NYC Pol's $177 Bagel Part of Money Probe

(AP)  A city councilman on Tuesday surrendered to face federal charges that he tried to cheat the city of at least $2.5 million in council discretionary funds, funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to his girlfriend and relatives and charging the city $177 for a bagel sandwich.

The charges were contained in a Manhattan indictment against Councilman Larry Seabrook, a Democrat who has represented a Bronx council district since 2002 and who was once a state senator.

Seabrook is charged with receiving corrupt payments, extortion, money laundering and conspiracy. His lawyer did not immediately return a call for comment.

One of the charges alleges that, between July 2006 and April 2009, Seabrook solicited payments from a Bronx boiler company executive after Seabrook helped get the New York Yankees to select the company to furnish two boilers for the new Yankee Stadium.

In recent years, federal authorities and the city's Department of Investigation have been looking into how council members funnel money to nonprofits.

From 2002 through 2009, Seabrook tried to direct at least $2.5 million of council discretionary funds to nonprofit organizations that he controlled, the indictment alleged.

The indictment said Seabrook negotiated the nonprofit organizations' leases, created their budgets, made their personnel decisions and knew the groups were not doing enough legitimate work to justify the funds.

It said he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary and "consulting" fees over the seven-year span to his girlfriend, his brother, his sisters and his nephews, among others.

The indictment accused Seabrook of inflating the expenses of the organizations, including what they paid in rent, and of making other misrepresentations and material omissions to New York City and the council so he could continue funding the groups.

For instance, Seabrook submitted a number of forged or altered receipts, including a doctored receipt for a $7 bagel sandwich and diet beverage that made it look like it had cost about $177, the indictment said.

In all, Seabrook managed to get at least $1.2 million of the $2.5 million he requested for the organizations sent to them, the indictment said.

The court papers outlined numerous examples of misspent money, including $10,000 paid to one of Seabrook's sisters for a "Fire Diversity/Recruitment Initiative" consultant report that amounted to six double-spaced pages written in a large font.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn said: "All of us in the City Council take the deeply troubling allegations against Council Member Larry Seabrook very seriously."

Last year, former City Councilman Miguel Martinez was sentenced to five years in prison by a federal judge in Manhattan for stealing more than $100,000 in public funds since 2002.

[OIF_to_USC]

There are plenty of lamp posts and rope in NYC. Plenty of bankers and Wall Street crooks and corrupt city officials to to cast shadows from the ends of those ropes.

[whofan39]

Gasp...

[davidsjones-2009]

The only way to keep things cool is to take this jerk and shoot him down like the dog he is. The rest will fall in line and do the right things from here on now.

[TVO1CITW]

One of the top four (4) reasons for the downfall of the Roman Empire was due to political corruption. This was kept silent for a long time while, today, most of it is open. Many of the decisions being made in this administaration are openly corrupt and will continue to accumulate like snow and halt the future of the United States of America as we know it.

[RoboBlogger]

Well, at least what we could all agree on is that the best criminals actually sit behind the desks we elect them to be in. Which desks...
we have yet to know.

[cattiej]

Another greedy, crooked, corrupt,coniving,devious,lying,etc.etc. politican. Another case of I'm black, I'm innocent? I'm special. I don't think so. I know too many people of black and brown decent who are decent hard working citizens. If this man of color was elected to office just because of his color then the citizens should take a good look at themselves and see why they don't check out this guy's history, business history and demeanor. The New York Mayor, the Chief of Police, the City Hall chief's had to know about this guy and his corrupt business. How much money did they take in payoff's from him to keep their mouth's shut?
America is going downhill fast, our country will never recover from these greedy, corrupt people until we the people throw them out of office, before or after election time. It is time we took a stand. Stand up for our country or get out of America.

[Brokennews]

What the problem?
He's an articulate, well dressed African American that has ?no Negro dialect? unless he wants one. How could anyone suspect him of wrong doing with credentials like that??

[pws54]

Brokennews, it's far worse to have some hick wanna-be in the White House for 8 of the worst years this country has and probably will, ever see.

[cidaia]

Yes, pws54, no matter what complaint is being leveled, and no matter whether there's any validity to it or not, it will always remain true that Obama isn't Bush, and it is increasingly becoming obvious that this is the only good thing you have to say about Obama.

But you're wrong: I thought Bush's 8 years were bad years, I thought anyone in the world would be preferably to Bush, but Obama really is making Bush look good.

[TVO1CITW]

There has to be some kind of "annual" accountability in government. Everytime this kind of thing happens the government adds yet another process which calls for the need to at least 3 additional personnel to watch for this. Our government is insane!!!!!!!!

[markj2]

With the waste of tax payer dollars used in the stimulis bill,so quickly passed with no scruitney as to where & what it was going for, we find out daily of the utter waste of "OUR" money. The corruption within state & city governments is just as big and wasteful of tax payer money. We the American people have to stop relying on elected officials to do the right things and not hold them accountable. We have to demand to know were every single penny of "OUR" tax payer money is going and what its bein used for. If you look at the states with the most deficit and run away spending, you can bet alot of that is being wasted in fraud & corruption.

[jwesel1]

With the waste of tax payer dollars used in the stimulis bill,so quickly passed with no scruitney as to where & what it was going for,
=====================================================================
With the useless crusades being fought the same way, the neocons have no issue. At least here it's being spent on roads here, not destroying the infrastructure.

[cidaia]

wow, is "well at least our corruption is more useful than your corruption" really the best you can do?

[usaguy2010]

Wat? Another corrupt politician? no way