BUSH APPOINTEE in Northern District of New York, Deals Right to Dissent a Death Blow! Options

[Livyjr]

"Zwack won't recuse himself from case - Judge says he is not prejudiced against Rensselaer Democrat who testified against him"

By TIM O'BRIEN and JIMMY VIELKIND, Staff writers, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, August 4, 2007

TROY -- Rensselaer County's Democratic Party chairman is seeking the removal of a judge from a legal case because he once testified against the jurist.

The party leader, Thomas Wade, is being sued over the handling of changes to the party's bylaws by Jeffrey Spain, chairman of the East Greenbush Democratic Committee.

The case was heard Tuesday by acting state Supreme Court Justice Henry F. Zwack.

Wade testified in a 2001 trial against Zwack, a former county executive.

Zwack was acquitted in two separate trials.

Wade testified in a trial where Zwack was acquitted of trying to rig a civil-service test for the grandson of the then-chairman of the North Greenbush Democratic Committee in return for political support.

"I was subpoenaed to testify as a witness for the prosecution in the corruption trial of Henry Zwack."

"Based on that alone, that is sufficient for any person to presume there is a conflict of interest," Wade said.

In a letter to Wade's attorney, Thomas V. Kenney, Zwack declined to recuse himself.

He said he had forgotten that Wade had testified until the request for recusal.

"On reflection, I recall that his testimony was more than five years ago; that Mr. Wade was a fact witness who testified only briefly and in his official capacity, relating to public records/election returns of the Board of Elections," Zwack wrote.

"I do not recall that his testimony was of any significance, or that it contradicted my recollection of the election records he testified to."

Zwack said he then had no reason not to hear the current case.

"His testimony at the time did not give me reason to have personal bias or prejudice against Mr. Wade," he wrote.

Regina Treffiletti, court attorney for the Third Judicial District administrative office, said it is up to a judge to recuse himself or herself.

If the person making the request is unhappy about the decision, he or she may file an appeal to the Appellate Division.

Spain is asking for changes to the county Democratic Committee's bylaws adopted June 11 to be tossed out.

Spain argues the changes centralize power in the county chairman and diminish the power of the town party leader.

Wade said the dispute mainly focuses on a single word added to the bylaws.

The party's rules said that a town or city committee leader was the person empowered to call a meeting to fill vacancies on the county committee.

The city of Rensselaer and some towns do not have their own committees, he said, so a motion was made at the county committee meeting to change the bylaws to enable the county chairman to call such a meeting.

"Someone should have the ability to nominate someone to fill vacancies when there is no town or city chairman," he said.

But the changes also would enable the county chairman to call meetings to nominate candidates when a town leader declines to do so, he said.

Wade argued that is needed because some town committee leaders have made deals with the GOP in the past not to nominate competing candidates.

Spain maintains that the county committee did not follow its own rules, failing to provide a copy of all proposed changes before the meeting and not filing a certified copy of the rule changes with the state Board of Elections within 10 days.

Tim O'Brien can be reached at 454-5092 or by e-mail at tobrien@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"FRIEND OF THE COURT: One Lawyer's Inside Track; Cozying Up to Judges, and Reaping Opportunity"

By KEVIN FLYNN AND ANDY NEWMAN

Published: November 11, 2003

Ravi Batra practices the kind of law that does not come with steno pools or 40th-floor conference rooms with views of Central Park.

His office is in a brick building in a section of Manhattan known as Little India.

His legal pedigree is respectable but unremarkable.

His clients tend to be small companies or people who have been hurt in accidents.

Yet for much of the past decade Mr. Batra has been a particularly potent force in the clubby corridors of New York City courthouses.

He played a role in picking State Supreme Court judges.

Lawyers seeking an edge in the unfamiliar world of Brooklyn courts hired him as their guide.

Judges who controlled court appointments -- where lawyers typically manage the assets and welfare of the elderly, the young or of troubled companies -- gave him 150 of these, worth more than $500,000 in fees.

Mr. Batra's success was fashioned in part from long hours and legal dexterity.

But by many accounts it was built on his keen appreciation for an unspoken truth: that whom you know in courthouse circles can be just as valuable as what you know.

And Mr. Batra developed a particular knack for getting to know judges and the politicians who made them.

He invited them to dinner and his home.

He toasted them at parties.

He made the Brooklyn Democratic Party boss a member of his law firm.

And the boss, Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr., put him on the panel that screened Democratic nominees for Supreme Court judgeships, a powerful position since the nomination is tantamount to election in heavily Democratic Brooklyn.

''He's very well known,'' said Justice Reinaldo E. Rivera of the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, when asked how Mr. Batra came to offer welcoming remarks at his swearing-in ceremony last year.

''Everybody knows Mr. Batra.''

Indeed, a review of Mr. Batra's cases and interviews with judges and lawyers who know him provide a glimpse into a seldom seen corner of the court system where cozy relationships can play defining roles in who becomes a judge and who benefits from the decisions that judges make.

In Mr. Batra's case, he took the tried and true tools of networking -- schmoozing, flattery, mutual back-scratching -- and practiced them to an extent that tended to blur, or even ignore, the boundaries between the bench and the bar.

Judges who were his friends, or who visited his house or who joined him for dinner, gave him appointments or presided over cases in which he had a stake, according to court records.

Twice he was awarded fees that state monitors later found unusually high.

In one instance, defendants who paid Mr. Batra $225,000 to settle his own civil suit said they never realized he knew the judge in the case as well as he did.

When Collegiality Tests Integrity

Of course, in some New York political and legal circles, the suggestion that a simple meal between legal professionals could undermine a judge's integrity seems naïve.

Certainly, Mr. Batra thinks so.

