Millionaire Hirschfeld Gives Jurors Checks After Mistrial

Eccentric millionaire Abe Hirschfeld, whose tax evasion case ended in a mistrial on Thursday after the jury became deadlocked, handed out $2,500 checks on Friday to jurors who served on the panel.

“What’s $30,000 to me . . . a drop in the bucket,” an exuberant Hirschfeld said while enthusiastically shaking jurors’ hands and thanking them.

The mistrial was declared after a holdout juror refused to convict the real estate magnate of cheating New York City and state of $3.3 million after seven days of deliberations.

Hirschfeld said he decided to take the jurors to lunch and give them each $2,500 because they were so poorly dressed during the trial, “I felt they needed it.”

The judge in the case said the gifts were unwise but not illegal.

Ten jurors and one alternate showed up at a Manhattan cafe to break bread with the parking garage magnate and to pick up their windfall. Checks also await two jurors and two alternates who were no-shows at the lunch, including $5,000 for the holdout juror who failed to show.

“I don’t have an ethical problem accepting his money. . . . I’m not Paula Jones,” said juror Roxanne Rosario, a state worker who intends to buy a computer for her disabled son.

Hirschfeld, 79, once offered Jones $1 million to end her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton. He will be tried again with several of his corporations on charges of scheming to defraud, grand larceny and submitting false state and city tax returns for six years.

Several jurors said they felt Hirschfeld was guilty of filing false instruments with the government, “because he knew these documents were being submitted,” according to Marc Dabney, a minister who said he plans to use the money on a trip to Hiroshima next month with his wife.

Juror Raymond Brooks, an insurance broker who was born in London, plans to donate the money to his daughter’s charity, which teaches handicapped children, whereas Belinda White said she plans to buy school clothes for her seven grandchildren.

In a separate case, Hirschfeld is also set to go on trial Sept. 13, charged with a 1996 plot to hire a hit man to kill his former business partner, Stanley Stahl, who died of natural causes last month.