NY Democratic Lt. Gov. arrested in campaign donation scheme

Democrat Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin

New York Democratic Lt. Governor Brian Benjamin has been arrested Tuesday in a federal corruption investigation. The Democrat had only been in office in that role for seven months but it was ripe with questions and probes into a previous campaign.

The Democrat was charged with bribery, honest services wire fraud, and falsification of records.

Prior to being given the position of Lieutenant Governor, Benjamin was a Democratic state senator from Harlem and joined the unelected Gov. Kathy Hochul in September to fill her former job after she became New York's governor. She received the appointment when Democrat Andrew "Handy Andy" Cuomo was forced to resign due to ongoing inappropriate sexual activities. He did not resign for being responsible for the killing of thousands of elderly New Yorkers in nursing homes due to his stupid Covid policy of filling nursing homes with Covid patients because he was never held responsible.

Two months after Cuomo resigned and Benjamin had joined the Hochul administration, a real estate developer, Gerald Migdol, a real estate developer and lawyer who pushed campaign contributions toward Benjamin's failed bid for NY City comptroller was indicted.

Migdol was accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft in illegally handing over donations to Benjamin's campaign.

In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, Benjamin was accused of participating in a scheme to obtain campaign contributions from a real estate developer in exchange for Benjamin’s agreement to use his influence as a state senator to get a $50,000 grant of state funds for a nonprofit organization the developer controlled, a scheme that operated from 2019 to 2021.

The indictment said Benjamin and others acting at his direction or on his behalf also engaged in a series of lies and deceptions to cover up the scheme.

That's a bad thing.

They falsified campaign donor forms, misled municipal regulators and provided false information in vetting forms Benjamin submitted while he was being considered to be appointed as lieutenant governor, the indictment read.

No former accusations was made by prosecutors against Benjamin. His campaign said of Migdol's arrest that it had forfeited any improper donations as soon as they were discovered. It was his hope that this would keep his sorry butt out of prison.

However, more recently, reports emerged saying that subpoenas had been issued to Benjamin regarding the financial issues even before Hochul picked him as lieutenant governor, showing us just how much Hochul has on the ball having never fully vetted him or lying.

Despite her claiming she didn’t know of the subpoenas at the time, Hochul proclaimed her support for Benjamin, and he said that he told state police of the subpoenas as they went though the process of vetting him.

“I have utmost confidence in my lieutenant governor,” Hochul said during a Thursday press conference. “This is an independent investigation related to other people and he’s fully cooperating. He is my running mate.”

There goes our confidence in Hochul. But hey, nobody elected her governor in the first place--she inherited the job from a Democratic sex predator.

“In her first major decision as governor, Kathy Hochul chose a dirty politician to serve as her partner in government and running mate. Brian Benjamin’s shady dealings and corruption were well-documented, but Hochul turned a blind eye and put him a heartbeat away from the governorship,” state Republican chairman Nick Langworthy said in a prepared statement, at the risk of being called a racist for having said something negative about a black person, even though it's true in this case.

* * *

Sex. Now that I have your attention: for more hard-hitting content, and a few soft-hitting ones too, subscribe to Brain Flushings and check out the ads on these pages. It costs nothing to subscribe and it's worth every penny. And remember, every time you click on an ad, you help in the fight against John Kerry's global warming, the heebie-jeebies and the dreaded omicron.

* * *

Benjamin was New York State's second Black lieutenant governor. During his state Legislature career, the Democrat emphasized criminal justice reform [seriously] and affordable housing. His district included most of central Harlem, where he was born and raised by Caribbean immigrant parents.

It is unclear as to whether his prison, if convicted, serves jerk chicken.

Tweet