The feds have one of the city’s most powerful union leaders squarely in their sights.
Norman Seabrook, who heads the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, is under investigation for allegedly receiving kickbacks from firms that do business with the labor union, the Daily News has learned. Among the golden gifts, sources say, were two free trips to Israel.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara subpoenaed COBA’s financial records last week, according to multiple sources. No charges have been filed.
Seabrook, reached by The News on Friday, didn’t seem fazed.
“It’s not the first union in America to get a subpoena and I’m sure it won’t be the last,” he said. “We will gladly provide all the requested documents and I’m confident that the government will see that there has been no wrongdoing.”
The probe appears to be triggered by two lawsuits filed by William Valentine, COBA’s former corresponding secretary. Valentine, 45, of Suffolk County, claims he was unfairly tossed from his union post after he tried to get a copy of the organization’s mailing list.
In court papers, Valentine, 45, also says the union moved $5 million from its annuity fund into an unnamed hedge fund without board approval around August 2014. That fund paid for Seabrook’s two trips to Israel over the past several years, the lawsuit alleges.
A Seabrook ally says the first trip was paid for with funds from the union’s general coffers and the second trip was covered by a friend who was later reimbursed.
The feds are also looking into allegations that Seabrook received financial kickbacks from the union’s law firm, Koehler & Isaacs, and welfare benefits fund administrator, Daniel H. Cook Associates, according to sources familiar with the probe.
“This is absolutely and categorically false,” said law firm spokesman Michael Skelly, referring to the allegations. “This political dissident cleverly manufactured a series of outrageous allegations and lies as part of his scorched earth campaign to retaliate for being removed from the COBA executive board after being caught trying to secretly obtain the personal address list of every single city correction officer.”
Skelly is a former spokesman for COBA.
Daniel H. Cook Associates did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Valentine maintains that as a union officer he was entitled to the mailing list and responsible for maintaining a basic accounting of the organization’s finances.
“William Valentine has basically been a lone voice trying to hold the leadership accountable and get answers to questions,” said his lawyer, Richard Gilbert.
Bharara’s office declined comment.
The potentially explosive federal probe into COBA’s finances comes as the Bharara’s office is in the midst of settlement talks following a lawsuit against the city over its treatment of young inmates at Rikers Island.
Last week federal prosecutors wrote that they hoped to reach a settlement by June 22, though several “areas of great significance” still hadn’t been resolved. Lawyers for 11 men who say they were abused while incarcerated at Rikers are also part of the talks.
In December, Bharara slammed the jail as “broken” and said the city had shown “deliberate indifference” to inmates’ constitutional rights.
It’s “a place where brute force is first impulse rather than the last resort,” Bharara said when announcing he’d joined the class action against the jail.
But as negotiations enter the final stages some of the reforms appear to be rolling back. A new letter this week from Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte seeks to loosen the recently-enacted restriction on solitary confinement and toughen rules governing inmate visits.
Seabrook has slammed many of the new reforms as endangering correction officers.
