John Sampson's biography

August 17, 2010
Senate Leader’s Use of Aide Stirs Ethics Questions
By DANNY HAKIM, NY Times
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ALBANY — For John L. Sampson, the leader of the State Senate, representing Edul Ahmad as a legal client has brought nothing but trouble.

Mr. Ahmad, a Queens real estate broker, has been the subject of five investigations by the New York Department of State involving accusations of fraud and predatory lending. The agency has referred its findings to the Queens district attorney.

In addition, Mr. Ahmad paid nearly $69,000 in restitution to the State Banking Department to settle claims of mortgage fraud. And he is a central figure in a loan scandal involving Representative Gregory W. Meeks of Queens.
Mr. Sampson’s involvement with Mr. Ahmad, who has donated to his campaigns, became known last month, when documents released by the Department of State disclosed that Mr. Sampson was Mr. Ahmad’s lawyer. The documents also revealed that Mr. Sampson, a Brooklyn Democrat, was disciplined by the Department of State last year for notarizing a statement by one of Mr. Ahmad’s employees, even though his notary license had expired.

Now it appears that Mr. Sampson also used a Senate staff member on at least one occasion to aid in his representation of Mr. Ahmad, potentially running afoul of state ethics laws.

In a fax on Senate letterhead obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Law request, Michelle Trotman, the chief of staff in Mr. Sampson’s Albany office, gave instructions to one of Mr. Sampson’s law partners regarding a hearing before the Department of State involving Mr. Ahmad.

In the note, sent from Mr. Sampson’s office on March 5, 2008, Ms. Trotman instructed an assistant of Gail A. Adams, Mr. Sampson’s partner, on what to include in a letter seeking postponement of the hearing.

Ms. Trotman said in the fax that the letter should include the date of the hearing, the case number and the reason the adjournment was being sought — that “counsel has to attend another hearing.”

Ms. Adams, in a letter sent later that day to the administrative law judge handling the case, asked for the adjournment, though she cited a car accident on March 1 as the reason.

Austin Shafran, a spokesman for Mr. Sampson, said that the note was sent on Senate letterhead in error, and that the senator was simply helping a constituent. Mr. Shafran said that Ms. Adams had contacted Mr. Sampson after her accident because she needed to find out how to reschedule a hearing and was unable to get a prompt answer from the Department of State.

“Faced with an emergency, she called her law partner seeking advice on how to get an immediate adjournment,” Mr. Shafran said. “Rather than reach out personally, Senator Sampson asked a member of his staff to find out what the procedure for requesting an adjournment would be and sent that information to Ms. Adams, as he would do with any other constituent seeking information on how to deal with a state agency.”

“In the haste to meet the time constraints of an emergency situation,” he added, “the senator’s staff mistakenly transmitted the requested information on Senate letterhead.”

Ms. Adams did not return calls for comment, and the Department of State declined to comment because an investigation of Mr. Ahmad was still open.

Mr. Sampson’s involvement in a case before state regulators has raised concerns among government watchdogs, though the case took place in 2008, before he held the Senate’s top job. Mr. Shafran said that Mr. Sampson had acted as a lawyer for Mr. Ahmad only on commercial transactions and while the Department of State was conducting its investigation, and that Ms. Adams had handled any administrative proceedings before state officials.

During the investigation, Mr. Sampson said that Ms. Trotman had applied for a renewal of his notary license, according to the documents obtained by The Times. Mr. Shafran said that Mr. Sampson sometimes notarized documents for constituents, outside his legal work.

Blair Horner, the legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said that the involvement of a Senate staff member in the Ahmad case raised concerns, especially in light of the recent federal corruption conviction of Joseph L. Bruno, the former Senate majority leader. During Mr. Bruno’s trial, it was revealed that he had used state employees to perform private business on his behalf.

“Legislative employees should not be doing private work for legislators,” Mr. Horner said, adding, “In the wake of the Bruno scandals, they should have clear bright-line standards.”

State ethics laws prohibit lawmakers from using their office to “secure unwarranted privileges.” But it was only this year that the Legislature passed a law explicitly barring state officials from using public employees to do their private business.

The law, passed after the Bruno conviction, was co-sponsored by Mr. Sampson.

Ray Rivera contributed reporting.

John Sampson
NYT, Updated Aug. 19, 2010
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John L. Sampson, a Democrat, is the leader of the New York State Senate. A native of Bedford Stuyvestant, Mr. Sampson represents a Brooklyn district stretching from East Flatbush to Brownsville to Canarsie.

In the summer of 2010, Mr. Sampson drew scrutiny for his legal representation of Edul Ahmad, a Queens real estate broker linked to a loan scandal.

