State Senator John L. Sampson was found guilty on Friday of three of nine charges, becoming the latest New York State lawmaker to face prison time for political corruption.
The most serious count he was convicted of, obstructing justice, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. However, he was found not guilty on the weightiest charge, conspiracy to obstruct justice, for which he would have faced up to 20 years.
Mr. Sampson, who previously served as the Democratic leader in the Senate, was also found guilty on two charges of making false statements. He will lose his seat in the Legislature as a result of the conviction.
The jury in Federal District Court in Brooklyn delivered its verdict after six days of deliberations.
During the three-week trial, federal prosecutors argued that Mr. Sampson, 50, had embezzled state funds when he was appointed to oversee sales of properties in foreclosure and then covered up that embezzlement. The charges against him included conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing records and making false statements. Embezzlement charges had beenthrown out by Judge Dora L. Irizarry, who said the statute of limitations on them had passed, a decision prosecutors plan to appeal.
The government’s evidence included two cooperating witnesses, audio recordings and a video recording of Mr. Sampson taking a piece of possible evidence and slipping it into his jacket pocket.
The defense said that Mr. Sampson had been entrapped by the government, and they emphasized that one of his former friends agreed to cooperate with prosecutors after the friend was charged with mortgage fraud. In testimony that lasted several days, the friend, Edul Ahmad, described how Mr. Sampson threatened to silence anyone who was helping investigators. Prosecutors played video and audio recordings of a visibly distraught Mr. Sampson taking a check register that Mr. Ahmad indicated could be proof of the embezzlement, and sticking it in his jacket pocket.
Another friend, who for 22 years was a paralegal at the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, was also ensnared in the investigation. Mr. Sampson asked the friend, Sam Noel, to look up confidential information about Mr. Ahmad’s case and any case against Mr. Sampson, who was being prosecuted by the United States attorney’s office. After Mr. Noel did so, though he did not find much, he was charged with a federal crime, lost his job and described feeling betrayed by Mr. Sampson, “a man I view as my brother.”
Mr. Noel and Mr. Sampson had grown up together. Mr. Noel sat by Mr. Sampson’s mother’s bedside when she died and was the godfather to Mr. Sampson’s daughter.
Two months after Mr. Noel was dismissed from his paralegal job, the senator dropped by Mr. Noel’s house. Mr. Noel described how he had been feeling low and keeping to himself. Mr. Sampson’s concern, though, seemed to be for himself — he asked Mr. Noel whether he was being investigated. “I was just lost for words,” Mr. Noel said. “I’m pretty much out of luck; he’s still worried about what’s going on with him.”
Prosecutors said the embezzlement occurred when Mr. Sampson, a lawyer, was a court-appointed referee for foreclosed properties in Brooklyn. Rather than returning the surplus money from the real estate sales to State Supreme Court, as he was supposed to do, Mr. Sampson took about $440,000 of it, prosecutors said. The properties were sold in 1998 and 2002. Mr. Sampson put the funds aside for his own later use, including for his unsuccessful 2005 run for Brooklyn district attorney.
In a proceeding last year, Mr. Sampson’s lawyers did not contest that the embezzlement occurred, but said it occurred so long ago that the statute of limitations had expired.
By 2006, prosecutors said, he became fearful, and asked Mr. Ahmad for a loan, which Mr. Sampson said was to pay back some of those funds.
In closing arguments, a prosecutor, Paul Tuchman, said Mr. Sampson had exploited his friends and felt he was above the law.
One of Mr. Sampson’s lawyers, Nathaniel H. Akerman, said that his client had shown “bad judgment” but that Mr. Ahmad was a liar and that the videotape that prosecutors made “would make Steven Spielberg proud.”
Using information from officials, an earlier version of this article misstated the maximum sentence for the obstruction-of-justice charge State Senator John L. Sampson was convicted of. It is 10 years, not 20.
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the number of charges of which Mr. Sampson was convicted. He was convicted of three, not six, charges.
