Indicted state Sen. Malcolm Smith caught a big break Thursday when a federal judge shot down a bid by prosecutors to tell jurors at his bribery trial next month how he once offered to sell Albany votes like shares of stock.
As The Post first reported, federal prosecutors hoped to detail how the disgraced Queens Democrat told dozens of top New York lobbyists during a 2008 political golf outing in upstate Kingston that their clients would be shut out of state politics if they didn’t make large contributions. Smith, the feds said, told the lobbyists “they should treat the fund-raiser as an ‘IPO’ [initial public offering] by donating early while prices were low and while there was still an opportunity to participate” before Democrats took control of the state Senate.
But White Plains federal Judge Kenneth Karas said such evidence would confuse the jury because, if true, it’s a “completely different scheme” than for what Smith will be on trial beginning Jan. 5 when he faces corruption charges for allegedly trying to buy his way onto the Republican line for mayor last year.
Smith’s lawyer, Gerald Shargel, claimed the 2008 “IPO” comment was merely a joke.
“They were in the clubhouse drinking and joking,” Shargel told Karas. “He wasn’t selling his office, because he mentioned an initial public offering.”
After Assistant US Attorney Justin Anderson shot back that “it’s not undue prejudice . . . Who jokes like that?” Karas responded with a wisecrack himself.
“Haven’t you seen ‘House of Cards?’ ” asked Karas with deadpan delivery, referring to the hit Netflix political drama starring Kevin Spacey.
Karas then shot down the motion, saying the “IPO” remark is “open to interpretation” and could create a “jury-confusion problem” because it’s “completely different” from the bribery charges the breakaway Democrat faces.
The feds had wanted to tell jurors about the fund-raising to provide context of how Smith’s history of alleged shady solicitations stretches long before he was charged in a failed $200,000 bribery scheme to cross party lines and secure the Republican nomination in the 2013 mayoral race.
Smith told lobbyists at the Senate Democratic golf outing at the private Wiltwyck Golf Club in 2008 that Democrats were expected to win control of the Senate in that upcoming November election — and that he’d be among the key pols calling the shots for the reorganized legislative body.
The Post’s Fredric Dicker in 2008 reported that 75 lobbyists attended the golf outing and paid up to $75,000.
Smith, once one of Albany’s most powerful Dems, is leaving office at the end of the year after losing a primary for his seat.