in no uncertain terms, that District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, got it very right to the extent of his available sentencing capacity when he sentenced Platinum founder Murray Huberfeld to 30 months and $19M.

Judge Hellerstein understood the magnitude of the crime that Huberfeld perpetrated on the COBA members. He was clearly aligned with he notion that you cannot punish the bribed without punishing the person or people who orchestrated the scheme underlying that bribe. And Platinum Partners in all its glory was a scheme. Hellerstein recognized that Huberfeld’s “conduct was not only corrupt and criminal, but led to the loss of millions of dollars of union retirement benefits,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said.

According to the article in the Daily News “

Prosecutors considered Huberfeld, who was the briber, less culpable than Seabrook, the bribe-taker. Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Bell noted that Seabrook had deceived the correction officers he represented.

“(Huberfeld) didn’t know the correction officers. They didn’t know him. He had no responsibility to them,” Bell said.

Huberfeld attorney Henry Mazurek insisted that his client had not known that Platinum was doomed at the time he paid the bribe. Rather, Huberfeld had sought out COBA — using crooked Mayor de Blasio donor Jona Rechnitz as an intermediary — to boost his own status within the hedge fund.

For Assistant US Attorney, Martin Bell, to agree with Huberfeld’s attorneys is ridiculous. With all due respect it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of our financial system, a lack of clarity with regard to Huberfeld’s long history of trampling on our legal and financial system and a lack of disregard for the victims of Platinum’s fraud. US Attorney Martin Bell should be celebrating the work he did that led to Judge Hellerstein’s rulings, rather than giving impetus for a litany of appeals on the part of Marty Huberfeld. 

We applaud Judge Hellerstein’s comments with regard both to Huberfeld’s attorneys’ statements and if in agreement the statements of Bell when, as the Daily News states:

But Hellerstein called that argument “nonsense.” He held Seabrook, Rechnitz and Huberfeld jointly liable for the loss of the investment.

Hellerstein’s assessment of the absurdity of this argument speaks volumes.

Under legal regulatory guidelines a person who pedals an investment has a fiduciary duty to the investor, whether they know that investor or not. For a contrary argument to have even been raised highlights a lack of understanding of the SEC and the protections put in place to safeguard investments.

Were COBA to have been an ERISA fund, the fiduciary duty would have been greater. These were the livelihoods of people at stake, their futures and those of their children and grandchildren we placed at risk. And Murray Huberfeld knew it the moment he solicited the investment and bribed Norman Seabrook to transfer funds. The COBA investments and the fiduciary duty of Platinum’s partners and Norman Seabrook are the very foundation of investment policy. And they are no less legally bound.

The bribery and fraud underlying the loss of those investments was criminal. It lacked moral boundaries, put the foundation of the US financial system at risk and raises questions regarding the safeguards in place for investors.

Assistant US Attorney Martin Bell’s comments, if not taken out of context in the various new articles, increases the magnitude of the risks that Huberfeld and those like him pose to investors, if appropriate punishments are not levied.

LI hedge fund founder gets 30 months in prison in bribery case

A hedge fund founder from Lawrence who was part of a scheme to bribe the leader of New York City’s correction officers union to invest $20 million in his firm was sentenced to 30 months in prison Tuesday, officials said. His attorney vowed to appeal the term.

Murray Huberfeld, 57, who founded Platinum Partners hedge fund, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in connection with the transfer of $60,000 that prosecutors said was used to bribe Norman Seabrook, the former president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, to invest tens of millions in Platinum.

In all, the union lost $19 million of its $20 million investment with Platinum. As much as $15 million was from a retirement benefits program funded by the City of New York that invests money for correction officers’ retirements.

Huberfeld pleaded guilty in May to wire fraud conspiracy. Specifically, he pleaded to conspiring with Jona Rechnitz, a real estate businessman and star government witness in several federal corruption trials, to cause Huberfeld’s hedge fund to pay $60,000 to Rechnitz’s company by falsely representing that the money was payment for courtside tickets to eight New York Knicks basketball games.

Prosecutors said that money was really intended for Seabrook, a payment for making the investment of the union’s funds. Rechnitz had testified in Seabrook’s trial that he delivered $60,000 in cash to Seabrook in a Salvatore Ferragamo bag in 2014 after the union’s funds were invested with Platinum.

“Not content with being a successful businessman, Murray Huberfeld sought to grow his fund through fraud and deception, playing a critical role in a pernicious kickback scheme,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman in a statement. “His conduct was not only corrupt and criminal, but led to the loss of millions of dollars of union retirement benefits. The sentence imposed today reflects the magnitude of his crimes and untold pain his conduct caused to others.”

To read the article in its entirety click here.

The Platinum Ponzi – Seabrook, Huberfeld, Orthodox, Pre-Ordained Wealth versus Self-Made… Prison?

