Long Beach Councilman indicted for grand larceny

Nearly eight months after he was arrested and pleaded not guilty in County Court to stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of unemployment benefits, embattled City Councilman Michael Fagen was indicted on Tuesday for the same alleged crime, charged with making off with more than $14,000 in benefits. 

The indictment came after an investigation by the Nassau County district attorney that began in April, when former City Manager Charles Theofan claimed that Fagen illegally collected unemployment benefits and failed to report his weekly earnings as a city employee.

The D.A.’s office announced Wednesday that a grand jury had charged Fagen, 55, with 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. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted, and will be arraigned at a date yet to be determined. 

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 from the Department of Labor beginning in September 2009. 

Fagen, a Democrat and one of five City Council members, was elected to a four-year term in November 2009, having run on a platform of change and having pledged to address what he called the “friends and family” culture permeating City Hall. He began receiving an annual salary of $19,828 upon his swearing-in in January 2010, Rice said.

“The voters of Long Beach trusted Michael Fagen to represent their interests and uphold their community’s values,” Rice said in a statement. “Mr. Fagen violated that trust with every unemployment check he cashed and every dollar he stole from the taxpayers of this state.”