''The collegial meeting of lawyers on both sides of the aisle with the bench is an absolute plus to the functioning of the profession,'' Mr. Batra said in an interview.

The judges in Mr. Batra's cases said in interviews that their decisions were made on the merits, and that Mr. Batra received no favors.

For his part, Mr. Batra likened his behavior to that of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used to play cards with Supreme Court justices, he said, only to have them overturn his legislation several days later.

''If you're a person of integrity, the question ends there,'' he said.

''And if you're not a person of integrity, all the appearances in the world don't give you integrity."

"So I prefer substantive integrity than apparent integrity.''

But experts say faith in the courts is built on such appearances.

Several years ago, after the fallout from one of Mr. Batra's appointments, state officials decided to explore whether such appointments were controlled by politics.

Their 2001 report found the system awash in cronyism.

''Many of the recipients of multiple and lucrative appointments in guardianship cases had connections to judges, political parties or court-system personnel,'' it said, ''raising concerns that they were selected based on factors other than merit.''

Mr. Batra's name has surfaced again this year as District Attorney Charles J. Hynes of Brooklyn investigates the culture of the borough's courthouse.

Prosecutors have subpoenaed Mr. Batra's business records.

They have sent a cooperating witness into a meeting with him, wearing a concealed recording device, to discuss whether money can influence the judicial selection process.

Nothing incriminating came from the tape, and Mr. Batra, 48, said he did not believe the conversation touched on such matters.

His lawyer, Randy M. Mastro, said he has been told that Mr. Batra, who has met voluntarily with prosecutors, is not a target of the investigation.

The uproar, however, has taken a toll.

Mr. Batra resigned from the screening panel.

Mr. Norman, who was indicted several weeks ago on unrelated larceny charges, left Mr. Batra's law firm.

And in a severe indignity to a man who thrives on access, the chief judge in Brooklyn, Ann T. Pfau, told other judges that she will not take calls from Mr. Batra.

Such scrutiny of how Brooklyn picks its judges would most likely not have arisen if the candidates approved by the screening panel had been uniformly good.

But in the past two years, four Brooklyn judges serving in the Supreme Court, the state's highest trial court, have gotten into trouble, including two who were charged with taking bribes.

Mr. Batra did not come by his political connections easily, as either the son of a judge or the protégé of a political leader.

He was born in India and grew up in Queens.

He graduated from Pace University and Fordham Law School, taught at Pace for a number of years and practiced law, often with a certain flair.

Court submissions might be sprinkled with florid language or exclamation points.

His stationery was emblazoned with his initials set against the background of a golden eagle.

His job at Pace ended in 1986 when the university did not renew his contract.

He filed a discrimination suit but lost, at trial and on appeal.

The appellate judge described his filings as ''raving and often incomprehensible.''

But over time, Mr. Batra, a man with the practiced grace of a professional diplomat, built his contacts.

He served on scholarly panels, joined the Jewish Lawyers Guild and the Puerto Rican Bar Association, among other groups, and relied on a personality that people describe as charming or, well, forward.

In particular, he showered attention on judges.

He praised them in letters to newspapers.

He invited them to his Christmas parties.

As an official of several bar associations, he ran affairs where judges were given Judicial Sunshine Awards -- his own creation.

The court in his lexicon was ''the Cathedral of Justice'' and judges were ''jewels in the crown.''

''Each judge that appoints you places his robes in your hands for safekeeping,'' Mr. Batra said.

For lawyers and judges, the sharing of cocktails and canapés at bar association dinners has long been a fact of courthouse life.

But Mr. Batra, according to several judges, pressed for a rare level of familiarity.

He roamed the Supreme Court like it was his country club, they said, at times visiting judges unannounced in their chambers, or parking his car, with permission, in the courthouse's reserved lot.

Some judges felt uncomfortable.

Justice Michael L. Pesce recalled the first time he met Mr. Batra.

The lawyer greeted him, he said, by kissing him on both cheeks.

One justice, Milton Mollen, who has since retired, said Mr. Batra invited him to dinner at his home 10 years ago.

Several days later, Mr. Mollen began receiving calls from other judges, he said, telling him that they would be at the ''birthday party'' Mr. Batra was giving for him.

Mr. Mollen said he thought he was being used and told people not to go.

But he drove to Mr. Batra's home in New Rochelle.

''I told him off and left,'' he said.

Mr. Batra denied Mr. Mollen's account and said the judge had helped to plan the event.

An Appointment to Screen Judges

In 1995, Mr. Batra reinforced his most important political relationship by adding Mr. Norman to his two-person law firm.

Mr. Norman's chief function, Mr. Batra said, was handling ''introductions'' that might result in new business.

Last year, Mr. Norman made $52,000 from the firm.

This year, as part of his salary, the monthly payments on his $80,000 Mercedes Benz were paid by Mr. Batra.

After he joined the firm, Mr. Norman appointed his boss to the Democratic screening panel for judges.

Mr. Norman says he picked Mr. Batra because he is a good lawyer, an opinion that other allies of Mr. Batra share.

''He has a very fertile legal mind and thinks, as we say, outside the box,'' said Martin W. Edelman, president of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.

Nonetheless, Mr. Batra came to be viewed largely as Mr. Norman's surrogate on a panel that critics contend rubber-stamped the party's favored candidates, using criteria that had more to do with campaign contributions than legal acumen.

''There was a total lack of transparency to the process that allowed the public to lose confidence that competence, credentials and integrity were being evaluated in an independent way,'' said City Councilman Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn.

Mr. Batra's popularity as a court appointee picked up drastically after he became affiliated with Mr. Norman in 1995, although more than half the assignments came from Manhattan judges.

Yet some of the judges who selected him were hardly strangers.

