Arrested Assemblyman Denies Bribery Allegation

NEW YORK

The New York State assemblyman was caught on tape accepting bribes, but he declares his innocence and is vowing to fight charges that he accepted $20,000 from a real-estate developer.

Democrat Eric Stevenson’s arrest stunned his colleagues in Albany and his constituents back home in the Bronx. But he told the Daily News in an interview published Saturday that he was the most surprised of all.

“I unequivocally deny this,” Stevenson said. “I never told a guy to give me money to do something for them. … I never got into any situation of taking money from these people.”

He said he was reading the Bible when agents came to arrest him.

“It took me totally by surprise,” he said. “I thought it was a bad dream. I had to shake my head. Like, this can’t be real.”

Stevenson is accused of accepting a bribe to help the developers of adult day-care centers by sponsoring a law that would forbid any new competing centers from opening for three years.

Prosecutors say they have a video of Stevenson accepting envelopes stuffed with cash and audio of him making incriminating statements.

“Be careful of those things, man, the recorders and all those things,” Stevenson was heard saying into a hidden mic. “A lot of guys are working to put a lot of people away, man, believe that.”

The assemblyman declined to address the complaint but he maintained his innocence, suggesting he was entrapped for his association with Assemblyman Nelson Castro, who began working with prosecutors after he was indicted for lying in an investigation of voter fraud.

“I never knew Nelson or anybody else was an undercover,” Stevenson said. “As elected officials, we all talk to each other. I don’t have any recollection of a conversation with Nelson where I had to say, ‘Whoa, something is not kosher here.’”

Stevenson says he may hold a news conference sometime this week to apprise his constituents of his situation. In the meantime, he is staying at a friend’s home in order to collect himself.

If convicted of the top conspiracy charge in the five-count complaint, Stevenson may earn a prison term of up to 20 years.

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