Get ready for Pedro: Part II.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors will retry ex-state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. on the four charges over which jurors deadlocked after convicting him of four criminal counts for using his Bronx nonprofit like a personal piggy bank, sources said yesterday.
Prosecutors also will retry Espada’s son Pedro Gautier Espada on all eight charges over which jurors deadlocked Monday, related to the looting of the taxpayer-funded Soundview Health Care Network of more than $500,000, the sources said.
That means the elder Espada, 58, will have to defend himself in a second Brooklyn trial while preparing for his eventual sentencing on the convictions — which could earn the former Senate majority leader up to 40 years in prison.
“He’s going to go to jail, he’s done,” said criminal-defense lawyer Arthur Aidala, who is not affiliated with the case.
Espada Jr. — who won’t be sentenced until after his retrial — and his 38-year-old son also face a Manhattan federal-court trial for tax fraud related to their alleged looting.
A spokeswoman for cash-strapped Soundview yesterday said she did not know if either the charity or its insurance company had paid Espada’s legal bills, or if they would do so going forward.
Lawyers for Soundview — now run by another Espada son, Alejandro — yesterday asked a Bronx judge to order the state Health Department to release $320,000 in Medicaid-reimbursement funds that the charity claims it’s owed. The judge told lawyers for the state, which disputes that figure, to return to court Monday with evidence for their position.
Soundview has slashed operations, with doctors unable to see many patients, because it can’t afford its malpractice insurance, said spokeswoman Rachel Fasciani.
Several jurors on Monday said that one juror, Fabiola St. Phar, became a spokeswoman for three holdouts who initially insisted that Espada was totally innocent, without explaining that view.
But according to a transcript released yesterday, St. Phar told Judge Frederic Block during a May 4 private meeting that other jurors were bullying her with curses and insults.
“Name calling, ‘stupid, ignorant, imbecile, moron’ . . . Those are the things they [called] me, that bully,” St. Phar told Block.
At Soundview yesterday, patients bemoaned the reduced services and blamed Espada.
“It’s us that’s suffering for someone else’s mistake,” said Cheryl Jones, 46. “This is terrible for us patients.”
Additional reporting by Ikimulisa Livingston