De Blasio Donor – Jona Rechnitz Successfully Appeals Sentence
A multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving a donor to former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Jona Rechnitz, has seen a significant development. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court overturned Rechnitz’s five-month prison sentence and the order to pay $12 million in restitution. The court granted his bid to have the sentence scrapped due to a potential conflict of interest involving the sentencing judge, Alvin Hellerstein.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Rechnitz’s argument that Judge Hellerstein should have recused himself from the case. This decision was based on the judge’s close personal ties to an employee of the hedge fund, Platinum Partners, which was implicated in the bribery plot. The employee in question, Andrew Kaplan, was the son of the judge’s deceased close personal friend and had pending criminal charges related to the Platinum fraud case.
Judge Hellerstein not only had a paternal relationship with Kaplan but also provided advice on Kaplan’s pending criminal case, creating a situation of potential bias. As a result, the appeals court ruled that Rechnitz would be resentenced by a different judge.
The bribery scheme involved bribing the disgraced union boss, Norman Seabrook, to funnel $20 million in union funds into a failing hedge fund. Rechnitz, who admitted his involvement in brokering the bribe, cooperated as a star prosecution witness during Seabrook’s trial. Murray Huberfeld, the head of Platinum Partners, who ordered the bribe, had already taken a guilty plea in 2018 and was sentenced to seven months in prison after an earlier sentence was overturned.
Despite the conviction, Rechnitz has not yet served any prison time as his sentence was put on hold pending the appeal. With the resentencing, a different judge will determine the new punishment for Rechnitz’s involvement in the bribery scheme.
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