Judge won't block Bill de Blasio testimony in NYPD corruption trial

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday refused to quash a defense subpoena for Mayor Bill de Blasio to testify at an NYPD corruption trial beginning next week that will feature testimony from the government informant who has claimed he paid bribes to the mayor.

Judge Gregory Woods said he would consider the issue again as the bribery trial of former deputy inspector James Grant and businessman Jeremy Reichberg progresses, but wasn’t ready to let the mayor off the hook based on objections from city lawyers and prosecutors who said it risked becoming a “sideshow.”

“This appears to be relevant and the mere fact that the mayor is a public figure is not enough for me to preclude his testimony,” Woods told lawyers during a lengthy pre-trial conference.

Reichberg was charged with conspiring with ex-partner Jona Rechnitz, the informant, to wine and dine Grant and other cops with free meals, travel and prostitutes in return for perks like VIP access to public events, police escorts and gun licenses. 

Rechnitz pleaded guilty to paying for access to City Hall, among other crimes, and de Blasio — who was never charged — has called him a liar. Defense lawyers want to use the mayor to attack the credibility of Rechnitz, whose previous testimony led to a bribery conviction of former jail union boss Norman Seabrook.

But prosecutor Martin Bell warned that if that happened, they would have to use information compiled during their investigation of possible City Hall corruption involving de Blasio and aide Ross Offinger to cross-examine him over his claims that Rechnitz lied.

Jury questionnaires indicated the mayor was polarizing, Bell warned, and given the “breadth of the investigation” of the mayor the examination could become a “distraction.”

The subpoena to de Blasio was included among dozens defense lawyers have issued to NYPD officers and officials — including Commissioner James O’Neill, former Commission William Bratton, and former chief of department Phil Banks — on the eve of trial to try to elicit explosive testimony about NYPD practices.

Defense lawyers said some of the cops — like Banks — had ties to Reichberg and Rechnitz, and top brass would have to admit that accepting things like dinners and flights from wealthy individuals was standard behavior at the highest levels of the department, not a violation of their rules.

“It is an accepted police practice,” said Susan Necheles, who wants to argue that her client, Reichberg, had every reason to believe what he was doing was OK.

Woods told an NYPD lawyer that he will consider whether to enforce the subpoenas when the government completes its case and defense lawyers can narrow the number of witnesses they want to call.

The judge said he would conduct a separate hearing on Banks, after receiving a letter indicating that the ex-chief will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.