Lt. Gov. Benjamin Arrested in Campaign Finance Scheme

Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin of New York, the state’s second-in-command to Gov. Kathy Hochul, surrendered early Tuesday morning to face a federal bribery conspiracy indictment in reference to a scheme to funnel fraudulent donations to a earlier marketing campaign, in response to folks with data of the matter.

The indictment, the results of an investigation by the F.B.I. and the U.S. legal professional for the Southern District of New York, accused Mr. Benjamin of conspiring to direct state funds to a Harlem actual property investor in trade for orchestrating 1000’s of {dollars} in unlawful marketing campaign contributions to Mr. Benjamin’s unsuccessful 2021 marketing campaign for New York Metropolis comptroller, the folks stated. The investor was arrested on federal expenses in November.

The authorized turmoil casts Mr. Benjamin’s political future in query, and complicates this 12 months’s election for him and Ms. Hochul, who was catapulted into workplace final 12 months after her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, resigned after quite a few allegations of sexual misconduct.

There isn’t a suggestion that Ms. Hochul was conscious of Mr. Benjamin’s alleged felony conduct, which prosecutors stated occurred when he was a state senator. Nonetheless, she took workplace final 12 months promising to finish an period of impropriety in Albany, and choosing Mr. Benjamin, 45, was amongst her first main choices as governor.

Federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. had been anticipated to announce the fees in a while Tuesday, and Mr. Benjamin is scheduled to look in United States District Court docket in Decrease Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon.

A lawyer for Mr. Benjamin couldn’t be instantly reached for remark.

Mr. Benjamin will virtually actually face strain to resign from workplace. Even when he had been to step down, he’ll doubtless stay on the poll in June, when he faces two spirited main challengers. As a result of Mr. Benjamin was designated because the Democratic Get together’s nominee for lieutenant governor, his identify can solely be eliminated at this level if he had been to maneuver out of the state, die or search one other workplace.

Mr. Benjamin stated not too long ago that he had been cooperating with investigators, who had issued subpoenas in latest weeks to the State Senate in Albany and individuals who had suggested his comptroller marketing campaign. As not too long ago as final week, the lieutenant governor and his prime aides had been reassuring allies in non-public that he anticipated to be cleared of any wrongdoing within the case.

However there have been sturdy indications that the Harlem actual property investor who illegally assisted his marketing campaign, Gerald Migdol, started offering data to investigators shortly after he was arrested on wire fraud, aggravated identification theft and different expenses associated to his function within the matter.

In a grand jury indictment final November, prosecutors stated that Mr. Migdol started to steer 1000’s of {dollars} price of fraudulent contributions to Mr. Benjamin in October 2019, only a month after the state senator filed to run for comptroller. They accused him of constructing straw donations within the identify of people, together with his 2-year-old grandchild, who didn’t consent to them, and of reimbursing others for the price of their contributions.

On the time, the prosecutors didn’t touch upon Mr. Migdol’s motive, or explicitly identify Mr. Benjamin. However they stated his scheme was designed to assist the candidate faucet into New York Metropolis’s beneficiant public marketing campaign matching funds program and safe him tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in extra marketing campaign money.

The 2 males had been shut and traded accolades at a collection of charitable and political features through the years in Harlem, the place Mr. Migdol made a reputation for himself distributing faculty provides and Thanksgiving turkeys by way of his charity.

State information and a Fb picture posted by Mr. Migdol on the time present Mr. Benjamin presenting him with an outsized cardboard verify for $50,000 for the charity, Pals of Public College Harlem, in September 2019. It’s unclear if the funds, which had been earmarked as a part of a discretionary state training fund, had been ever really delivered, however they represented one of many largest outdoors items ever directed to the small charity.

A graduate of Ivy League faculties, Mr. Benjamin, spent a lot of his profession in banking and reasonably priced housing growth earlier than profitable a State Senate seat representing most of Harlem in 2017.

In Albany, he was a number one proponent of felony justice reform measures handed by Democrats after they gained the bulk in 2018. He completed fourth final 12 months within the Democratic main for comptroller.

Mr. Hochul chosen Mr. Benjamin to be her lieutenant governor final August, after the resignation of Mr. Cuomo elevated her to the governor’s mansion from that place. The choice was broadly seen as a manner for Ms. Hochul, a white reasonable from Buffalo, to broaden her attraction to nonwhite voters in New York Metropolis forward of this 12 months’s elections.

It’s unclear how rigorously Ms. Hochul or her advisers vetted Mr. Benjamin earlier than the appointment.

The duties of the lieutenant governor place range by administration. Mr. Benjamin has saved a brisk schedule of official occasions within the eight months since taking workplace, typically presiding over the State Senate and representing Ms. Hochul at occasions within the New York Metropolis space. As Ms. Hochul’s expertise made clear, the lieutenant governor’s most necessary perform is to step in ought to the governor resign or die in workplace.

Mr. Benjamin faces two formidable main opponents: Diana Reyna, a former New York Metropolis councilwoman, and Ana Maria Archila, an activist backed by the left-leaning Working Households Get together.

If both had been to defeat him and Ms. Hochul nonetheless prevails in her race, the governor might discover herself on a Democratic ticket on this fall’s basic election with a comparatively adversarial operating mate.

Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.