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Mostly Cloudy Long Beach Councilman Fagen pleads not guilty
Attorney hopes to dismiss charges that he illegally collected unemployment benefits
Embattled Democratic City Councilman Mike Fagen pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally collected more than $14,000 in unemployment benefits at his arraignment in Nassau County Court last week.
On Feb. 22, Fagen — who was indicted by a grand jury on Feb. 7 — stood before Judge John Kase as Kase read the charges against him: 38 counts of first-degree offering of a false instrument for filing, one count of third-degree grand larceny and one count of petit larceny. Fagen faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said that Fagen concealed his employment as an elected city official from the New York State Department of Labor, and that he received $405 per week in unemployment insurance benefits beginning in September 2009.
Rice said that Fagen, who was elected to the council that November, also failed to disclose to the Labor Department his work as a salesman for a hotel membership benefits company, and continued to receive “undeserved” unemployment benefits. After his swearing-in in January 2010, he falsely certified to the Labor Department every week that he was unemployed, she added.
Both Fagen and a spokesman for Rice, Chris Munzing, declined to comment after the arraignment. But Fagen’s attorney, Marc Gann, said he would be filing motions to review the grand jury proceeding, “and hopefully to have the charges dismissed.”
“I do believe these allegations have been blown way out of proportion,” Gann added. “I believe there’s a political agenda here.”
Gann told the Herald earlier this month that he believed the D.A.’s case against Fagen is part of a “political witch hunt” and a setup by the previous city administration, which he claimed submitted false documents on Fagen’s behalf for a pension credit to the state. Gann said he will prove that the previous administration turned those documents over to the district attorney’s office in an attempt to have Fagen arrested and to keep him from talking about the city’s troubled finances.