Seabrook, a Relatively non-Savvy, non-Orthodox Jew up Against a System Rigged to Keep the Orthodox Out of Prison or in Ottisville

Dear Reader:

We believe that if anyone deserves a lengthy prison sentence for the COBA investment scheme and subsequent losses the members incurred, it is the person or people responsible for the sham investment strategy in which Seabrook invested. Norman Seabrook should not be standing alone. Seabrook was enticed to Platinum by Murray Huberfeld, Jona Rechnitz, Jeremy Reichberg and others connected past or present to Platinum Partners on promises of extraordinarily high returns. He was bated, hook, line and sinker.

We believe that while Seabrook may have sold out the people entrusted by him to maintain the safety of their investments, he was simply too lacking in savvy to know how artfully he was duped. He was drawn in by the glitz, glamour and ego- stroking of those who bribed him to invest in their fund. They knew he was going to lose his shirt and the investments of every one of the COBA members. Anyone who thinks differently simply does not know the dynamic. We would tend to believe that the entire affair has left him far from penniless and those for whose investments he was responsible should be outraged. But, he was not the person they should have trusted to do the investing. He had motive, opportunity and not enough smarts to run in the opposite direction.

Perhaps Norman Seabrook should have asked himself some more intelligent questions like why they were pushing such a hard sell. Why was he being brought to Israel and treated like a king? Why were Orthodox Jews, who really are generally quite “anti-schvartze” (racist, to put it kindly) spending so much time wooing him? The reality is, “tachlis” (in not so many words), the Orthodox men who were responsible for Platinum, its years of scheming and defrauding investors, likely had numerous laughs over all of the people they conned and continue to scam, Seabrook being the black man who worked his way to the top, an admirable quality but still a Shvartze. 

To our point, quoting from Too Good to Be True  about the rise and fall of Bernie Madoff and speaking on the subject of Ezra Merkin, one of Madoff’s earliest investors, Erin Arvedlund writes: “Wall Street is just twenty guys selling each other stuff, while some schwartzer in the basement does all the work,” Merkin would joke privately. Publicly, however, Merkin acted like a Wall Street sage.” Seabrook could be described as a step up from the guy in the basement; but likely there are those who are still finding his involvement a point of good humor, particularly those who are facing lighter sentences than Seabrook.

Sadly, he lavished in the lifestyle they were offering him. One can almost hardly blame him. The men who enticed him are practiced con artists, with a lifetime of experience, born into privilege and by no means altruistic or compassionate. They are responsible for duping the members of COBA who have lost millions and ultimately it is because of them that those members will likely NEVER recover all of their losses. Seabrook wanted his palms greased and in exchange thought he’d increase a portfolio of assets. Platinum knew they were taking money that would cover other losses and it is each and every one of those men for whom the Court’s contempt should be obvious, swift and harsh. The Platinum Partners’ partners were lacking in conscience and compassion when they destroyed the COBA investments and it is they in our view who should pay harshly. But will they? White, Jewish, privileged and politically well-connected, probably they will not. 

Norman Seabrook, in all of his arrogance as seen in photographs was as much a victim as he was a perpetrator. Sadly, if he had a true “in” with the Chabad/Orthodox community with whom he was fraternizing, he would be sitting with Murray Huberfeld, facing far less time. The color of his skin, the lack of privilege in multiple forms, and the lack of Orthodox providence says a lot in our view.

One must wonder if anyone not connected to the Orthodox community in Brooklyn or NYC can ever have an even remotely fair shake, and that includes Norman Seabrook. 

Ex-NYC jail labor boss Norman Seabrook ‘sold out his union,’ deserves five years in prison: prosecutors

 

Corrupt jails union boss Norman Seabrook deserves a sentence of five years and three months in prison for his “betrayal of trust and priority of greed over responsibility,” prosecutors wrote on Monday.

The former head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association will be sentenced Friday for taking a $60,000 kickback in 2014 in exchange for a $20 million investment in a hedge fund that ultimately went bankrupt.

“He acted greedily, recklessly, and brazenly,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Bell wrote in a memo filed in Manhattan Federal Court.

“Seabrook’s participation in one of the more infamous union bribery schemes in the history of New York City cries out for a serious response.”

Once one of the city’s most powerful labor leaders, Seabrook earned roughly $275,000 a year while wielding tremendous influence over all aspects of city jails.

“But he wasn’t satisfied with his power or his paycheck. He betrayed the rank-and-file correction officers whose interests he ostensibly represented for his own private gain,” Bell wrote.

In his own letter filed last week, Seabrook cited his many accomplishments for the roughly 18,000 current and retired members of the union. He was found guilty last year but maintains his innocence.

“Allowing Seabrook’s achievements as the president of [the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association] to prevail substantially over the need for a punishment … would send the wrong message to society and to the hardworking correction officers whose retirement money Seabrook jeopardized for an easy buck,” Bell wrote.

To continue reading click, here.