Looking gaunt and wearing a black suit, Mr. Hevesi made a brief statement in court in a last appeal for leniency. "I will live with this shame for the rest of my life," he said. His lawyer said a harsh punishment could mean a "death sentence" for Mr. Hevesi, a 71-year-old with heart problems.
State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus was unmoved: "When a person violates that trust…the damage is quite profound," he said, before handing down the sentence, nearly the maximum allowed by law.
Court officers handcuffed Mr. Hevesi and escorted him through a back door. Before leaving, he gave a grim nod to family members, including his son, state Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi, who sat stone-faced in the second row.
Mr. Hevesi, a once-respected Queens Democrat whose elected career spanned more than three decades, pleaded guilty in October to a felony charge of receiving a reward for official misconduct. He's the highest-ranking public official brought down by a multi-year federal and state probe into a variety of influence-peddling schemes involving the state's pension fund.
The investigation has led to eight guilty pleas and more than 20 civil settlements that recovered about $170 million, including a $10 million settlement with financier Steven Rattner. And it was perhaps the most high-profile case handled by then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is now governor of New York.
Mr. Hevesi admitted that he accepted nearly $1 million in gifts from California money manager Elliott Broidy—mostly in the form of political donations and luxurious junkets to Israel and Italy—as a reward for favoring and approving a $250 million pension investment in Mr. Broidy's private-equity firm. Mr. Broidy pleaded guilty to a felony charge in 2009.
Broidy sits on the board of trustees for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization. In March, when he was named to the organization’s board, the Wiesenthal Center noted that “he brings with him a wealth of experience as a major philanthropist and a person deeply involved in international affairs.”Prosecutor Ellen Biben, who is now the state inspector general, told the judge that Mr. Hevesi, an Ivy League-educated political scientist and political veteran, was fully aware of the consequences of his conduct.
He is a past member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, as well as the Future of Terrorism Task Force and New Technology Task Force, a position he was tapped for in January 2006 by Michael Chertoff.
Broidy, the former finance committee chairman for the Republican National Committee, was appointed by President George W. Bush to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2006. Broidy is also on the board of advisors of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School Center for Investment Studies.
But among his long list of public service roles, one position in particular may cause raised eyebrows. From 2002 through May of 2009, when he resigned due to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, Broidy was a trustee of the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension fund. While it is fairly common for people to move fluidly back and forth between the investor world and the fund management world, Broidy is the only person we can think of to have a foot in both at once.
- WSJ, December 3, 2009, Just Who Is Elliott Broidy, Anyway? by Josh Beckerman
Mr. Hevesi was the retirement system's sole trustee and chief fiscal officer of the state.
Asking for a minimum sentence of 16 months, Ms. Biben noted that it was Mr. Hevesi's second felony conviction. In 2007, after serving four years in office and winning two elections, he resigned after admitting that he illegally used a state employee as a chauffeur and personal aide for his ailing wife.
Mr. Hevesi served in the state Assembly from 1971 to 1993 and two terms as city comptroller from 1994 to 2001.
His lawyer, Bradley Simon, downplayed his client's personal profit from the scheme, asserting that he lived a humble life in Forest Hills. Mr. Simon said Mr. Hevesi's crime warranted a lighter punishment than the one dealt to his chief political aide Hank Morris, who used his influence to collect millions of dollars in placement fees. In February, Mr. Morris, who also pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 16 months to four years.
Write to Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman@wsj.com
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