Brian A. Benjamin, the former lieutenant governor of New York, must face trial on federal corruption charges, after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a request on Monday to dismiss much of the case.
The order ended two years of legal wrangling over whether the charges cleared an increasingly high bar for what conduct constitutes corruption. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Benjamin, a Democrat, of funneling state money to a local real estate developer in exchange for campaign contributions.
A Manhattan federal judge initially ruled that prosecutors failed to describe an explicit quid pro quo, and threw out the bribery charges in December 2022. But the charges were reinstated by a federal appeals court in March, prompting Mr. Benjamin’s lawyers to file a petition with the Supreme Court.
The justices gave no reasons on Monday for declining to grant review of the case, as is their custom. Their decision clears the way for a full trial in Manhattan as early as next year before the district court judge who initially dismissed the charges, J. Paul Oetken.
Lawyers for Mr. Benjamin, Barry H. Berke and Dani R. James, declined to comment. So did Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
The clash over Mr. Benjamin’s case comes as the Supreme Court has continued to narrow the laws governing corruption, often making it harder for federal prosecutors to bring such cases successfully. Mr. Benjamin’s case could conceivably return to the Supreme Court if he is convicted at trial and appeals the verdict.
Mr. Benjamin, 48, was considered a rising star when Gov. Kathy Hochul plucked him from the State Senate in August 2021 to become her lieutenant governor. The move made him her No. 2, and gave Mr. Benjamin a platform to advance his own career.
The federal indictment in April 2022 changed all that, prompting Mr. Benjamin to resign. Prosecutors charged that he had used his State Senate office to secure a $50,000 grant for a Harlem nonprofit run by one of his campaign donors, Gerald Migdol. In exchange, Mr. Migdol helped arrange thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to Mr. Benjamin’s campaigns, prosecutors said.
Mr. Migdol, who pleaded guilty to related charges, died in February, potentially complicating the government’s case against Mr. Benjamin at trial. Mr. Benjamin has pleaded not guilty.
In seeking Supreme Court review, Mr. Benjamin’s lawyers argued that “time and again, this court has intervened when government overreach threatens to chill political activity that is core to our democracy and protected by the First Amendment.”
“This case presents an extreme example of that overreach, in an area of law that demands clarity yet has become perilously muddled,” the lawyers wrote.
The U.S. solicitor general’s office responded that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had acted correctly in reinstating the corruption charges against Mr. Benjamin, and that “no sound basis” existed for the request for Supreme Court review.
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