Some had dined with him or been honored at parties he organized.

Good judges, Mr. Batra said, ''make an appointment to a person they know and trust and know the job can be done rather than look one up through the Yellow Pages.''

A few times, Mr. Batra said, he made calls on judges' behalf when they sought promotions, but only because they were worthy.

In 1998, for example, Mr. Batra said he tried to help an acting Supreme Court judge, Harold Tompkins, win a permanent spot by calling the Manhattan Democratic leader, Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell Jr.

In the preceding 18 months, Justice Tompkins had given Mr. Batra 10 appointments worth more than $85,000.

Mr. Farrell denied that such a call took place.

Justice Tompkins, now retired, said he did not know of any such call.

Among Mr. Batra's closest friends on the bench, according to interviews, has been Justice Richard D. Huttner in Brooklyn, who has given him 11 appointments.

In 1999, Justice Huttner was one of the judges honored at a $250-a-head dinner that Mr. Batra organized at the Harmonie Club in Manhattan.

A year earlier, the judge had appointed Mr. Batra to oversee the troubled Cypress Hills Cemetery on the Queens-Brooklyn border as its receiver.

In that capacity, Mr. Batra set off a storm in 1999 when, citing their fees, he fired the cemetery's existing lawyers, two politically connected men like himself, and appointed his own firm in their place.

The lawyers wrote to Democratic leaders complaining that their years of loyalty had been disregarded.

Their letter's acknowledgment that appointments typically went to the politically connected had immediate impact.

State investigators began looking into courthouse patronage.

The state attorney general's office asked that Mr. Batra be removed as the cemetery's receiver.

Justice Huttner resisted for weeks before removing Mr. Batra as receiver, but retaining him as the receiver's lawyer.

He resisted again when the attorney general sought in May 2000 to have Mr. Batra completely removed from the case.

The judge said Mr. Batra had done nothing wrong.

But Mr. Batra on his own decided to step down.

The next day, the lawyer and the judge met socially over drinks at a restaurant in the judge's Manhattan apartment building.

The next month, they were back together in court.

This time, Mr. Batra was representing Clarence Norman's father, who was closing his home for the mentally ill.

Should Justice Huttner have disclosed their relationship in court, given their friendship?

Mr. Batra said no.

The judge did not return calls seeking comment.

But it is the kind of question that has arisen in situations where relationships develop between lawyers and judges.

Perceptions of Partiality

The rules that govern judicial conduct are broad in scope.

They instruct judges to make sure they do not allow their social and political relationships to create a perception of partiality.

But just such a perception has arisen in a case where Mr. Batra was friendly with the judge.

The case, in 1994, concerned a fall Mr. Batra said he had from a swivel chair in his office.

He sued the Brooklyn company that sold him the chair.

He said the fall had left him with herniated disks, loss of height, worn-down teeth, heart damage and frustration and anger that ''leaks out in certain relationships,'' according to court papers.

He sought $80 million -- for his suffering, but also for a patio bar and a game room with table-tennis and air-hockey tables ''to permit activity without injury or waste of travel time,'' the papers said.

The case was assigned to acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Diane A. Lebedeff, someone with whom Mr. Batra became friendly.

While she was hearing the case, they occasionally shared a meal, according to interviews.

More significant, she gave him several court appointments, including a 1999 case that state investigators found troubling.

In that case, the judge asked Mr. Batra to evaluate whether a wealthy 94-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease needed a financial guardian.

Mr. Batra charged $400 an hour for his work, nearly double the usual rate, state investigators found.

And when he determined the woman did need a guardian, Justice Lebedeff gave him that post, too, with the family's consent.

All told, he made $84,753 in fees paid from the woman's assets.

The investigators noted that he charged $100 for each of 80 short phone calls and never listed their subject matter.

Eight lawyers involved in the swivel-chair case say that Justice Lebedeff never told them about these appointments.

Leonard Chipkin, a lawyer who represented the furniture store's insurer, said she should have.

''In any personal injury case, credibility is an issue,'' he said.

''If I make a motion challenging the credibility of the plaintiff and I've got a judge who trusts this man with a great deal of money, that's something that I would have wanted to know.''

In an interview, Justice Lebedeff defended her conduct as appropriate and impartial.

She said she could not recall whether she had disclosed the appointments in court or whether she needed to.

''If I had thought it was appropriate to do so, I would have done it,'' she said.

Mr. Batra said the judge did not need to disclose the appointments because the lawyers knew about the relationship, having sat in a hearing about the woman's case in court one day.

Mr. Batra ultimately won a settlement in the swivel-chair case after six years.

Defense lawyers said his case was helped by several orders from Justice Lebedeff -- one of which was overturned by appellate judges who said Justice Lebedeff had not objectively reviewed the history of the case.

Mr. Batra said the defendants paid him $225,000.

The facts, he said, were simply on his side.

''The impartiality of the court process,'' Mr. Batra said, ''substantively cannot be toyed with.''

Correction: November 22, 2003, Saturday Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Nov. 11 about Ravi Batra, a Manhattan lawyer who has been an influential figure within the Brooklyn courts, misstated the retirement status of a judge, Milton Mollen, at the time Mr. Batra organized a party for him, under circumstances that the two men dispute.

The judge had retired several years earlier; he was no longer on the bench.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...mp;pagewanted=1

[Livyjr]

New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct

In the Matter of the Proceeding Pursuant to Section 44, subdivision 4, of the Judiciary Law in Relation to DIANE A. LEBEDEFF, a Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York and an Acting Justice of the Supreme Court, New York County.

THE COMMISSION:

Lawrence S. Goldman, Esq., Chair

Honorable Frances A. Ciardullo, Vice Chair

Stephen R. Coffey, Esq.

