{"id":206549,"date":"2026-04-22T22:20:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206549\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:20:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:20:06","slug":"brian-benjamin-is-still-waiting-for-the-state-to-cover-his-legal-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206549\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Benjamin is still waiting for the state to cover his legal costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 15 months since the feds dropped<\/a> the corruption case<\/a> against former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, and he still hasn\u2019t seen a dime from the state to pay his lawyers, who are waiting on $10 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Benjamin will \u2013 eventually \u2013 be the beneficiary of Public Officers Law 19<\/a>, which says the state will cover state employees\u2019 litigation costs<\/a> if they\u2019re accused of wrongdoing while acting in the scope of their work, as long as they\u2019re acquitted or the case is dismissed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s been seven months since Attorney General Letitia James\u2019 office approved Benjamin\u2019s request for reimbursement for \u201creasonable attorneys\u2019 fees and legal expenses.\u201d Now it\u2019s up to Comptroller Tom DiNapoli to audit the bills and pay up. But DiNapoli\u2019s in the midst of his first ever reelection battle, and his office is moving slowly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DiNapoli spokesperson Jen Freeman said the timing is typical \u2013 \u201cwe call it doing our due diligence.\u201d (After all, the late state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno once tried to bill the state for the time his lawyer spent talking to reporters.)<\/p>\n

For now, Benjamin isn\u2019t biting the hand holding the money. Like former Mayor Eric Adams, he\u2019s targeted former U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, instead, slamming him as \u201can ambitious federal prosecutor with political ambitions,\u201d and argued that \u201ccountless lives were irreparably harmed on what was effectively a wild goose chase\u201d and now \u201cNew York taxpayers (are) left holding the bag.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams, now a partner at law firm Jenner & Block, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been 15 months since the feds dropped the corruption case against former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3066,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-206549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-heard-around-town","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}