Briber in cop trial to repay stolen $
THE GOVERNMENT’S star witness in an upcoming NYPD corruption trial agreed Wednesday to pay back $350,000 gained in a P Ponzi scheme.
JSR Capital, which is run by Jon na Rechnitz, will pay the money t to a trustee overseeing former H Harlem restaurateur Hamlet Pera alta’s estate, bankruptcy filings in M Manhattan show.
Peralta (below) is serving five y years in prison for duping invest tors into pouring $12 million into a bogus wholesale liquor distribut tion business.
An investigation into Peralta’s p police ties is at the root of a s sprawling 2013 probe that scrutin nized Mayor de Blasio’s camp paign donation practices and r rocked the upper ranks of the N NYPD brass.
JSR Capital earned $687,500 off a $300,000 investment in Peralta’s scheme, according to filings. The company denied liability but entered into the settlement to avoid the cost of further litigation, papers show.
Rechnitz has testified in related corruption trials that he is still in the real estate business. He is reportedly living in Los Angeles, where his father built a fortune in the same industry.
He has pleaded guilty to honest services fraud and is expected to testify against retired NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant and de Blasio donor Jeremy Reichberg when their bribes-for-favors trial begins in October.
Both men are expected to paint Rechnitz — who donated $50,000 to de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York in 2014 — as a spoiled liar seeking a lenient sentence by cooperating with the feds.
Messages left with attorneys for Rechnitz, Peralta, Reichberg and Grant were not returned.