THEY KNEW sleaze when they saw it.
It took less than two hours for 12 jurors to agree crooked state lawmaker Eric Stevenson is guilty of taking $22,000 in bribes in return for helping four adult daycare center developers with their business.
The 47-year-old Bronx assemblyman was convicted on all four bribery, fraud and extortion counts against him Monday after a one-week corruption trial in Manhattan federal court.
The guilty verdict automatically removed Stevenson (D-Morrisania) from office and his seat is now vacant. Within an hour, his page on the state assembly website had been removed.
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver declined to comment.
“Assemblyman Stevenson brazenly betrayed the public that elected him,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. “Graft and greed are intolerable in Albany, and we will go to trial as often as we have to until government in New York is cleaned up.”
Stevenson, dressed in a blue suit and red tie, remained calm as his verdict was read. He faces up to 55 years in prison when he is sentenced May 20.
“It is what it is,” the pol, who is free on bail, said afterward. “I just accept what God’s will is … We’ll see what the future brings.”
The grandson a well-respected assemblyman, Stevenson was first elected in 2010.
His downfall began in early 2012 after the four senior center developers and political operative Sigfredo Gonzalez were caught trying to bribe another politician, Nelson Castro.
Castro was already snitching for prosecutors to clear up a perjury rap hanging over his head. He turned in Gonzalez, who the feds then sicced on Stevenson.
Prosecutors said the pol wrote legislation for the developers to eliminate their competition, and also lobbied Con Edison on their behalf. The bill, which never became law, would have temporarily banned additional adult daycare centers from opening.
The four businessmen copped pleas last fall, but Stevenson opted for trial.
Prosecutors played audio and video clips in which Stevenson shoved an envelope in his pocket outside a Bronx restaurant, purportedly referred to the bribes as “blessings” and warned that anyone ratting him out would “go to the cemetery.”
They also noted that Stevenson made a down payment on a Jaguar sports car the day after receiving $10,000.
Gonzalez was the star witness, testifying for nearly two days.
He denied taking any payoffs, claiming he worked with the developers because he thought they would help seniors in his district.
Stevenson’s lawyer Muhammad Bashir attacked Gonzalez, calling him a professional scam artist and a liar who disobeyed the feds when he turned off his secret recording device to receive oral sex from a prostitute in an Albany hotel.
“You can’t create corruption and then say you went after it, and still be credible as a law enforcement official,” defense lawyer Muhammad Bashir said, taking a dig at Bharara’s use of a wire-wearing snitch to gather evidence for last April’s bust.
Juror Jessica Garcia, 26, of the Bronx, said reaching a guilty verdict “wasn’t very difficult” because the argument made by the feds “was a good one.”
Stevenson is the latest of at least six state politicians from the city who have been convicted on felony charges since 2009.
Several dozen supporters rallied outside the courthouse before the verdict Monday to question the fairness of the trial.
They blasted Judge Loretta Preska for blocking a tape transcript prepared by the defense in which Gonzalez purportedly used the n-word in reference to Stevenson.
With Kenneth Lovett and Shayna Jacobs
dbeekman@nydailynews.com
