Seabrook defense: Reveal racially charged words, pics of star witness

Former city jail-union boss Norman Seabrook, an African-American, wants to reveal to jurors at his federal bribery trial a photograph of star government witness Jona Rechnitz dressed in blackface and a tape in which he calls President Barack Obama a derogatory Yiddish word for black people.

The defense says Rechnitz is lying about delivering a $60,000 bribe to Seabrook to win leniency for his own crimes, and Seabrook lawyer Paul Schechtman told Manhattan U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter Tuesday that jurors should know about Rechnitz’s racial attitudes.

“I think this witness is biased against and holds African-Americans in low regard,” Shechtman said, according to a transcript of the closed-door conference. “When you hold someone in low regard, picking him as the target you’re going to frame is easier.”

Federal prosecutors are trying to keep the evidence out, arguing that it would make Rechnitz “look like a huge racist” and inflame jurors regardless of its substantive value.

“I think that the reflexive, almost necessary reaction of the jury would be a degree of pure loathing for the racially inflammatory nature of this stuff,” said prosecutor Martin Bell.

Seabrook is charged with taking the $60,000 bribe to invest $20 million in pension money from the Correction Officers Benevolent Association in Platinum Partners, a hedge fund founded by co-defendant Murray Huberfeld.

Rechnitz, 34, an Orthodox Jewish real estate investor and money broker who was at the center of multiple city corruption probes that began last year, has testified during four days that he was the bagman who delivered the bribe to Seabrook, and also detailed his role in two Ponzi schemes and using money to get favors from City Hall and NYPD brass.

Shechtman, whose cross examination may begin on Wednesday, did not reveal when the picture — showing a grinning Rechnitz in a sombrero in blackface — was taken or the tape was made. Carter is expected to rule Wednesday on whether the racial materials will be admitted.

In testimony Tuesday, Rechnitz — who has described the access and six different favors he got from City Hall after raising over $200,000 for Mayor Bill de Blasio — insisted that he also got additional favors that he wasn’t asked by prosecutors to testify about.

That claim came during cross-examination after Henry Mazurek, Huberfeld’s lawyer, questioned the significance of the “expedited” help Rechnitz said he got on matters such as inspection and water-bill disputes. Mazurek suggested Rechnitz might be exaggerating his clout and influence to impress prosecutors.

“Your special access didn’t result in getting anything that a normal person wouldn’t be able to accomplish, did it?“ Mazurek said.

“I don’t agree with that,” responded Rechnitz. “There were many other instances that I wasn’t asked about.”