Colleen C. DiPirro

Richard D. Emery, Esq.

Raoul Lionel Felder, Esq.

Christina Hernandez, M.S.W.

Honorable Daniel F. Luciano

Honorable Karen K. Peters

Alan J. Pope, Esq.

Honorable Terry Jane Ruderman

APPEARANCES:

Robert H. Tembeckjian (Vickie Ma, Of Counsel) for the Commission

Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman & Mackauf (by Ben B. Rubinowitz) for Respondent

The respondent, Diane A. Lebedeff, a judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York and an acting justice of the Supreme Court, New York County, was served with a Formal Written Complaint dated November 9, 2004, containing one charge.

On February 22, 2005, the administrator of the Commission, respondent and respondent’s counsel entered into an Agreed Statement of Facts pursuant to Judiciary Law §44(5), stipulating that the Commission make its determination based upon the agreed facts, recommending that respondent be censured and waiving further submissions and oral argument.

On March 10, 2005, the Commission approved the agreed statement and made the following determination.

1. Respondent has been a judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County since 1983 and an acting justice of the Supreme Court since 1988.

Respondent is an attorney.

2. From on or about September 1994 to on or about May 2000, respondent presided over Batra v. Office Furniture Service, Inc., et al. (“Batra v. Office Furniture”), a civil matter that, at various times, involved ten different parties, and even more attorneys appearing at various times for each of these parties, including defendant Kaspar Wire Works.

The plaintiffs, Ravi Batra and his wife, Ranju Batra, appeared by co-plaintiff Ravi Batra, an attorney licensed to practice law in New York.

The plaintiffs sought $80 million in damages as a result of Mr. Batra’s alleged fall off a swivel chair in his law office.

3. Respondent has known Mr. Batra in both professional and social settings since the late 1980s.

Respondent and Mr. Batra have been in attendance at bar association meetings and have been to each other’s homes, dined at restaurants together on various occasions, exchanged nominal gifts such as candy to each other’s children, and had at least one joint family outing together.

Respondent and Mr. Batra are friendly.

4. Respondent did not disclose her relationship with Mr. Batra to the defendants or defense attorneys in Batra v. Office Furniture.

5. Respondent and Mr. Batra socialized together during the period from 1994 to 2000 that Batra v. Office Furniture was pending before respondent.

In that period, they had lunch together on at least two occasions, engaged in personal or social conversations with one another and met with one another in court to the exclusion of the other attorneys in the matter.

6. Approximately five times in the course of presiding over appearances in the matter, respondent excused the defense attorneys and stated that she was going to engage in “gossip” or other social conversation not related to the case, with Mr. Batra.

On those occasions, she thereupon spoke with Mr. Batra privately in her robing room or chambers.

7. Respondent awarded Mr. Batra several fiduciary appointments while Batra v. Office Furniture was pending, including a lucrative guardianship in Matter of Sylvia Marco in 1999, in which respondent approved on consent a total of $84,000 in fees to Mr. Batra.

8. Respondent did not disclose her fiduciary appointments of Mr. Batra to the other defendants or defense attorneys in Batra v. Office Furniture.

9. On July 26, 1999, respondent struck the responsive pleadings of third-party defendant Kaspar Wire Works for failing by one day to meet a stipulated 45-day discovery deadline, which was stipulated by the attorneys, each attorney knowing that non-compliance would result in the striking of the responsive pleading.

10. By Order dated November 1, 1999, which was later expanded on the record on January 21, 2000, respondent granted Mr. Batra’s motion for sanctions against defendant Office Furniture and referred the matter to a special referee to determine the amount of sanctions.

11. On August 10, 2000, the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed and reinstated Kaspar’s pleadings, noting as follows:

Had the IAS Court [respondent] objectively reviewed the history of this case, it could not have concluded that Kaspar’s slight and arguably justified delay was in any way comparable to the years of dilatory practice in obstructing discovery that took place preceding Kaspar’s arrival on the scene.

12. Thereafter, Batra v. Office Furniture was transferred to another judge, and the case was concluded with Mr. Batra’s acceptance of a settlement in the amount of $225,000.

13. Respondent now appreciates that her impartiality could reasonably be questioned in Batra v. Office Furniture because of her friendship with Mr. Batra, and that she should at least have disclosed her relationship to Mr. Batra, on the record.

14. Respondent now appreciates that, having decided to preside over Batra v. Office Furniture, she should not have socialized with Mr. Batra while the case was pending.

15. Respondent now appreciates that, insofar as the award of a fiduciary appointment signifies a judge’s confidence in the credibility and integrity of the appointee, awarding Mr. Batra fiduciary appointments at the same time that he was a litigant whose credibility she would have to evaluate in a personal injury case in which he was seeking monetary damages created a direct conflict.

16. Although respondent was publicly censured in November 2003 for conduct related to her award of fiduciary appointments to Alice Krause, her friend and tax accountant, the conduct therein overlapped the conduct herein, and respondent’s conduct herein does not constitute a failure to abide by the November 2003 public censure.

Upon the foregoing findings of fact, the Commission concludes as a matter of law that respondent violated Sections 100.1, 100.2(A) and 100.3(E)(1) of the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct and should be disciplined for cause, pursuant to Article 6, Section 22, subdivision a, of the New York State Constitution and Section 44, subdivision 1, of the Judiciary Law.

Charge I of the Formal Written Complaint is sustained insofar as it is consistent with the above findings and conclusions, and respondent’s misconduct is established.

A judge’s disqualification is required in any matter where the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned (Section 100.3[E][1] of the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct [“Rules”]).

As respondent has stipulated, she violated that standard by presiding over a personal injury case in which the co-plaintiff was Ravi Batra, an attorney with whom she had a significant social and professional relationship.

