By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Disgraced former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi will go before a new Manhattan judge next week to be sentenced for up to four years for his role in defrauding the state's multi-billion dollar retirement fund.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Lewis Bart Stone said at a brief hearing Monday that he would opt out of sentencing Hevesi — instead sending the case to Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus, the administrative judge, for sentencing on April 4.
Stone had been accused of a conflict of interest in handling the case because he had a close relationship with the estranged father of Hevesi's attorney, Bradley Simon.
Stone said he transferred the case "in the interest or restoring such clarity" to the real issues involved and "to avoid further delay." But he stopped short of officially recusing himself from the case, as Simon had requested.
"Prior to Mr. Simon's motion to recuse, there was no basis for this court to recuse itself by reason of a conflict or appearance of a conflict," Stone said, calling it a defense attempt to create a "counter story" in media coverage by diverting attention from the "real story" — Hevesi's gross breach of the public's trust and the impending punishment for it.
Stone made a record that was sealed of his relationship with Simon's father, with whom he is good friends. Stone is is also an executor of the elder Simon's estate.
Hevesi, who was New York's comptroller from 2003 to 2006, was not physically present in court Monday because he was at an undisclosed hospital undergoing an endoscopy procedure, Simon told the court. The lawyer did not specify where Hevesi was receiving treatment.
The shamed public official pleaded guilty in October to accepting $1 million in gifts in a pay-to-play scheme to profit off of the state's multi-billion-dollar pension fund, the Attorney General's office said.
His one-time aide, Hank Morris, 57, was sentenced to 1 1/3 to four years behind bars on Feb. 17 for his role in the scam.
