Updated 11:40 a.m.
Former Queens Councilman Dan Halloran was found guilty Tuesday for his role in a bribery scheme to get Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith on the GOP ticket in last year’s mayoral race.
“With today’s verdict of guilty reached by an impartial and independent jury, the clean-up of corruption in New York continues in courtrooms,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
It took just over one hour for the jury to reach its verdict following the eight-week trial, according to published reports, and Halloran was convicted of all five counts against him. The conviction ends a trial that continued even after co-defendant Smith was released after a mistrial was declared. During the trial, Halloran also attempted, and ultimately failed, an insanity defense on the basis of a removed brain tumor in 2012, according to the New York Post.
“I was also very troubled with Mr. Halloran in terms of his candor,” White Plains Federal Court Judge Kenneth Karas said, following the verdict.
Halloran will be sentenced on Dec. 12 and faces up to 55 years in prison, according to the Post. The judge allowed Halloran to remain out on a $250,000 bond and will be subjected to home confinement with a monitoring device until he is sentenced. The 42-year-old appeared distressed after each guilty verdict was read, while his lawyer patted him on the back, according to the Daily News.
“It would be monumentally stupid of you to flee,” the judge warned.
Halloran was accused of negotiating payoffs and setting up meetings between Smith and the county bosses, allegedly pocketing thousands in the process. He had claimed he was trying to remove corruption when he took the payoffs from developer Moses Stern, a Rockland County developer who became a government informer in order to avoid a prison sentence, and the undercover FBI agent “Raj.” The bribery scheme involved around $200,000, reports said.
Assistant US Attorney Douglas Bloom said he believed Halloran lied throughout the trial and he thought the jury could see the politician’s deception, according to the Post.
“Quite frankly, he engaged in perjury,” Bloom told the judge. “The jury clearly found that. He’s a lawyer. He’s someone who took multiple oaths to tell the truth to this court, and he broke that.”
Meanwhile, Smith’s new trial is set for Jan. 5, 2015. He currently holds office and is seeking reelection. The state senator is accused of trying to bribe his way into a GOP nomination for mayor but the proceedings were declared a mistrial in June.
The mistrial was declared after it was revealed that the United States Attorney’s office failed to turn over 9,000 recorded conversations to defense lawyers until well into the trial, prompting several jurors to say that they could not wait for the defense to process the new recordings.
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