Mr. Sampson's involvement with Mr. Ahmad, who has donated to his campaigns, became known in July, when documents released by the Department of State disclosed that Mr. Sampson was Mr. Ahmad's lawyer. The documents also revealed that Mr. Sampson was disciplined by the Department of State in 2009 for notarizing a statement by one of Mr. Ahmad's employees, even though his notary license had expired.

It appears that Mr. Sampson also used a Senate staff member on at least one occasion to aid in his representation of Mr. Ahmad, potentially running afoul of state ethics laws.

In a fax on Senate letterhead obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Law request, Michelle Trotman, the chief of staff in Mr. Sampson's Albany office, gave instructions to one of Mr. Sampson's law partners regarding a hearing before the Department of State involving Mr. Ahmad.

Austin Shafran, a spokesman for Mr. Sampson, said that the note was sent on Senate letterhead in error, and that the senator was simply helping a constituent.

Mr. Sampson's involvement in a case before state regulators has raised concerns among government watchdogs, though the case took place in 2008, before he held the Senate's top job. Mr. Shafran said that Mr. Sampson had acted as a lawyer for Mr. Ahmad only on commercial transactions and while the Department of State was conducting its investigation, and that Gail A. Adams, Mr. Sampson's partner, had handled any administrative proceedings before state officials.

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Mr. Sampson became the "caucus leader" of the Democrats in the Senate during a chaotic week in Albany in June 2009.

On June 8, two Democrats, Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada Jr., withdrew their support for the Democratic majority, effectively giving the Republicans control of the Senate after five months of Democratic control.

But after a week of chaos in the state capital, Mr. Monserrate switched his allegiances again, and reaffirmed himself as a member of the Democratic caucus.

Mr. Monserrate's switch left the Senate split evenly at 31 to 31, suggesting an era of legislative gridlock that would be unparalleled even by Albany's notoriously dysfunctional standards.

Mr. Monserrate, who has feuded with Senator Malcolm A. Smith, Democrat of Queens and the former president of the Senate, said that he was returning to the Democratic fold because he was satisfied that Mr. Sampson would unify party members and bring about action on important legislation. But because they no longer had the 32 votes needed to install Mr. Sampson as president of the Senate and majority leader, Democrats named Mr. Sampson "caucus leader" and left Mr. Smith as their titular leader.

Finally, on July 9, Mr. Espada returned to the Democrats and was named Senate majority leader as part of a deal worked out by Senate Democratic leaders, ending a monthlong stalemate that had hobbled state government.

Mr. Espada's return gave the Democrats 32 votes in the Senate, a clear two-vote margin that re-established their control of the chamber. Under the deal, Senator Smith will be president for an undetermined period of time, and Senator Sampson will be the leader of the Democratic caucus. Mr. Smith explained the details of the arrangement at a news conference.

Mr. Sampson, whose father is from Guyana and whose mother is from South Carolina, was a political neophyte when he first won election to the Senate in 1996. He said his victory was in part due to the influx of black and Hispanic voters to the district, but was also aided by young people voting for the first time and by the legal trouble of his opponent in the Democratic primary. He made an unsuccessful bid to become Brooklyn District Attorney in 2005.

July 20, 2010
Senate Leader Did Legal Work for Broker With Ties to Loan Scandal
By DANNY HAKIM, NY Times
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ALBANY — John L. Sampson, the State Senate leader, performed legal work for a Queens real estate broker who was being investigated by state authorities on allegations of fraud and predatory lending, and was disciplined for acting as a notary for the broker after his notary license had expired, according to state documents.

The broker, Edul Ahmad, has been at the center of a loan scandal involving United States Representative Gregory W. Meeks of Queens, who this month admitted that he had failed to disclose a $40,000 loan from Mr. Ahmad on his federal filings. The loan appeared to come with no strings attached, or interest. Mr. Meeks repaid it three years after the fact, once it became a matter of scrutiny.

The generous terms of the loan have raised questions about Mr. Ahmad and his political relationships. New details about Mr. Ahmad’s past emerged after The New York Times submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to the New York Department of State, which investigates improprieties by licensed real estate brokers. Mr. Ahmad has been the defendant in five cases investigated by the department involving allegations of fraud and predatory lending.

Mr. Ahmad was fined $750 in one case and had his license suspended for 30 days in another one. Two other cases, initiated in 2007 and 2008, were referred to the office of the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, but a spokeswoman for Mr. Brown’s office said Tuesday night that it could not immediately determine what became of the referrals.

Mr. Sampson, the highest-ranking official in the Senate, is described in the documents as having performed a variety of legal work, from meeting with an investigator from the Department of State about documents being collected from Mr. Ahmad to notarizing an affidavit of a former employee of Mr. Ahmad’s.

