NYC correction union head, hedge founder face charges

Neither Huberfeld, Seabrook nor representatives at Platinum Partners responded to requests from CNBC.com for comment. He later provided Platinum with start-up money and ran Nordlicht’s credit-focused hedge funds until Platinum took them over in 2011.

The union that represents New York City correction officers has replaced Norman Seabrook as its boss, a day after federal agents arrested the longtime president in connection with a corruption probe.

Federal authorities have arrested the influential leader of New York’s correctional officers’ union on fraud charges, the first major criminal case connected to the investigation of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign fundraising.

Seabrook has previously been sued by former employees on accusations of corruption and sexual harassment, The New York Times reported.

Probers are seeking to investigate charges that team de Blasio sought to evade individual campaign limits of $10,300 by having donors make big donations to local county committees, which in turn earmarked and funneled the money to specific candidates.

At the end of 2013 COBA’s annuity fund held $81 million in assets, the NY Daily News said. Huberfeld said the fund had not performed as well as thought and he could only pay Seabrook $60,000.

WNYC’s Cindy Rodriguez says Seabrook, who’s led the union for 21 years, has a reputation for going to great lengths to protect his correction officers.

Despite the unusual nature of the investment, the complaint says that Seabrook’s “power over the affairs of COBA is rarely questioned by his Executive Board”, which he appoints.

The FBI confirmed that Norman Seabrook and Murray Huberfeld, the founder of a New York-based hedge fund, were arrested early Wednesday.

The latest developments in the federal corruption case against the head of the nation’s largest municipal jail guard union and a hedge-fund founder.

The FBI in NY says Norman Seabrook and Murray Huberfeld of Platinum Partners, L.P. were arrested early Wednesday. The witness agreed to use his own money to bribe Seabrook and at Huberfeld’s suggestion created a fake invoice for New York Knicks tickets he supposedly sold to Platinum in order to get reimbursed, the complaint said.

Read the full Daily News report on the charges here. Seabrook at his Bronx home and Huberfeld in his Manhattan office. Seabrook allegedly complained to this individual that he was entitled to better compensation for the hard work he put in overseeing COBA’s funds, saying it was “time Norman Seabrook got paid”. “I’m running out of adjectives to describe it”, he told reporters on Wednesday.