Hope for the Judiciary: Bharara Targets Political Corruption

Stamping out political corruption a top priority for U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara
The New York Daily News by Alison Gendar, James Gordon Meek and Larry - February 14, 2010

Just six months into the job, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara vows to stamp out political corruption in wake of Larry Seabrook's 13-count indictment.

In U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's view of history, corruption was invented around the same time as fire and the wheel. "Unscrupulous cavemen no doubt fleeced unsuspecting Neanderthals out of clubs and animal skins when the opportunity arose," the prosecutor observed drolly last November. The crimes evolved along with the species, as Bharara knows only too well. Just six months into the job, the prosecutor is making corruption a top priority - targeting public servants and the private sector. Last week's 13-count indictment of City Councilman Larry Seabrook (D-Bronx) was the latest salvo from Bharara, an Obama nominee sworn in Aug. 13, 2009. "In my office, we have a thriving and successful public corruption unit," Bharara said in a speech this month. "At the moment, business is not slow. "This is vitally important work, in my view." The new head of the Southern District, considered the most prestigious post among U.S. attorneys, took a circuitous route to his spacious lower Manhattan office.

Bharara, 40, is a naturalized American citizen born in India. His father grew up in a small village, living in a home without plumbing, and came to America "with only a few dollars in his pocket and a hope in his heart that we would have a better life," Bharara said at his swearing-in ceremony. He was an infant when his family settled in suburban New Jersey. Bharara graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1990, earning a Columbia Law School degree three years later. He went into private practice after a short stint with Mark Green's campaign for public advocate. Bharara became a Southern District prosecutor in 2000, spending the next five years prosecuting cases involving securities fraud, organized crime and drugs. But he really made his bones as counsel to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), spearheading the probe of ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' politicization of the Justice Department. Gonzales resigned in disgrace over the investigation into the Bush administration's 2006 firings of nine U.S. attorneys. Bharara persuaded his mentor and ex-Southern District boss, former Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, to provide dramatic testimony against Gonzales. Comey recounted how Gonzales - then White House counsel - tried to persuade hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft to sign off on warrantless spying. Comey, as acting attorney general, had refused; Gonzales unsuccessfully pressed Ashcroft, recovering from painful surgery, to overrule him. Bharara is married with three kids, and made a point of thanking his wife when he was sworn in. "If anyone has ever had a more supportive partner in life, I'm not aware of it," he said. Befitting of a Jersey guy, Bharara is also a Bruce Springsteen fan - often playing The Boss' music in his office while working long hours as an assistant U.S. attorney. Bharara now heads the office of more than 450 people, including more than 200 assistant U.S. attorneys. He oversees an annual budget of $50 million. And he intends to direct those resources against white collar crooks, Wall Street schemers and crooked politicians. Their motives, he believes, remain unchanged since the Stone Age. "Greed, gullibility and things of value are the basic elements of financial fraud," he said. "History tells us that these ingredients have existed for millennia." agendar@nydailynews.com