Manhattan Surrogate-Elect Arrested on Campaign Finance Charges

Manhattan Surrogate-Elect Arrested on Campaign Finance Charges
The New York Law Journal by Daniel Wise - December 11, 2008

Manhattan Surrogate-elect Nora Anderson this morning surrendered on charges that she had disguised $250,000 that she pumped into her campaign shortly before the Sept. 9, 2008 Democratic primary as being her own when in fact the funds came from Seth Rubenstein, the lawyer in whose office she has worked for the last nine years. Ms. Anderson will be arraigned this afternoon on a 10-count indictment and faces a maximum prison term of 1 1/3-to-4 years if convicted of any of the top six counts, all Class E felonies. Mr. Rubenstein, a well-known trusts-and-estates attorney based in Brooklyn, faces identical charges. Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said the "crux of the case" is that the two sought to evade campaign spending limits which apply to Mr. Rubenstein as a contributor, but not to Ms. Anderson as the candidate, by making it appear that his contributions had in fact come from her. Mr. Rubenstein is accused of making two payments in August, one for $100,000 and one for $150,000 from his accounts to Ms. Anderson's personal accounts. She in turn, within days of the first Rubenstein deposit, contributed $100,000 to her campaign. On the same day as the second deposit, she loaned her campaign $150,000. The maximum Mr. Rubenstein could have contributed to Ms. Anderson's primary campaign was $33,122, Mr. Morgenthau said. Mr. Morgenthau quipped that Ms. Anderson "should have been running in Chicago maybe," a reference to the corruption charges unveiled against Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich yesterday. Both Ms. Anderson and Mr. Rubenstein are accused of four counts of filing a false instrument in the first degree and two counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, all Class E felonies. They are also accused of two counts of violating a requirement that campaign contributions be made under the true name of the donor and two counts of willfully violating contribution limits, all misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in prison. Experts said that Ms. Anderson likely will be suspended by the Court of Appeals by the end of the year. An interim surrogate would then be appointed by the OCA.