Brooklyn State Assemblywoman Pamela Harris is resigning from her position ahead of her federal corruption trial, her attorney said Monday night.
"Now that Assemblywoman Harris has fulfilled her important obligation to her constituents and voted on the state budget, she has resigned to fully address her pending case," the attorney, Jerry H. Goldfeder, said in a statement.
Harris is facing multiple charges after she was indicted in early-January on federal fraud charges. She has pleaded not guilty.
According to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Harris has been charged with two counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, four counts of making false statements, two counts of bankruptcy fraud, one count of witness tampering, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Before Harris was elected to the state assembly in 2015, she ran a non-profit group for children. In one alleged scheme, she is accused of stealing $34,000 in city funding meant for the group, by creating phony lease agreements to make it look like the money was going to rent. Instead, she allegedly used the cash to shop at Victoria's Secret and buy plane and cruise tickets totaling nearly $10,000 for her and her husband.
Harris, a Democrat whose district includes Coney Island and Bay Ridge, is also accused of defrauding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of nearly $25,000 by falsifying documents to steal money and services from FEMA and the city's Build It Back program — money meant for Hurricane Sandy relief.
If convicted of all charges, she faces more than 50 years in prison.
Corruption has long been an issue in Albany. In an October 19, 2015 debate on NY1, Harris was asked how she would change the culture of corruption in the state capital:
"If you do the job right, you don't have time to get into trouble, and that's what my philosophy is: To do the job right," she said.