Charles Halsey was a New York City councilman and bagman, who was involved in a mob-related kickback scheme along with other city officials.
History[]
At some point during his career, he, along with NYPD deputy commander William Jefferson, Borough President Conti, and Councilman Van Damme, arranged a kickback scheme in which he and his associates took bribes in the form of shareholdings from a company named Carnegie Collections, in exchange for a lucrative contract with the city for recovering overdue parking fines. Carnegie was secretly used for money laundering by the Masucci Crime Family. The plot paid out over $1 million per year. Halsey also had a lover, Alicia Heslin, whose apartment was paid with money from Carnegie, and to whom Halsey confessed his involvement in the affair.
Eventually, a federal grand jury on municipal corruption was formed, before which Halsey was subpoenaed to appear. Masucci and the others, fearing Halsey could have exposed the entire scheme, paid mob hitman Anthony Scalisi to murder Halsey by slashing his throat and make it appear like a mugging gone wrong. Halsey initially survived the attack, but died just after Scalisi was picked up for questioning by Detectives Greevey and Logan. Scalisi, not wanting to be indicted of murder, struck a deal with EADA Stone in which he helped the prosecution obtain evidence against all of the involved parties, with the exception of Frank Masucci, who he feared could have him killed. Conti, Jefferson, and Van Damme were all arrested and prosecuted, while Scalisi was killed by another hitman of Masucci's during the course of the sting operation. (L&O: "Everybody's Favorite Bagman")