Catch Larry Seabrook If You Can

For the Bronx councilman, the council slush-fund probe is just another investigation

Comments (0) By Tom Robbins Tuesday, Jun 3 2008

On the phone a day later, Seabrook said he was still drawing a blank on the council aides. But when asked why he thought he was once again a subject of law-enforcement inquiry, the councilman was off to the races—or rather the race issue.

"They've been looking at me for 30 years," he said. "But looking at and not substantiating anything doesn't make you a criminal. There's nothing wrong. Why are they looking at me? I'll tell you why: Somebody has criminalized all black elected officials. In American society, any black man that's not looked at, then he's not a black man."

Richard B. Levine

Looking good: Councilman Larry Seabrook

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Was that the only reason he was under scrutiny? Seabrook paused. "Maybe it's because I look so damn good," he said.

To be fair, Larry Seabrook has a long history with the Voice. Back in 1986, staff writer William Bastone wrote a series of stories, one of which detailed how Seabrook's brother Oliver had been hired as a consultant for another Seabrook-funded group to edit and publish a newsletter. The problem, the Voice reported, was that the brother lived in Sweden at the time.

Apparently annoyed that a Village-based newspaper was poking around his affairs, Seabrook waved away Bastone and a photographer when they approached him outside his Bronx office. "Now don't you two go and get AIDS," he said by way of good-bye.

He was less cheerful a few weeks later when the pair showed up at his clubhouse on election night. The politician and five cronies broke photographer Marc Asnin's camera and tried to throw Asnin and Bastone down a flight of stairs. No charges were filed in that case either.