Rechnitz Tells Sordid Tale of Influence Peddling That Led to Alleged Seabrook Bribe

 

By Laura Nahmias

The powerful leader of the city corrections officers’ union was emotional.

It was December of 2013, and Norman Seabrook was wine drunk after a lovely dinner in Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, on an all-expenses paid trip from his new friend, a youthful Orthodox Jewish businessman named Jona Rechnitz. He’d traveled to Punta Cana along with NYPD Chief Philip Banks, Rechnitz, and his business partner Jeremy Reichberg, where Rechnitz said the four men “played golf, relaxed, smoked cigars” and “ate nice food.” 

But when Rechnitz came to visit Seabrook after dinner one night, “he was highly emotional,” Rechnitz recalled for a jury Friday.

“He said how it was hard for him because everything he had, he had to earn on his own.” He talked about “how hard it is for a black man these days to make a living.” He’d been raised by a single mother.

And Seabrook had recently experienced a personal tragedy.

“His dog had passed away,” Rechnitz recalled Friday in testimony during Seabrook’s federal corruption trial. “He showed me a tattoo of his dog, on his chest.” 

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Source: Politico (via The Empire Report)