Fraud conviction in nightclub fire upheld

Nov. 27--ALBANY -- The state's highest court on Tuesday upheld the insurance fraud conviction of former Rexford gynecologist Akiva Abraham in a fire that destroyed the former Saratoga Winners nightclub on Route 9.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction by a 6-1 vote; Associate Judge Eugene Pigott dissented.

Abraham, 48, was convicted of insurance fraud and acquitted of arson for the April 30, 2009, blaze at the building, which he owned. He is serving 4 to 12 years in Altona Correctional Facility in Clinton County.

Abraham insured the building for $475,000, which was the amount of the mortgage he took out through a limited liability company that he controlled with his father. Abraham bought the building about two weeks before the blaze.

He went to trial twice; the first ended in a mistrial.

Then-Albany County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Baynes told jurors a "bogus mortgage" was taken out in an attempt to obtain more than $380,000 in insurance money. Abraham's trial attorney, Bryan Rounds, later argued the insurance fraud conviction was legally "repugnant" -- logically inconsistent -- because the fraud charge was tied to the alleged arson. On Oct. 15, Abraham's appellate attorney, Jonathan Fishbein, told the Court of Appeals that Abraham was convicted on legally insufficient evidence.

Chief Judge Lippman disagreed in writing the majority decision.

". the question remains whether viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, there is sufficient evidence in the record that defendant committed insurance fraud in the second degree by causing a written statement concealing information about the cause of the fire to be filed in order to collect wrongfully on the policy. We conclude that there is," he wrote.

The court also rejected arguments by Fishbein that the verdict was tainted by prosecutorial misconduct, and that acting Supreme Court Justice Dan Lamont, now retired, should have instructed the jury to stop deliberating after it acquitted Abraham of arson.

Pigott supported the latter argument in voting to reverse.

"To avoid the possibility of the factually inconsistent verdict that I believe obtained in this case, the trial court should have instructed the jury to stop deliberating if it acquitted defendant of arson," he wrote.

rgavin@timesunion.com, 518-434-2403, @RobertGavinTU

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