See, Matter of Robert, 1997 Annual Report 127, accepted, 89 NY2d 745 (1997); Matter of DiBlasi, 2002 Annual Report 87 (Comm. on Judicial Conduct).

For more than five years, respondent presided over and made numerous rulings in the Batra case, in which Mr. Batra and his wife were seeking $80 million in damages.

Respondent did not disclose her relationship with Mr. Batra, which included dinners together, visits to each others’ homes, and at least one joint family outing, and she continued to socialize with Mr. Batra while his case was pending before her.

During that time, not only did they lunch together and have private meetings and conversations in court, but on several occasions respondent specifically excused the other attorneys in the case so that she could “gossip” privately with Mr. Batra.

Such conduct created an appearance of impropriety, in violation of well-established ethical standards (Rules, §100.2[A]) and demonstrates a glaring insensitivity by respondent to her duty to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Under the circumstances, even if the judge had scrupulously avoided discussing the merits of Mr. Batra’s case during their private conversations, the appearance of impropriety would be inevitable.

During this same period, respondent awarded fiduciary appointments to Mr. Batra, including an appointment to a lucrative guardianship resulting in a fee of $84,000.

The appointments compound the appearance that she could not be impartial in Mr. Batra’s case.

The award of a fiduciary appointment signifies a judge’s confidence in the credibility and integrity of the appointee.

In the litigation before her, respondent was necessarily required to evaluate Mr. Batra’s credibility, and she should have recognized her ethical obligation not to preside in the case.

In one ruling in the case, respondent granted Mr. Batra’s motion for sanctions against one of Mr. Batra’s adversaries.

Another of respondent’s rulings was overturned by the Appellate Division, in a decision suggesting that the ruling, on its face, showed a lack of “objectiv[ity]” by respondent.

(Following that ruling, the case was transferred to another judge.)

Because of her relationship with Mr. Batra, respondent’s rulings in his favor raise a suspicion that she was influenced by personal considerations.

See, Matter of Simeone, 2005 Annual Report ___ (Comm. on Judicial Conduct), http://www.scjc.state.ny.us/Determinations/S/simeone.htm.

Such an appearance is inimical to public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, as respondent should have recognized.

Her apparent failure to realize that her relationship with Mr. Batra would raise the question whether her rulings were based solely on the merits is shocking and suggests an unacceptable insensitivity to judicial ethics.

We note that respondent has previously been censured for creating an appearance of impropriety by failing to pay her accountant for tax preparation services over the same period that she was appointing the accountant as a fiduciary and approving the accountant’s compensation.

Matter of Lebedeff, 2004 Annual Report 128 (Comm. on Judicial Conduct).

As in that case, we conclude here that respondent’s “dereliction of her ethical responsibilities created an appearance of impropriety” and “jeopardizes the public’s respect for the judiciary as a whole, which is essential to the administration of justice.”

The misconduct set forth herein overlapped respondent’s misconduct in the earlier matter and predated the Commission’s proceedings concerning it.

Had it postdated the earlier determination, we would have been constrained to consider whether respondent ignored the Commission’s warnings concerning her ethical obligations and whether the sanction of removal was warranted.

As set forth herein, respondent’s misconduct amply justifies the sanction of censure.

In view of respondent’s disciplinary history, any future ethical transgressions may be met with a more severe sanction.

By reason of the foregoing, the Commission determines that the appropriate disposition is censure.

Mr. Goldman, Judge Ciardullo, Mr. Coffey, Mr. Emery, Mr. Felder, Ms. Hernandez, Judge Peters, Mr. Pope and Judge Ruderman concur.

Ms. DiPirro and Judge Luciano were not present.

Dated: March 18, 2005

http://www.scjc.state.ny.us/Determinations...ebedeff_(2).htm

[Livyjr]

ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

And since there are a lot of “evidence” types in here who want to “SEE THE BEEF” as it were, when charges of on-going public corruption are laid against public officials in here ..

In support of what I am stating about the “use” of the NYSP to intimidate and harass citizens in order to cover over public corruption in NYS, I have here before me right now on my desk a copy of a March 2, 1990 correspondence on STATE OF NEW YORK NEW YORK STATE POLICE letterhead from Edward J. Minahan, Lieutenant Colonel, Assistant Deputy Superintendent, NYSP, to former Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer Paul R. Plante, P.E., of Joe Bruno’s CORRUPT Rensselaer County acknowledging receipt of a February 15, 1990 letter from Plante to the Superintendent of the NYSP at that time …

That letter to the NYSP from Plante concerned itself with the cover-up by the NYSP of a HIT-AND-RUN ASSAULT on Plante on December 29, 1989 by a GOON allegedly associated with the JOE BRUNO MACHINE in Rensselaer County …

At the time, Plante had been investigating corruption in the Rensselaer County and New York State Departments of Health, which had resulted in a March 15, 1989 REPORT OF INVESTIGATION by then-NYS Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod which confirmed corruption in the NYS and Rensselaer County Dept’s. of Health going back to around 1977 or 1978 …

That REPORT OF INVESTIGATION was subsequently in the hands of the FBI in Albany in connection with a federal Hobbs Act “public corruption” investigation in Rensselaer County that had roped in none other than “BIG JOE” Bruno himself, in connection with his own “land dealings” in Rensselaer County, where the Rensselaer County Department of Health was Joe’s personal “rubber-stamping machine” for him and his protected and connected “buddies” and “pals” …

So …

To get rid of the investigation, all that was necessary to do was to get rid of the witness …

And so it was done …

And the NYSP were an integral part of that “final solution” …

And this is not just smoke that I am blowing here ..

