Ghoulish Democratic bosses promoted a dead man as a candidate in southern Brooklyn while soliciting petition signatures to help get House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries back on the ballot, The Post has learned.
Robert Gevertzman, a longtime community leader who died in March 2025 at the age of 76, shockingly cleared the petition-checking process, records show.
He is now slated to be below Jeffries on the Democratic ticket and run unopposed in next month’s primary for a seat on the Kings County Democratic Committee.
The Democratic dirty tricks didn’t end with raising the dead.
Borough party leaders also deployed a one-armed man who was caught in a series of bizarre videos this week claiming longtime lefty operative Joey Cohen-Saban isn’t a Democrat to help him secure enough signatures to qualify for a third-party line and boost his candidacy in a tight race to unseat state Assemblyman Michael Novakhov (R-Brooklyn).
Cohen-Saban, as the local Democratic district leader, along with Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairperson and state Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, are the main culprits in the alleged efforts to mislead voters, Novakhov and other borough Republican honchos contend.
“Running dead people shocks the conscience, and so does lying to and misleading the voters about which party you represent. It is disgraceful, dishonest, and an insult to the voters of this district and to the Gevertzman family,” said Novakhov.
Gevertzman, a former long-serving member of Brooklyn Community Board 15, was a centrist Democrat.
His wife, June Gevertzman, said she was unaware her husband was mysteriously listed as a shoe-in candidate, adding she found it “silly” and prefers him off the ballot.
The bogus petitions highlighting Jeffries circulated earlier this year in parts of the President Trump-loving 45th Assembly District – a rare section of Brooklyn considered a GOP stronghold that includes parts of Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend and Manhattan Beach.
The petitions – copies of which The Post reviewed — also included Gevertzman and two others backed by the Kings County Democratic Committee who are running unopposed for three of its 4,400-plus committee seats.
The obscure elected posts’ duties include overseeing committee bylaws, and many county committee members have historically been cronies willing to amend rules to party leaders’ benefit and help keep them in power.
Although Jeffries’ camp wasn’t involved in the signature-gathering process, critics say he benefitted by having Gevertzman also on the same petition.
This is because the late activist was more popular in the conservative Sheepshead Bay-Manhattan Beach area and likely helped Jeffries draw some signatures from registered voters there who normally wouldn’t sign his petitions, they added.
The powerful Democrat, however, has more than enough support in other parts of the borough to secure the required signatures anyway, critics conceded.
The Dem shenanigans resurfaced again Monday when an unidentified 20-something-year-old male amputee was filmed outside a supermarket on Avenue U in Gravesend, repeatedly insisting that Saban and state Sen. Sam Sutton, a fellow Democrat, are “independents.”
He and another man collected petition signatures for both candidates to secure them a second ballot line under the “Fight Antisemitism Party.”
“These guys, they’re not Democrats?” asks an undercover GOP operative in video provided to The Post, after being handed Cohen-Saban campaign material and a petition to sign.
“No, no,” replied the one-armed signature bandit, who was wearing a black-leather baseball cap worn backwards, a crystal around his neck and sporting a goatee.
On Tuesday, the same man and a different sidekick were filmed in a separate video again falsely claiming Cohen-Saban isn’t a Democrat while trying to get a prospective voter to sign his petition.
“It’s funny that Hakeem Jeffries accused the Republicans of needing to cheat to win, and we literally have found multiple examples of Democrats in his own Congressional district cheating and lying to win including with petitions with his name at top. Unfortunately, the joke is on us,” said Brooklyn Republican Party Chairman Liam McCabe.
Jeffries declined comment, and Bichotte Hermelyn did not return messages.
Cohen-Saban insisted Gevertzman ending up on the petitions was “nothing more” than a “clerical error” that “we regret.”
He also said the canvassers are outside contractors who were simply uniformed.
“They didn’t know that someone could run on more than one line,” said Cohen-Saben. “It [has since been] made clear to these petition circulators that they are collecting third-party-signatures for candidates that are already on the Democratic line.”
