By Sarina Trangle
Former City Councilman Dan Halloran’s attorney questioned an upstate developer cooperating with the government about whether his first meeting with the Bayside Republican breached FBI protocol and whether he celebrated the legislator’s arrest with a trip to Florida.
Halloran is on trial in White Plains federal court for allegedly acting as a power broker in state Sen. Malcolm Smith’s (D-Hollis) ploy to allegedly bribe New York City county Republican parties into authorizing him to run for mayor on the GOP line.
Government informant Moses Stern, who has pleaded guilty to defrauding Citibank out of $126 million in an unrelated case, took the stand to describe his dealings with Halloran.
Halloran’s attorney, Vinoo Varghese, displayed Stern’s plea deal, which contained dozens of charges, before jurors Tuesday and asked whether the Rockland County developer secretly recorded his Aug. 22, 2012, meeting with Halloran before the FBI read required guidelines to him Aug. 29, 2012.
Moses said he was told the FBI was investigating Halloran and without thinking to ask agents for permission, he purchased a recorder, taped an encounter with the Bayside Republican and then handed it over to the FBI.
“They told me that’s not the way the operation works,” Moses said. “That was one time.”
When Varghese inquired whether he celebrated Halloran’s arrest last spring with a trip to a private island in Key West, Moses said his brother financed it because of safety concerns, particularly death threats lodged against his children.
“Cooperating is a very difficult thing where I live, to some degree punishable by death,” Moses said of the Orthodox Jewish community.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Halloran received about $20,500 for negotiating Smith’s quest for the GOP line and requested that he be named the deputy police commissioner if the southeast Queens senator wound up in Gracie Mansion.
In another alleged bribery scheme, prosecutors said Halloran agreed to route city discretionary funding to Stern and an undercover FBI agent, who Halloran believed was a wealthy business partner of Stern’s, in exchange for $24,800 in donations for his own failed congressional bid.
Stern said he never received campaign finance forms or heard Halloran inquire about them, when asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Bloom.
Similarly, Stern said Halloran did not ask for any paperwork related to the exchange involving discretionary funding.
Varghese questioned Stern’s background, highlighting a slew of crimes in his plea deal, from installing a bathtub in a public housing unit to defrauding Citibank and asked if he had agreed to cooperate with the government in a bid to bargain down the prospect of a 455-year prison sentence.
Stern said he admitted to several crimes after being charged with three and looking at up to a decade behind bars.
“Maybe it’s a way for me to repay my debt to society,” he said of his decision to work with the FBI.
Varghese is expected to finish calling his witnesses soon and said he would put Halloran on the stand, according to a spokesman for prosecutors.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
