Fagen Gets 30-Day Prison Sentence

Michael Fagen, the former Long Beach councilman convicted in February on charges connected to his collection of more than $15,000 in unemployment benefits, was sentenced to 30 days in prison and five years probation on Wednesday.

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Judge Meryl Berkowitz, before sentencing the former councilman at Nassau County Court in Mineola after a long trial and sentencing process, told him that his concern for his constituents and community “was apparent,” but that he had violated their trust. "I believe there is a lot of good in you," she said. "I believe, though, that with this verdict there is a jail sentence attached."

As part of her punishment, Berkowitz also ordered Fagen to pay full restitution at $15,783. He will serve his sentence at Nassau County Correctional Facility in East Meadow.

In February a jury found Fagen guilty of 18 counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing and one misdemeanor count of petit larceny. Jurors failed to reach verdicts on the top charge, one count of third-degree grand larceny, and 20 additional counts of offering a false instrument for filing. He faced a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

While Fagen, 56, took up Berkowitz’s offer to speak before she sentenced him, he spoke too inaudibly for the court at large to hear him, but his cousin, Susan Britt, was granted an opportunity to speak and asked the judge that she not punish him with any prison time.

“He’s never had a history of doing anything wrong,” she implored. “ … I would hope that you would consider his background and the good things that he has done … Jail for whatever period of time is not going to change anything.”

Marc Gann, Fagen’s attorney, also told Berkowitz that he thought a prison sentence was an unnecessary punishment, saying that while his client made “an incredible misjudgment,” he was a “broken man” who has already suffered public and private humiliation for his actions, and that he had “devoted his life to community service.” Gann also asked that Fagen should only pay $2,000 in restitution for his felony charge.

During the trial, prosecutors said Fagen received $405 weekly in unemployment insurance benefits starting in September 2009. In November 2009, Fagen was elected to a four-year term as a Long Beach city councilman, a full-time position. After he took office in January 2010, he failed to report his $19,828 yearly income as a councilman, as well as his employment as a salesman for a hotel membership benefits company, while he continued to receive undeserved unemployment benefits.  

On Wednesday, prosecutor Marshall Trager, chief of the Government and Consumer Frauds Bureau, called for Fagen to serve six months in prison and five years probation and pay full restitution, saying that a “message needs to be sent.”  

Trager contended that in his duties as a councilman, Fagen carefully sought to account for the funds city officials were spending “but he had no reservations about taking monies that he was not entitled to receive,” which the prosecutor characterized as “a more egregious context” and “knowing and intentional acts of deceit and thievery.”