Former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who had been scheduled to be in a Manhattan courtroom on March 28 to be sentenced, was instead in a hospital after being taken there over the weekend reportedly after bleeding internally while visiting his daughter in Virginia.
According to a report in yesterday’s New York Times, Hevesi’s lawyer, Bradley D. Simon, said Hevesi, 71, was in the hospital undergoing an endoscopy for internal bleeding, but it was not clear where the hospital was located.
Simon also said in a 33-page presentation to the court, that Hevesi is “deteriorating emotionally and physically”. Hevesi’s daughter, Laura, was quoted in the document, saying, “My dad has aged about 20 years in recent months” in her letter to the court.
In a related matter, Hevesi’s son, Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, made an emotional appeal to Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone, who was to have sentenced Hevesi, to not send his father to jail.
The lawmaker, in his plea, said his dad “Has earned the right to spend the rest of his life surrounded by those who appreciate and love him for who he is, a great and flawed man. Please send him home to our family.”
Hevesi, who followed in his father’s footsteps as the Assembly representative from Forest Hills, said of his father:
“Despite his failures and mistakes, I will not now or ever stop believing in him. Not just because I love him as the man who, with my mom, raised, protected and loved me, but because these transgressions will never define my father.”
At yesterday’s court hearing, Stone excused himself from Hevesi’s case and re-set the sentencing for next Monday, April 4.
The elder Hevesi is facing, four years in prison for his role in a major state pension fund pay-to-play scheme. He pleaded guilty to a single felony charge last year after admitting he received $1 million in gifts. Stone has been replaced by Administrative Judge Michael J. Obus.
The judge was asked to recuse himself by Simon because Stone had a relationship with Simon’s father. Stone is the executor of Simon’s father’s will and also the trustee of his trust.