There is already discussion of this same incident at:

http://blogs.timesunion.com/localpolitics/?p=193#comments

Where then-Assistant Rensselaer County District Attorney Richard McNally can be seen having to stand before then-Rensselaer County Court Judge M. Andrew Dwyer to tell the judge that McNally “had no evidence” …

The “evidence” that McNally did have was lies from New York State Troopers …

Which is what the March 2, 1990 Minahan letter to Plante was about …

The highest echelons of the NYSP knew of this hit-and-run, and they knew of the cover-up by NYS Troopers …

And they elected to protect the Troopers and the lies …

All of which is a sorry, ugly chapter in NYS history that is very well-documented in the records of the Rensselaer County Clerk …

And yes, two of those Troopers involved in the cover-up of that hit-and-run were promoted to BCI …

And so …

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5169#comments

[Livyjr]

ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Comment by John Galt — August 8, 2007 @ 7:32 am

More recently, in August of 2001, to be exact, when Eliot “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer was the NYS AG, this same engineer Plante was documenting with a digital video-camera the same type of on-going corruption which had existed in 1988 in the Rensselaer County Dept. of Health involving licensed professional engineers making and filing false reports with the Rensselaer County Department of Health to obtain various permits, when he was assaulted on camera by a young thug who openly bragged on camera about being a “protected person” in Rensselaer County who was an untouchable ...

On August 22, 2001, this same individual was able to “procure” for a “disbursement” a fraudulent “involuntary psychiatric commitment order” for Plante from a political doctor in Troy, New York …

According to public records and the sworn affidavit of an Albany, New York Police Officer who happened to be an eye-witness to the false imprisonment of Plante in the secure psychiatric wing of the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany based on that fraudulent commitment order, the actual securing of that fraudulent “commitment order” on August 22, 2001 directly involved the active participation of a NYSP BCI investigator in the office of “BIG JOE” Bruno’s son, Kenneth, who was then Rensselaer County District Attorney …

According to public records, the office of Eliot “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer got the sworn affidavit of the Albany Police Officer suppressed, and the NYSP BCI Investigator simply shut his mouth, and the office of NYS AG Eliot “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer protected the BCI Investigator and kept quiet his role in the commission of alleged state and federal crimes, in the words of Rensselaer County Court Judge Patrick McGrath, who himself had reviewed the evidence, including the videotape of the assault, and the sworn affidavit of the Albany police officer, which the SPITZER-ITES managed to suppress to protect the PERPS and the NYSP …

And so …

That folks, is another part of the sad and very ugly history of NYS, including the “use” of the NYSP to harass and intimidate NYS citizens who would challenge corruption and the staus quo in Albany, that is preserved in extensive public records here in NYS …

And so …

Sorry Terry O’Niell, Esq., and Boyer U. Klum-Cey and Impeach Eliot …

But that is just how the actual story as documented in public records here in NYS goes …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 8, 2007 @ 7:55 am

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5169#comments

[Livyjr]

September 18, 2004

TO: Hon. Gary L. Sharpe
United States District Judge
United States District Court Northern District of New York

PLAINTIFF'S Request for permission to file Reply Affidavit pursuant to L.R. 7.1(b)(2)

Your Honor:

Pursuant to L.R.7.1(b)(2), I am requesting permission of the Court to file the Reply Affidavit enclosed herein, in reply to patently false, misleading and/or inaccurate assertions in the September 15, 2004 Memorandum of Law on behalf of defendant William "Buck" Shea filed with this Court on or about September 16, 2004 by New York State Assistant Attorney General Nelson R. Sheingold, Bar Roll No. 601895, which incidentally, was after the September 14, 2004 due date for the filing of such papers.

As to the request for permission to file a Reply Affidavit pursuant to L.R. 7.1(b)(2), it is necessary to file said Reply Affidavit because of patently false, misleading and/or inaccurate statements in the Opposition Brief of attorney Sheingold which clearly serve to further prejudice PLAINTIFF's interests in this above matter if not replied to in a timely manner.

Specifically, in his Preliminary Statement, attorney Sheingold makes the following patently false or misleading statement or assertion, that "Plaintiff also has named a lone New York State defendant, his alleged one-time New York Veterans' Affairs Counselor, William 'BUCK' Shea, in the complaint."

This statement is patently false on its face, and is prejudicial to plaintiff to boot!

PLAINTIFF, on the one hand, HAS NEVER HAD a New York State Veterans Affairs "Counselor" of any kind, as the New York State Division of Veterans' Affairs does not "counsel" plaintiff in any way, and specifically, defendant William "BUCK" Shea has never, at any time, served in such a capacity with respect to this plaintiff as a disabled veteran in the State of New York.

This is, in fact, nothing more than a blatant attempt by attorney Sheingold to walk right around the facts in this matter, and to instead create from whole-cloth a bogus "reporting relationship" between PLAINTIFF and defendant William "BUCK" Shea, which would appear, on the surface, to give defendant William "BUCK" Shea some type of authority, jurisdiction or discretion or custodial relationship over the person of the PLAINTIFF herein, where in fact, no such relationships exist, or have ever existed.

This need to controvert this falsehood is directly relevant to this matter where a New York State Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 involuntary commitment order was in fact issued for PLAINTIFF's arrest, despite the fact that no proper reporter existed to cause the lawful issuance of such an order.

The fact is now that each and every day of plaintiff's life, PLAINTIFF is confronted with that 9.45 order as alleged "proof" that plaintiff has an alleged mental illness!

Without any trial, without any due process, without even knowing who all of his accusers are, and without being able to confront any of those accusers, PLAINTIFF has had his good name and professional reputation and his innocence stripped from him, only to be replaced, unlawfully, with a stink on the one hand, of being an alleged "dangerous, mental patient", and a guilt on the other of having allegedly "threatened" defendants Jeffrey Pelletier, William "BUCK" Shea and Rober "BOB" Reiter, when such allegations are in fact, completely false!

