Former correx union boss loses appeal

Disgraced jails union boss Norman Seabrook is going to jail.

The former leader of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association lost an appeal Tuesday of his conviction for accepting a $60,000 bribe in exchange for a $20 million investment of members’ money in a doomed hedge fund.

Seabrook had been out on bail while he fought the case. The decision means it is highly likely he will have to begin serving his sentence of four years and 10 months.

His appeal had hinged on his belief at the time he made the investment that it would get good returns for correction officers. He said details of the loss suffered as a result of the hedge fund, Platinum Partners, going bankrupt prejudiced his right to a fair trial.

The 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected those arguments. Seabrook (inset), the three-judge panel noted, had suppressed warnings from a union lawyer that the investment was risky.

“The record contained evidence that Seabrook hid from the COBA board communications from its counsel discussing the specific risk of losing the investment. That this concern materialized tended to show that Seabrook intended to subject the organization to a risky investment in order to enrich himself,” Judge Rosemary Pooler wrote.

Once one of the city’s most powerful labor leaders, Seabrook’s downfall was secured by $60,000 in a Ferragamo bag given to him in Dec. 2014 by Jona Rechnitz in exchange for the investment.