The work took place through 2008, before Mr. Sampson became leader of the Democratic caucus in the summer of 2009, but he continues to act as a lawyer for Mr. Ahmad.

While there is no prohibition against a lawmaker representing a client who is the subject of a state investigation, Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, expressed concern that a state official was performing legal work in a matter involving a state agency.

“It’s baffling,” Mr. Dadey said. “It creates a potential conflict because he’s a representative of the state representing someone before the state.”

“It’s made all the more problematic because of the questions surrounding the relationship with Congressman Meeks,” he said. “It becomes a web of several conflicts.”

Mr. Sampson’s notary work on behalf of Mr. Ahmad got Mr. Sampson into trouble because his notary license had expired; notarizing a document without a valid license is technically a misdemeanor under state law. That led the Department of State to conduct an investigation in 2008 into Mr. Sampson’s conduct. According to documents related to the inquiry, Mr. Sampson told investigators that he was unaware his license had expired and said that his staff had sent in a renewal form but that it had been returned because it was incomplete.

Mr. Sampson surrendered his license and was not allowed to reapply for a year.

Mr. Sampson said through a spokesman, Austin Shafran, that he had acted as a lawyer for Mr. Ahmad only on commercial transactions and while the Department of State was in an investigative phase. Mr. Shafran added that another lawyer at the firm where Mr. Sampson works handled any administrative proceedings before state officials.

Mr. Shafran called the notary issue “a clerical matter that has been resolved administratively.” Mr. Ahmad, he said, is “a longtime friend and supporter” of Mr. Sampson’s. “They first met at a fund-raiser for Senator Sampson’s first campaign in 1996.”

Both men are of Guyanese descent, and Mr. Sampson once tried to help a sister of Mr. Ahmad’s obtain a temporary visa to get medical treatment in the United States. Mr. Ahmad has also donated $6,000 to Mr. Sampson’s campaign.

In a brief telephone interview, Mr. Ahmad was evasive about his relationship with Senator Sampson, at first saying he had never paid the senator and that he had never acted as his lawyer.

“Senator Sampson is a friend of mine, that’s all he is,” he said. When it was pointed out that Mr. Sampson is recorded in Department of State documents as having performed a variety of legal work on his behalf, Mr. Ahmad said: “I usually seek legal advice on many occasions. John is an attorney.”

State records lay out a variety of allegations against Mr. Ahmad. In one case he was accused of having one of his sales agents pose as a buyer so that Mr. Ahmad himself could purchase a property at a low price, unbeknownst to his client, the seller. In another case, a couple who bought a home and used Mr. Ahmad as an agent claimed that their signatures were forged on a number of documents, leaving them with monthly payments far higher than they could afford.

Investigators were also told by Mr. Ahmad that a number of his records had been destroyed in a fire. In the phone interview, Mr. Ahmad said he had done nothing improper.

Ray Rivera contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 23, 2010

Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about legal work that John L. Sampson, the New York State Senate leader, did for a Queens real estate broker who was being investigated for fraud misstated the law under which The New York Times requested documents about the broker. It is the state Freedom of Information Law, not the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Meeks' shady $$ man target of 5 state probes
By MELISSA KLEIN, 6:19 AM, July 21, 2010
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Allegations of predatory lending, forged documentation, falsified mortgage info and missing records have dogged Rep. Gregory Meeks' private lender for years, The Post has learned.

State officials have investigated Queens real-estate broker Edul Ahmad -- who loaned Meeks $40,000 in 2007 -- five times since 2006, referring two of those probes to the Queens District Attorney's Office for review, according to state Department of State records obtained by The Post.

In one case, a woman claimed Ahmad's Century 21 Realty persuaded her to buy a $714,000 home she could not afford.

The woman, whose annual income was only $30,000, was told to get co-applicants for a loan through Ace Mortgage Inc., which is also owned by Ahmad, according to state records.

When she told Ahmad she could not afford a $5,000-a-month mortgage, he simply told her to come back in six months and refinance it, state records show.

But the refinance was declined and she lost her home to foreclosure.

Another probe by the state Banking Department and Department of State in 2007 turned up homebuyers who said they were given mortgages for more than they could afford and that their names were forged on documents.

A Queens DA spokeswoman says the office could find no record of the cases.

Steven Kartagener, Ahmad's lawyer, said the state investigations were only allegations.

Ahmad faces a civil suit from two Bangladeshi brothers who earlier this month accused him of predatory lending and real-estate fraud.

Ahmad's ties to Meeks were revealed last month when the congressman disclosed for the first time that he had taken out a personal loan from Ahmad.

Meeks, who is under federal probe for his role in a Queens charity, repaid the loan in June with 12.5 percent interest -- after the FBI questioned Ahmad about it.

melissa.klein@nypost.com