Each day of plaintiff's life, since August 22, 2001, plaintiff is confronted with this stink, to plaintiff's continuing detriment, and once more again, on September 15, 2004, in his sworn Declaration to this Court, and especially in his Memorandum of Law to this Court on behalf of defendant "BUCK", attorney Nelson R. Sheingold, acting on behalf of the State of New York itself, has once more confronted plaintiff with this falsehood, with this stink.

No more graphic proof of the need for injunctive relief in this matter than that could be presented to this Court by PLAINTIFF than the false words of attorney Sheingold in the Preliminary Statement of the Opposition Brief he filed with this Court on September 15, 2004, or thereafter.

This chicanery on the part of attorney Sheingold is nothing less than a blatant attempt to create the illusion or appearance of such a reporting relationship, and that is very prejudicial to PLAINTIFF's interests in this above matter if not timely challenged on the record by the filing of the Reply Affidavit enclosed herein.

Further down in his Preliminary Statement, attorney Sheingold then makes another prejudicial false, misleading and/or inaccurate statement which PLAINTIFF must also timely challenge by filing the Reply Affidavit enclosed herein, if PLAINTIFF's right to due process in this above matter is not to be compromised completely and totally by attorney Sheingold acting on behalf of defendant William "BUCK" Shea, to wit:

"Indeed, as set forth in defendant Shea's motion papers, PLAINTIFF concedes that Mr. Shea was not only not involved in the issuance of this Mental Hygiene 9.45 order, but he admits that it was never enforced in that PLAINTIFF voluntarily appeared at the psychiatric facility."

Here are two more patently false and extremely prejudicial statements against PLAINTIFF's interests by attorney Sheingold following in rapid-fire succession the first one above, and attorney Sheingold is only barely half a page into his opposition papers.

First of all, the issue, the real issue herein, is the issuance itself of the 9.45 order, and the fact that the issuance of that order is still being treated as lawful in this case by the Attorney General of the State of New York, in light of the very specific provisions of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

To continue to treat the issuance of that specific 9.45 order in this above matter as lawful, despite the provisions of Rule 11, where defendant CORPORATE DOCTOR, the issuing physician of the 9.45 order, never even bothered with any of the legal requirements in the issuance of such orders, such as perhaps examining plaintiff, or getting a glimpse of plaintiff in passing on a street, maybe, or even having the slightest idea as to who plaintiff was before he issued the 9.45 order, as the New York State Attorney General is doing herein, is to create a "special class" for plaintiff in the State of New York of those without rights because they tried to expose corruption in the State of New York, the County of Rensselaer and the Town of Poestenkill.

The proposed injunction is intended to stifle that practice, that policy, and to hopefully end it forever, at least in the case of this PLAINTIFF.

From a review of the bottom of page 2 of the United States Veterans' Administration Police Report annexed to the Rule 65 Motion as Exhibit C, it is patently clear that defendant William "BUCK" Shea was directly involved with the issuance of the Mental Hygiene 9.45 order, in this above matter, as well as making and filing false reports with the United States Veterans Administration Police, and upon information and belief, with the Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York State Police, as well as the Rensselaer County District Attorney's Office.

So that assertion by attorney Sheingold above from his Preliminary Statement is also, simply a falsehood.

As to attorney Sheingold's assertion that plaintiff voluntarily "appeared" at the Samaritan Hospital secure psychiatric facility, that is another completely bald-faced lie.

At no time either before or after August 21, 2001 did PLAINTIFF ever appear at the Samaritan Hospital psychiatric facility, nor did the alleged conversations reported to the United States Veterans Administration Police at the bottom of page 2 of Exhibit C of the Rule 65 Motion ever take place.

That is a complete and total fabrication by Defendant William "BUCK" Shea, and yet, those false assertions by defendant William "BUCK" Shea remain indelibly in plaintiff's records to this day, as though they really happened, and so plaintiff is prejudiced, even at the Albany VA Hospital, where such false assertions by defendant William "BUCK" Shea continue to haunt PLAINTIFF, who cannot have those false assertions removed from his VA records unless PLAINTIFF continues this litigation herein to its conclusion, with defendant William "BUCK" Shea admitting under oath on the record that such claims as he reported to the VA Police on August 22, 2001 are patently false.

With his further false assertions to this Court, attorney Sheingold is simply trying to thwart those efforts by PLAINTIFF, to PLAINTIFF's detriment, as those false statements filed by defendant William "BUCK" Shea with the VA Police have a continuous, very deleterious effect on PLAINTIFF's health, and the treatment which PLAINTIFF can get at the VA, which is blocked by these false statements of defendant William "BUCK" Shea which are a permanent part now of PLAINTIFF's VA medical records!

In support of this request to file the Reply Affidavit, I have annexed hereto and made a part hereof a copy of an October 27, 2003 Opinion and Decision of Federal District Court Judge Lynn N. Hughes, available at the Southern District of Texas Court web-site, in the matter of United States of America v. Wilson, Criminal Case H-82-139, which is directly relevant to the amount of latitude this Court should afford the Attorney General of the State of New York in making false statements to this Court, or continuing to present this Court with false evidence, that being the statements that defendant William "BUCK" Shea has made to the VA Police, and the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the New York State Police:

"Because the government knowingly used false evidence against him and suppressed favorable evidence, his conviction will be vacated."

Thanking Your Honor in advance for your prompt consideration of this matter, I remain

Respectfully yours,

PLAINTIFF

ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Well, well …

Nelson Sheingold …

This is like DEJA VU and OLD HOME WEEK all over again, and all wrapped up in one ….

