Ex-State Sen. John Sampson pleads guilty to embezzlement of $440G
Imprisoned former Democratic state Senate leader John Sampson pleaded guilty Friday in Brooklyn federal court to embezzlement of $440,000 as a court-appointed foreclosure referee, but under a plea deal would not spend any more time in jail.
Sampson is serving a 5-year sentence for obstructing an investigation of the embezzlement, but the substantive embezzlement charges were dismissed before his 2015 trial because of statute of limitations issues and then reinstated this year by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
He was sentenced to 5 years in prison in 2017 by Brooklyn U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry, and is scheduled to be released in 2021. Under a plea agreement filed Thursday, prosecutors are recommending a retroactive sentence of 60 months on the new charge to be served concurrently.
The plea deal has an unusual term that would require Irizarry to impose the agreed-upon sentence if she accepts Sampson’s guilty plea. So while she allowed him to plead, she said she wanted to think about the proposed sentence, and would decide whether to accept the plea at a future date.
Under the terms of the deal, Sampson would be required to pay restitution of $91,000, the amount of embezzled funds that have not yet been paid back.
“We believe this is an appropriate resolution of the case,” said defense lawyer Josh Colangelo-Bryan. Prosecutors didn’t comment, but said in a letter to Irizarry that the original sentence took the alleged embezzlement into account, and the deal would provide full financial compensation.
Sampson, 53, of Brooklyn, was accused of trying to arrange a loan with a local businessman to cover up the embezzlement, encouraging the man to lie and then recruiting a friend who worked for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney to leak information about the federal probe.
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