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The indictment — the result of an investigation by the federal prosecutors, the F.B.I. and the city’s Department of Investigation — accused Mr. Benjamin of subsequently engaging in a “series of lies and deceptions to cover up the scheme,” including falsifying campaign donation forms, misleading New York City authorities and giving false information as part of a background check to become lieutenant governor last year.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Benjamin pleaded not guilty at a brief appearance in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan, and was released on $250,000 bond under terms that would require him to get special permission to travel to Albany. He left the courthouse without comment.
The governor, appearing at a news conference in Brooklyn on a mass subway shooting, initially declined to address Mr. Benjamin’s arrest. Lawyers for Mr. Benjamin, James D. Gatta and William J. Harrington, also initially declined to comment.
Mr. Benjamin said last week that he had been cooperating with investigators, after news outlets, including The New York Times, reported details of the investigation. Accompanied by his lawyers, the lieutenant governor met with prosecutors last week, according to a person familiar with the matter, and his top aides were privately reassuring allies that he expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing.
But at the news conference, Mr. Williams — who announced the charges with Michael J. Driscoll, the assistant director in charge of the New York F.B.I. office, and Jocelyn E. Strauber, commissioner of the city’s Department of Investigation — laid out an audacious corruption scheme. The indictment accused Mr. Benjamin of bribing Mr. Migdol to help secure small contributions for his comptroller race that could be used to obtain tens of thousands of dollars in public matching funds through a city program.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Benjamin first approached Mr. Migdol for help in March 2019, months before he announced a campaign for comptroller. In a meeting at Mr. Migdol’s home, the developer told Mr. Benjamin that it would be challenging to help because the pool of possible contributors he would turn to was the same one that he needed to solicit to support his own charity, Friends of Public School Harlem, a group known for giving out school supplies and groceries to needy families.
“Let me see what I can do,” Mr. Benjamin replied, according to the indictment.
In the months that followed, prosecutors said, the politician proceeded to use his State Senate office to secure a $50,000 taxpayer-funded education grant for the charity that Mr. Migdol had never requested, and used it as leverage to press Mr. Migdol to gather contributions.