Ghoulish Democratic bosses promoted a lifeless man as a candidate in southern Brooklyn whereas soliciting petition signatures to assist get Home Minority Chief Rep. Hakeem Jeffries again on the poll, The Submit has discovered.
Robert Gevertzman, a longtime group chief who died in March 2025 on the age of 76, shockingly cleared the petition-checking course of, data present.
He’s now slated to be beneath Jeffries on the Democratic ticket and run unopposed in subsequent month’s main for a seat on the Kings County Democratic Committee.
The Democratic soiled tips didn’t finish with elevating the lifeless.
Borough occasion leaders additionally deployed a one-armed man who was caught in a sequence of weird movies this week claiming longtime lefty operative Joey Cohen-Saban isn’t a Democrat to assist him safe sufficient signatures to qualify for a third-party line and enhance his candidacy in a tight race to unseat state Assemblyman Michael Novakhov (R-Brooklyn).
Cohen-Saban, because the native Democratic district chief, together with Brooklyn Democratic Occasion Chairperson and state Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, are the primary culprits within the alleged efforts to mislead voters, Novakhov and different borough Republican honchos contend.
“Operating lifeless individuals shocks the conscience, and so does mendacity to and deceptive the voters about which occasion you characterize. It’s disgraceful, dishonest, and an insult to the voters of this district and to the Gevertzman household,” stated Novakhov.
Gevertzman, a former long-serving member of Brooklyn Group Board 15, was a centrist Democrat.
His spouse, June Gevertzman, stated she was unaware her husband was mysteriously listed as a shoe-in candidate, including she discovered it “foolish” and prefers him off the poll.
The bogus petitions highlighting Jeffries circulated earlier this yr in components of the President Trump-loving 45th Meeting District – a uncommon part of Brooklyn thought of a GOP stronghold that features components of Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend and Manhattan Seaside.
The petitions – copies of which The Submit reviewed — additionally included Gevertzman and two others backed by the Kings County Democratic Committee who’re working unopposed for 3 of its 4,400-plus committee seats.
The obscure elected posts’ duties embrace overseeing committee bylaws, and plenty of county committee members have traditionally been cronies prepared to amend guidelines to occasion leaders’ profit and assist hold them in energy.
Though Jeffries’ camp wasn’t concerned within the signature-gathering course of, critics say he benefitted by having Gevertzman additionally on the identical petition.
It is because the late activist was extra widespread within the conservative Sheepshead Bay-Manhattan Seaside space and certain helped Jeffries draw some signatures from registered voters there who usually wouldn’t signal his petitions, they added.
The highly effective Democrat, nonetheless, has greater than sufficient help in different components of the borough to safe the required signatures anyway, critics conceded.
The Dem shenanigans resurfaced once more Monday when an unidentified 20-something-year-old male amputee was filmed outdoors a grocery store on Avenue U in Gravesend, repeatedly insisting that Saban and state Sen. Sam Sutton, a fellow Democrat, are “independents.”
He and one other man collected petition signatures for each candidates to safe them a second poll line underneath the “Combat Antisemitism Occasion.”
“These guys, they’re not Democrats?” asks an undercover GOP operative in video supplied to The Submit, after being handed Cohen-Saban marketing campaign materials and a petition to signal.
“No, no,” replied the one-armed signature bandit, who was sporting a black-leather baseball cap worn backwards, a crystal round his neck and sporting a goatee.
On Tuesday, the identical man and a distinct sidekick had been filmed in a separate video once more falsely claiming Cohen-Saban isn’t a Democrat whereas making an attempt to get a potential voter to signal his petition.
“It’s humorous that Hakeem Jeffries accused the Republicans of needing to cheat to win, and we actually have discovered a number of examples of Democrats in his personal Congressional district dishonest and mendacity to win together with with petitions along with his title at high. Sadly, the joke is on us,” stated Brooklyn Republican Occasion Chairman Liam McCabe.
Jeffries declined remark, and Bichotte Hermelyn didn’t return messages.
Cohen-Saban insisted Gevertzman ending up on the petitions was “nothing extra” than a “clerical error” that “we remorse.”
He additionally stated the canvassers are outdoors contractors who had been merely uniformed.
“They didn’t know that somebody may run on a couple of line,” stated Cohen-Saben. “It [has since been] made clear to those petition circulators that they’re accumulating third-party-signatures for candidates which might be already on the Democratic line.”
