A top campaign operative involved in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 re-election bid was charged today with stealing approximately $1.2 million in missing campaign funds.

Veteran Queens Republican leader John Haggerty pleaded not guilty to first-degree grand larceny, second-degree money laundering and first-degree falsifying of business records.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said that Haggerty used money earmarked for poll watching in northern Queens to create a sham election company called “Special Election Operations,” and then used the funds to buy a Queens house.

Haggerty’s company was only formed a month after Election Day, and Haggerty showed three bogus checks to the Bloomberg campaign, according to the district attorney.

The funds included $750,000 that Bloomberg gave to the New York State Independence Party.

“The defendants’s fraud was an audacious scheme, to steal funds in order to buy a house, cynically using our political party process to hide what was common thievery,” said Vance.

The defense said that their client did not commit fraud.

“He was asked to do valid security by the mayor, he did valid security, he was asked to do it through the Independence Party. He did,” said Raymond Castillo, Haggerty’s attorney. “Mr. Haggerty did not believe that he was doing anything illegal having it handled by the company that he set up, so we’re optimistic that the courts will agree with that.”

The mayor said he would not comment on the case, in respect to the ongoing investigation.

If convicted, Haggerty faces 25 years in prison.

Before his current legal trouble, Haggerty had been working on the gubernational campaign of Republican candidate and Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino.

Paladino’s campaign staffers released a statement today, saying they stood by Haggerty and considered him to be loyal and a “man of character.”

(Source: NY1)