Community board manager on trial for allegedly stealing $38K in raises
A long-term Brooklyn community board district manager, already in hot water at the time for his job performance and personal conduct, spent three years giving himself secret and illegal raises, prosecutors alleged at trial Wednesday.
Craig Hammerman served Brooklyn Community Board 6 for more than a quarter-century when he allegedly began giving himself raises using the electronic signatures of the chairpersons of the board without their knowledge. He gave himself raises in 2015, 2016 and 2017, before getting caught, prosecutors said. One of the chairs at the time, Sayar Lonial, said he gave Hammerman his electronic signature out of convenience, but would not have approved Hammerman using it to get raises.
“I don’t think I would have [given Hammerman a raise],” Lonial testified Wednesday before Supreme Court Justice Donald Leo in Brooklyn Supreme Court. “The premise of the merit raise is doing a very good job. And I think in the tenure that I served as chair of CB6, I don’t think that the district manager’s work was ‘a very good job.'”