MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A former campaign worker convicted of stealing from Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his 2009 third-term campaign was sentenced to up to four years in state prison on Monday.
Political operative John Haggerty, 42, was found guilty by a Manhattan jury in October of stealing $750,000 from the mayor, an amount that Bloomberg wired to the Independence Party so that Haggerty could organize and execute an election day "ballot security and poll watching" operation.
Haggerty was handcuffed and brought into custody on Monday although his attorneys were expected to ask for his release pending appeal.
Prosecutors say Haggerty did not perform the election day work he and his company, Special Election Operations, were hired to do and instead used the money to purchase a Queens home. The mayor had relied on Haggerty for election day services in his previous two elections.
Haggerty, who faced a maximum of five to 15 years in prison, has agreed to pay back the $750,000 as part of an agreement with the DAs office. The Independence Party also has to pay Bloomberg back $150,000 which was intended to be used for ballot security purposes.
“Haggerty’s fraudulent and cynical misconduct has now been punished, and his ill-gotten gains forfeited,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement.
In ordering the sentence Monday, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Ronald Zweibel said he was sending Haggerty to prison for 1 1/3 to four years on his grand larceny and money laundering conviction "in order to restore the public confidence in the electoral process and to serve as a deterrent."
Haggerty — who primarily worked for the Republican party — and and his attorneys Raymond Castello and Dennis Vacco asked for leniency and a sentence of probation instead of incarceration.
They had argued during trial that the way in which Bloomberg donated the money raised questions about whether the mayor's campaign was trying to earmark the use of donations to the Independence party, which they said was against campaign rules.
When offered the chance to speak, Haggerty pledged to make up for his wrongdoings in the future.
"Today, my reputation is destroyed. If I could do it all over again I would certainly do it much differently than i did," Haggerty said, adding that he would "devote the rest of my life to being a productive, law abiding member of this city and state."
