Christopher X. Brodeur, who ran as a write-in candidate in last year’s mayoral election, was recently sentenced to six months in jail for making harassing phone calls to his former Lower East Side landlord, Paul Stallings, and his rent collector.
According to Jennifer Kushner, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney, Brodeur was convicted on two counts of harassment in the first degree and 19 counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree. All the charges are misdemeanors and carry varying penalties from a maximum of three months to one year in jail, she said. The D.A. asked for a sentence of two years, Kushner said.
Brodeur was being held in The Tombs and was recently transferred to Riker’s Island, where he will serve his sentence.
Jessica Delfino, Brodeur’s fiancé and campaign manager, said he is not a violent person and that what he does isn’t “technical harassment,” even though some of his messages referred to slitting throats and burning and chopping up people.
“Christopher is very, very smart. He knows exactly what he’s doing,” Delfino said. “He leaves the message on an answering machine, late at night. He makes them compelling so people will listen to what he has to say. He doesn’t have any motive or character to kill anyone.”
Brodeur has two more cases coming up soon, including his trial for alleged phone harassment against Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler when Skyler was Mayor Bloomberg’s press secretary and alleged phone harassment against Ben Smith, a New York Observer reporter.
Delfino said Brodeur had been trying to find out what Skyler’s salary was, and at one point put his phone on auto redial, which resulted in 1,400 calls to City Hall.
In the case of Smith, Brodeur on one of his messages said, “I could shoot you and I’d be a hero like Bernie Goetz.”
As for how Brodeur is handling life in the slammer, Delfino said, “He says it’s like a dorm. He’s watched ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ and a lot of Clint Eastwood movies. There are three meals a day, a commissary to get candy bars and sodas. He says all the inmates are really cool.”
Lincoln Anderson
