Posts tagged hedge fund
Prosecutors’ star witness in New York corruption trials wins new sentencing
July 27, 2023 // Hellerstein, in denying Rechnitz's request for recusal in 2020, acknowledged that he had been close friends with Kaplan's father and had known Kaplan since he was born. Hellerstein said that when Kaplan asked for advice about the Platinum case, he had agreed to talk about it because he "felt that I should consider his request as if it were made by my son." Nonetheless, he said Kaplan did not have enough of a connection to Rechnitz's case to warrant recusal. The 2nd Circuit said that was a mistake. "Not only did the district judge have a close, near-paternal relationship with Kaplan, he also advised Kaplan on how to proceed in his pending criminal case arising from the Platinum fraud," the panel wrote. "The judge's relationship with Kaplan was sufficiently close, and Kaplan's case was sufficiently related to Rechnitz's case, that a reasonable person would have questioned the district court's impartiality."
Judge orders ex-jail union boss to be freed in bribery case
February 27, 2023 // Norman Seabrook originally was sentenced to 58 months in prison on his federal conviction for taking bribes to put $20 million in union pension money into a risky hedge fund. The union lost $19 million. But U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said Seabrook's sentence is now unfair — because a co-defendant appealed and got his own prison term reduced to just over a year. “There is now an unjust disparity” between the defendants' sentences, Hellerstein wrote in an opinion Thursday. Hellerstein himself originally sentenced both defendants.
Judge eyes shorter sentence for ex-NYC jails union boss
April 20, 2022 // But he also said the former head of the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association did not deserve a new trial. Prosecutors said he accepted $60,000 in bribes in 2014 to funnel $20 million in union funds to a risky hedge fund.