14
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JUNE 23, 2019
NOT GUILTY
Jury clears former Community Board 6
district manager of questionable pay-raises
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
AND KEVIN DUGGAN
A former longtime
Brooklyn civic leader was
found not guilty in Brooklyn
Supreme Court on June
14 of using bogus documents
to give himself multiple
pay-raises from the
city, which totaling more
than $16,000 annually.
Craig Hammerman, the
former longtime District
Manager of Community
Board 6 — which stretches
from Park Slope to Red
Hook — was facing seven
years behind bars for using
two colleagues’ signatures
to grant himself four
salary bumps over a threeyear
stretch.
The jury accepted Hammerman’s
defense that, because
he had been authorized
to use the signature
for community board business,
he was allowed to use
them in four raise-requests
to the city, between May
2015 and October 2017, to
increase his salary from
$105,180 to $121,931.
“I believed I had the authority
to act on my own,”
Hammerman told the jury
on June 11. “I didn’t think I
had to ask.”
Brooklyn’s top prosecutor
disagreed , slapping
Hammerman with 17
charges — including forgery
— in May 2018, arguing
that the raises were illegal.
“This defendant allegedly
sought to enrich himself
with taxpayer money
to which he was not entitled,”
District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez said at the
time. “This was a betrayal
of the public trust that cannot
be tolerated.”
The board’s former
chairman told the jury on
June 7 that he had given
Hammerman a scan of his
signature — which Hammerman
used to request
a raise in a 2015 letter to
the Offi ce of Management
and Budget — but he never
meant it to be used for pay
raises.
A GAMBLE PAID OFF: Craig Hammerman was found innocent on
June 14 of 17 charges related to questionable pay raises he received
while serving as District Manager of Community Board 6.
File photo by Tom Callan
“I thought it was implicit
that it was for the
sake of convenience,” said
Gary Reilly. “I didn’t know
that I had anything to do
with raises at the time.”
Hammerman, along
with defense attorney
Joyce David, argued that
there were no established
formal limits on his use
of the signatures, and he
was under no obligation to
inform Reilly — or Sayar
Lonial, whose John Handcock
appeared on the three
other documents in question
— of the letters.
“It was tradition, custom,
and practice of the
board to pass along raises
without explicit approval
of the board,” he said.
The raises represented
a $16,751 annual increase,
and also increased Hammerman’s
city pension by
almost $10,000 per year —
from $60,499 to $70,134 —
which he is set to receive
annually from age 62 until
his death, according Bruce
Farbstein of the city’s Employee
Retirement System.
After the trial, Hammerman
lamented the idea that
money played into his decision,
arguing that it was
his 27 years of public service
that motivated him.
“I was never in it for the
money,” he said. “My record
bores that out.”
Hammeram — who
watched in court as Lonial
suggested that he would not
have granted the raises if
he was asked — suggested
that Lonial’s testimony
was more politically motivated
than he had let on.
“I don’t think it was
about the work performance,”
he said. “That was
simply used as a mask or a
cover.”
Hammerman attributed
the ordeal up the toxic
working relationship that
he saw develop during the
tail-end of his community
board tenure.
“I think there was a
breakdown in communication.
We ceased to talk to
each other as a human being
with kindness and respect,”
he said. “I think if
people learned how to interact
in a more collegial way
would, that would have created
a different working relationship.”
The jury found Hammerman
not guilty on all
17 counts, allowing him to
avoid a possible seven year
sentence.
Where culture
is king
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