A pal of state Sen. John Sampson who worked in the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office didn’t hesitate when Sampson asked him to become a mole — and quickly sought secret information to help the pol, legal papers claim.
Sampson talked to supervisory paralegal Samuel Noel in either August or September 2011, and asked him for insid info about activities of Brooklyn federal prosecutors.
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“When Noel met Sampson, Sampson asked Noel, in substance, whether Noel knew if Sampson’s name had come up in an investigation being conducted by the [US Attorney’s Office],” the papers claim.
That investigation was of a Sampson legal client named Edul “Eddie” Ahmad, a businessman who was under investigation for mortgage fraud.
“Noel responded in substance that he did not know the answer, but would attempt to find out,” the legal papers say.
The papers also disclosed that Noel, 46, became a cooperating witness for prosecutors investigating the Brooklyn senator after his activities were discovered.
Last September, Noel secretly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of accessing a Justice Department computer in 2011 to help Sampson, according to the papers.
Noel, who is free on $25,000 bond, has yet to be sentenced.
The explosive documents had been sealed since last year after prosecutors told a judge that revealing Noel’s cooperation “would jeopardize” ongoing investigations.
Prosecutors moved to unseal the documents yesterday on the heels of an indictment Monday against the ex-Senate minority leader, which accuses Sampson of embezzling $440,000 from escrow accounts he supervised and obstruction of justice.
Sampson allegedly used some of the money to finance his 2005 primary challenge against Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes.
At one point, Sampson had asked Noel to learn the names of five other people were cooperating in the Ahmad case, one filing said.
According to the indictment, the senator had told Ahmad that if he learned the names of potential witnesses against the businessman, Sampson could arrange to “take them out.”
Meanwhile, Brooklyn federal Judge Jack Weinstein ordered the unsealing of court records that reveal the identities of seven elected officials secretly taped and photographed by disgraced ex-state Sen. Shirley Huntley of Queens at the direction of prosecutors.
But Weinstein delayed the unsealing to give prosecutors until today to appeal that decision.
New York Post - May 8, 2013
Mitchel Maddux and Dan Mangan
Image: Shannon DeCelle
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