Attorneys for jailed Brooklyn senator argue for overturned conviction

December 7, 2017 By Paul Frangipane Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Disgraced former Brooklyn state Sen. John Sampson’s attorneys are arguing for his 2015 conviction to be overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. AP Photo/Seth Wenig

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Attorneys for convicted ex-Brooklyn state Sen. John Sampson argued at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Thursday for Sampson’s case to be thrown out for improper charging while prosecutors argued for a new trial on previously dismissed embezzlement counts.

“The fact is they charged the wrong crime,” Sampson’s attorney, Nick Akerman told a panel of judges. “It couldn’t be clearer under the law.”

That crime is obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents in the mortgage fraud case of Sampson’s friend. The former senator who represented Crown Heights, East Flatbush, parts of Brownsville and Canarsie was convicted in 2015 and sentenced to five years in prison on Jan. 18, 2017.

When Edul Ahmad, a Queens businessman was charged with the fraud, he cooperated with the feds saying Sampson threatened to silence witnesses.

Akerman argued Sampson had no intent to tamper with witnesses when he got confidential information on them from his former FBI private investigator. He also pointed out there was no actual act of witness tampering, a statute within the version of obstruction charged.

Prosecutors insisted they proved to a Brooklyn federal court jury that Sampson had the “corrupt purpose of witness tampering.”

Prosecutors also argued the appeal of Judge Dora Irizarry’s order to dismiss two counts of embezzlement that pinned the former Democratic leader with pocketing $440,000 in state money.

Irizarry found the statute of limitations had passed on the acts that allegedly took place between 1998 and 2008.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Solomon told the board of judges that a jury should have resolved that issue.

Sampson was previously charged with taking the money from four foreclosed Brooklyn properties while working as a court-appointed referee. He allegedly used part of the money to fund his unsuccessful 2005 Brooklyn District Attorney campaign, according to a New York Times report.

While the lawyers argued in the Lower Manhattan high-rise courthouse, Sampson was pinned up in a Fairton, New Jersey, federal prison where he’s awaiting his 2021 scheduled release.

When asked how he was doing, attorney Joshua Colangelo said, “He is hoping for the appropriate result on this appeal.”