By Luc Cohen
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear Democratic former New York state lieutenant governor Brian Benjamin's challenge to corruption charges involving campaign contributions from a developer in a case that involves the scope of federal bribery law, allowing the case to proceed.
The justices turned away Benjamin's appeal of a lower court's decision that had revived the charges and had found that prosecutors sufficiently detailed his plan to direct state money to a Harlem developer in exchange for the campaign donations. Benjamin has not yet gone on trial and the developer has died.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office in 2022 charged Benjamin with funneling a $50,000 state grant to developer Gerald Migdol in exchange for the campaign contributions.
In Benjamin's challenge to the indictment, U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken dismissed the most serious charges - bribery, honest wire fraud and conspiracy charges - after finding that prosecutors had merely "implied" an agreement between Benjamin and Migdol. The judge did not dismiss two other charges in the indictment, accusing Benjamin of falsifying records.
The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March reversed Oetken's decision, saying prosecutors had "sufficiently alleged an explicit quid pro quo" between Benjamin and Migdol, who died in February.
In urging the Supreme Court to take up the case, Benjamin's lawyers wrote that because campaign contributions were protected under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections for free speech, any corruption charge stemming from such a donation must be based on a clear and unambiguous agreement between the parties, not one merely implied.
"Constituents give to candidates they hope will take actions aligned with their interests. Candidates, if elected, take actions that often further the interests of those who helped elect them. This is not bribery; it is democracy," Benjamin's lawyers wrote in a legal filing to the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Justice Department, defending the indictment, told the Supreme Court in a filing that the First Amendment does not protect the exchange of official acts for campaign contributions.
In Benjamin's case, prosecutors said he directed the $50,000 grant in June 2019 to a charity Migdol ran in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood when Benjamin was a state senator representing the area. Prosecutors said that grant was in exchange for Migdol's contributions to two of Benjamin's campaigns.
The Supreme Court has issued multiple rulings in recent years that make it harder for federal prosecutors to bring corruption cases against government officials.
It ruled in June that it was not a crime for a state or local official to accept gratuities as tokens of appreciation for an official action, siding with an Indiana city's mayor who was convicted for accepting $13,000 from a truck company that received more than $1 million in contracts during his tenure.
The Supreme Court in 2023 overturned the conviction of a onetime aide to former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a decision that limited the ability of prosecutors to charge private individuals close to government officials with bribery.
Prosecutors have acknowledged that Migdol's death would affect a trial for Benjamin, since the developer was expected to be a key witness. But they said they have no plans to abandon the charges.