NYC power-broker Frank Seddio ripped for calling judge’s cell phone amid $2M case

A Brooklyn power-broker threw another wrench into a multimillion-dollar court case now on its fifth judge — by personally phoning the latest jurist, the judge revealed Tuesday.

Former borough Democratic Party Chair Frank Seddio — who has been ripped in a federal lawsuit tied to a state case involving more than $2 million in missing investor money — recently called the judge handling the state case, Francios Rivera, on his personal cell phone, the jurist said in court.

An exasperated Rivera said Seddio called him to tell him a lawyer who used to work for the judge as a legal secretary was being made an acting supreme court judge.

Seddio later told The Post on Tuesday that he made the call purely on a social basis, since he and the judge knew each other from being out and about.

Rivera recounted the odd call during a hearing on the state case, saying he didn’t recognize the phone number when the influential local called him Dec. 23 to inform him of his ex-lawyer’s move just days after Rivera was assigned to the case.

“I told him do not call this line,” Rivera said in open court, referring to Seddio and noting he put the call on speaker phone for the two clerks sitting with him at the time.

“They both heard it,” Rivera said, demonstrating their shock by widening his eyes and putting his hand over his mouth. 

“It was my intention to tell [Seddio] today and admonish him right here in court not to do that, because the next time it happens, [I’ll] impose sanctions,” the peeved judge said. 

Seddio was not in court for the hearing.

But the political player later insisted to The Post that the jurist was “very thrilled” at the time to hear the news about his former law secretary.

“I don’t know why he would bring this up in court,” Seddio said, adding that he didn’t recall Rivera telling him to not call him on his personal line.

“Everyone is so f–king sensitive about this case,” he said.

Rivera is the fifth judge presiding over the twisty case regarding more than $2 million supposedly put in an escrow account and which investors have been demanding back for nearly a year.

Seddio has been accused in a separate federal lawsuit of being a “con artist” who used his political influence to help Mark David Graubard, a lawyer overseeing the escrow account, to thwart the investors from getting their money back on behalf of real-estate investor Sam Sprei.

The judge Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for Graubard, who has refused since last summer to produce bank records showing the money remains in escrow.

The judge’s order says Graubard will be cuffed by city sheriffs and hauled into court next week unless he can finally produce bank records.

Neither Seddio, Graubard nor his lawyer Israel Goldberg showed up in court Tuesday for the scheduled motion hearing sought by the defense to again delay the proceedings which began nearly a year ago.  

Their absence meant that their latest motion to delay the proceedings was dismissed, with Goldberg and Graubard in default.

Seddio filed for a discontinuance last month, meaning he is no longer technically a part of the lawsuit, but he still faces potential sanctions claims made by the investors’ lawyers.

Goldberg and Graubard did not respond to Post questions sent to them.

Rivera was assigned to the case in mid-December after a prior judge recused himself when Seddio filed a letter claiming that he would hire a lawyer to represent him in sanctions hearings related to the case.

The same lawyer was representing the jurist in an unrelated lawsuit, sparking a potential conflict of interest.

Another judge immediately recused himself, without stating why, when appointed to the case.

There were also two other judges previously taken off the case for various reasons, making Rivera the fifth jurist put on it in 11 months.

“I have nothing to do with the money,” Seddio told The Post on Tuesday.

He said his positive feelings about Rivera shared with The Post last month remain unchanged, despite Tuesday’s courtroom tongue-lashing.

“I am thrilled he is on the case,” Seddio said.