State Sen. John Sampson indicted on embezzlement charges, faces 120 years
Last Updated: 2:19 AM, May 7, 2013
Posted: 1:02 AM, May 7, 2013
With “extreme arrogance and hubris,” a Brooklyn state senator who held one of the most powerful posts in Albany embezzled nearly half a million dollars of escrow money he was entrusted to safeguard — and then used a mole inside the US Attorney’s Office to keep tabs on witnesses who threatened to expose his scheme, authorities said yesterday.
Sen. John Sampson (D-Canarsie) turned himself in to feds in Brooklyn yesterday and was charged with embezzlement, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, among other charges that could put him away for up to 120 years.
Sounding more like a mob boss than a Senate minority leader, Sampson, 47, chillingly boasted to a close “associate” charged with mortgage fraud in 2011 that if his informant in the Eastern District US Attorney’s Office learned the names of federal cooperating witnesses against the pal, then “Sampson could arrange to ‘take them out,’ ” a nine-count indictment charges.
“The fact that he was trying to become the top state prosecutor in this borough shows the extreme arrogance and hubris,” said Brooklyn US Attorney Loretta Lynch, whose office is prosecuting Sampson. “It’s all about him.
“And when the defendant felt that his self-dealing would be exposed, this defendant, this state senator, this attorney at law counseled a witness to lie, hid evidence, and worked to reach inside the US Attorney’s Office to obtain non-public law-enforcement information.”
Sampson allegedly urged his associate — identified by sources as Guyana-born businessman and Sampson legal client Edul “Eddie” Ahmad — to withhold financial documents from federal investigators that could incriminate the former Ethics Committee chairman in crimes dating back 15 years.
The powerful pol had allegedly received a secret $188,500 “loan” from Ahmad in 2006 — which he then used to pay back a fraction of the $440,000 he allegedly embezzled from four foreclosure escrow accounts he controlled as a court-appointed referee to fund his 2005 primary challenge for Brooklyn DA, federal prosecutors claim.
Sampson later “instructed” Ahmad not to disclose to prosecutors a check register page that revealed those payments to the senator, according to authorities.
“That’s a problem . . . I mean for me,” Sampson allegedly told Ahmad, referring to the register, which he had inspected himself.
Ahmad wore a wire to gather information against Sampson for prosecutors, who also were recording the senator’s cellphone calls, sources said.
“I can’t talk on the phone,” Sampson told Ahmad during a meeting in November 2011, the indictment alleges. “From now on, our conversation is, ‘I don’t have no contacts, you don’t know nothing.’ When we talk, that’s how we talk.”
When FBI agents confronted Sampson outside his Brooklyn home last July and showed him a copy of Ahmad’s check register page, the senator denied having seen it before, prosecutors said. And then Sampson claimed he had asked the mole only for public information, prosecutors said.
After FBI agents called him on the apparent lie, the senator allegedly responded, “Not everything I told you was false.”
A source told The Post that the US Attorney’s Office mole, who is not identified by name in the indictment, was longtime supervisory paralegal Samuel Noel. During his 22-year career, Noel assisted prosecutors in their 2004 conviction of Gambino crime-family boss Peter Gotti.
Prosecutors said the mole was terminated. When FBI agents searched the mole’s office after learning about his contact with Sampson, they found “a slip of paper which contained the handwritten names of several individuals who were defendants in proceedings” related to Ahmad’s mortgage fraud case, prosecutors said.
Noel, 46, did not respond to requests for comment.
Ahmad’s defense attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.
Sampson has been under federal criminal investigation since at least 2011. After he was released on $250,000 bail yesterday, his lawyer Zachary Carter said, “Senator Sampson has been fully cooperative with the government since we were contacted some months ago in connection with this investigation.”
That revelation immediately led to speculation that prosecutors had tried and failed to get Sampson to cooperate in investigations against others.
Ahmad last fall pleaded guilty to massive mortgage fraud, but has yet to be sentenced, fueling speculation he was cooperating with prosecutors in probes of Sampson and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Queens).
Over the weekend, Sampson was identified by sources as one of multiple elected officials who had been secretly recorded by former Queens state Sen. Shirley Huntley, who was cooperating with the feds in a bid to get a reduced sentence for ripping off $87,000 in taxpayer funds.
Sources said Sampson approached Huntley to intercede with the Port Authority to help a cargo company at JFK Airport get more rental space there. Huntley did so, and netted a $1,000 bribe, according to federal authorities.
Yesterday’s indictment is not related to Sampson’s alleged contact with Huntley on that matter, but feds are still investigating.
Sampson pleaded not guilty to the charges and was ordered to have no contact with either Ahmad or Noel.
Prosecutors also said they had offered Sampson a deal of three to four years’ prison in exchange for guilty pleas to just two of the nine counts.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona, Melissa Klein, Isabel Vincent and Kevin Sheehan
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