Brown University Board Member and NY Lt. Governor Brian Benjamin Arrested
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
New York Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin -- who had served as a Brown University board of trustees member -- has been arrested on campaign finance and bribery charges.
Some of the charges are linked to trips to Providence supposedly for Brown meetings that were initially paid for by his campaign account and then were reimbursed.
Some of the trips coincided with Brown's meeting schedule and others did not.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTMore than $1,000 was spent at the Shell Station on the corner of Wickenden and Benefit Streets according to records. The charges were between August of 2018 and September of 2020.
About Brown Grad Benjamin
Benjamin, a Brown University graduate, was named to the Lt. Governor's post after Governor Kathy Hochul assumed the Governorship when former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo stepped down.
Before his tenure as a trustee, he served on the board of the Brown Club of Rhode Island and held leadership roles with the Brown Annual Fund and the Boldly Brown campaign.
According to the New York Times, Benjamin surrendered early Tuesday morning to face a federal bribery conspiracy indictment in connection with a scheme to funnel fraudulent donations to a previous campaign, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
“The indictment, the result of an investigation by the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused Mr. Benjamin of conspiring to direct state funds to a Harlem real estate investor in exchange for orchestrating thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to Mr. Benjamin’s unsuccessful 2021 campaign for New York City comptroller, the people said. The investor was arrested on federal charges in November,” writes the NYT.
As GoLocal reported in August, Benjamin was a frontrunner early for the Lt. Governor position.
Benjamin, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in public policy from Brown and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, served as the Senior Assistant Majority Leader in the New York Senate.
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