A married de Blasio donor on trial fo🍬r allegedly bribing cops used his powerful police connections to try to score dates, according to new court papers.
Jeremy Reichberg, on trial in Manhattan federal court, sought to woo a nurse by convincing hisಞ police pals to do favors for her, documents allege.
The nurse, Tara Sheils, was chauffeured around in a police vehicle to run “at 🐈least one purely persona💞l errand,” and taken by Reichberg to an NYPD promotion ceremony so he could impress her, according to prosecutors’ papers.
Reichberg met Sheils when she came to💟 his home to help him recover from surgery in 2014.
Reichberg, 44, boasted about his cop connections and got his pal, convicted ex-NYPD Deputy Chief Michael Harrington, to give ♈Sheils his business card and cellphone number in case she “ever needed anythi🅘ng,’’ the feds said.
Reichberg also brought his lady friend to NYPD headquarters to meet accused co-conspirator and ex-Chief of Department Philip Banks, who was second in command at the department, pr🌠osecut🍌ors said.
Sheils was also on Reichberg’s arm at One Police Plaza “to attend a p༒romotion ceremony for unindicted co-conspirator Michael Milici,” the feds said.
Prosecutors plan to call Sheils to testify, but the defense has balked at questions about the “r🧜omantic nature” of the pair’s relationship, saying that any talk of r🐓omance with Sheils, “who cared for Mr. Reichberg after he had a surgery,” is prejudicial because Reichberg is married. Sheils didn’t return requests for comment.
The jury got its first whiff of the claims involving Sheils last week, when co𒁃ntractor Boaz Gazit said he did roughly $1,500 worth of home repairs for her for free beca꧟use Reic๊hberg asked him to. At the time, Gazit owed Reichberg for a big job recommendation, he told the jury.
When prosecutor Martin Bell asked Gazit about the nature of Reichberg’s relatio♔nship with the nurse, the defense objected, saying the feeds were “trying to embarrass Mr. Reichberg” in front of his wife, who𒁃 was in the courtroom.
Gazit only said Reichberg and the nur𝓡se were “very close friends.”
The feds say Reichberg, a self-described police liaison from Brooklyn, teamed up with real-estate investor Jona Rechnitz to buy off high-ranking officers, including Reichberg’s co-defendant, James Grant, and unindicted co-conspirators like Banks, in exchange for official police fav🍎ors.
Rechnitz, the government’s key witness, is expected to testify next week that he and Reichberg gave Grant meals, a private plane ride with a hooker, free windows on his♔ Staten Island home and other perks in exchange for favors, including police escorts and help with private disputes.
The defense has argued that the men exchanged gifts and faꦏvors because they were friends. The𓃲y have also argued that freebies were commonplace at the NYPD and so neither side saw anything wrong with it.
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton