Lawyers for indicted ex-correction union president Norman Seabrook are claiming that more than $20,000 in cash found locked in his bedroom safe wasn’t a bribe…
Lawyers for indicted ex-correction union president Norman Seabrook are claiming that more than $20,000 in cash found locked in his bedroom safe wasn’t a bribe — it was gambling earnings.
“The vast majority of the money, $22,350, was seized from a safe in the master bedroom,” Seabrook’s lawyer’s Paul Shechtman and Maggie Lynaugh write in an attempt to bar the jury from hearing about the cash.
“Notably, at the same time, the government seized three Mohegan Sun gambling receipts — one dated Jan. 28,2015, for $7,000; another dated May 13,2015, for $6,000; and a third dated Sept. 30,2015, for $7,500.”
Seabrook will stand trial in October, on accusations he accepted $60,000 in kickbacks in exchange for investing $20 million from union pensions in a since-closed hedge fund.
The lawyers go on to argue the government can’t prove the nearly $29,000 in cash was from Jona Rechnitz or hedge funder Murray Huberfeld.
Rechnitz is expected to testify for the prosecution that he personally handed Seabrook the $60,000 bribe, from Huberfeld.
“To be sure, the agents also found a Ferragamo bag, matching the one that Rechnitz gave to Mr. Seabrook, but the cash was not in or near the bag,” the papers read.
The judge has yet to rule on the motion.