And it is ironic indeed that “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer would be depending upon Nelson Sheingold to defend him against charges that “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer’s crowd were using or misusing the NYSP for political purposes …

For just the other day in here, at:

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5169#comments

We were talking about Eliot “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer’ office of NYS AG covering over the use for political purposes to stifle dissent in Rensselaer County of a NYSP BCI Investigator assigned to the office of Joe Bruno’s boy, Kenneth, when Kenneth was the Rensselaer County District Attorney on August 22, 2001, the day the BCI Investigator facilitated the “obtaining” of a fraudulent involuntary psychiatric commitment on behalf of a “PROTECTED PERSON” in the Town of Poestenkill in Joe Bruno’s Rensselaer County which resulted in disabled-Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer Paul R. Plante, P.E. being unlawfully imprisoned, in the words of Rensselaer County Court Judge Patrick McGrath, in the secure psychiatric facility of the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany, until an Albany Police Officer was able to demonstrate to VA officials the unlawful nature of the imprisonment and secured Plante’s immediate release …..

Nelson Sheingold was Eliot “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer’s assistant attorney general who successfully managed in 2005 to have the Albany Police Officer’s sworn eye-witness affidavit suppressed in federal District Court for the Northern District of New York to hide the involvement of the NYSP BCI Investigator in facilitating alleged federal and state crimes …

And so …

Yes, indeedy ….

Just like OLD HOME WEEK in here today …

With Nelson Sheingold dancing up there on the main stage for all the candid world to see …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 9, 2007 @ 5:53 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5183#comments

[Livyjr]

"Zwack won't recuse himself from case - Judge says he is not prejudiced against Rensselaer Democrat who testified against him"

By TIM O'BRIEN and JIMMY VIELKIND, Staff writers, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, August 4, 2007

TROY -- Rensselaer County's Democratic Party chairman is seeking the removal of a judge from a legal case because he once testified against the jurist.

The party leader, Thomas Wade, is being sued over the handling of changes to the party's bylaws by Jeffrey Spain, chairman of the East Greenbush Democratic Committee.

The case was heard Tuesday by acting state Supreme Court Justice Henry F. Zwack.

Wade testified in a 2001 trial against Zwack, a former county executive.

"Legislator blasts Rensselaer County over settlement"

By BOB GARDINIER, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 9:59 a.m., Monday, August 13, 2007

TROY -- A minority Democrat will hold a press conference this morning asking the county Legislature to hold a public hearing to air details of an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit by a former employee that will cost taxpayers $125,000.

Legislator Kevin Harrington said that officials should explain why the sudden settlement was reached Friday in a case that was to begin this morning in federal court.

The settlement, which will cost the county $125,000 and its insurance carrier $60,000, involved a 2003 lawsuit by former Rensselaer County Director of Real Property Tax Services Jeffry Jackson.

Jackson, who served under former county Executive Henry Zwack, alleged that his employment with the county was terminated by Zwack's successor Kathy Jimino after 27 years because he spoke out regarding irregularities in tax collections under the former administration.

Jackson was let go just after Jimino took office.

"The settlement protected Zwack and Jimino from testifying at the expense of county taxpayers,'' Harrington said.

The suit accused Zwack of directing Jimino not to reappoint Jackson after he repeatedly told Zwack that the county was violating state law by creating a county law removing the job of tax mapping from the Bureau of Tax Services.

The dispute allegedly turned ugly in January 2000 when, according to Jackson, Zwack summoned Jackson into his office and screamed obscenities at him as publicity swirled around a series of bureaucratic missteps that Zwack had blamed on Jackson, according to the lawsuit.

Zwack allegedly told Jackson he was going to ruin him and his family, the lawsuit states.

Zwack resigned on May 14, 2001, and was later cleared of government corruption charges at a pair of criminal trials unrelated to Jackson's allegations.

Other county officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Jimino's office has said she would not comment until the settlement is voted on by the legislature.

[Livyjr]

THE WEEKLY STANDARD

"Troopergate, New York-Style - Eliot Spitzer's character problem"

by Michael Goodwin and Fred Siegel

08/20/2007, Volume 012, Issue 46

Even by the scandal-pocked history of New York politics, Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace is extraordinary.

A mere seven months into his term after a landslide victory, the Empire State's brash new governor is openly ridiculed as a liar and worse.

An astonishing 80 percent of respondents tell pollsters they want the governor to testify under oath to prove his claim that he had nothing to do with "troopergate," a dirty-tricks plot to smear Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, a Republican rival.

His fellow Democratic pols are largely abandoning him.

After two investigations found that his top aides used the state police for a political hit job, and with four more probes gearing up, one of which could bring indictments, Spitzer is suddenly a lonely man.

As one prominent supporter put it, "nobody believes him when he says he didn't know."

Left unsaid was the glee that many feel at Spitzer's comeuppance.

This is not the turn the script was supposed to take.

The boy wonder, elected state attorney general at the tender age of 39, rocketed to fame as the Sheriff of Wall Street.

Following the tech bust on Wall Street, Spitzer emerged as the defender of the little guys who had been bilked by the insiders.

He exposed the double dealing investment advice handed out to small customers by Merrill Lynch, the after-market-hours trade by Canary Capital, and kickback schemes by insurance giant Marsh & McLennan.

That he sometimes was more zealous than fair was, to his supporters, beside the point.

Following the massive Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing scandals, and as the Bush administration and the SEC slept, Spitzer stepped into the vacuum.

The field was open for an ambitious young gunslinger with a taste for headlines and scalps--an opening tailor-made for Spitzer.

The political payoff was fast and huge.

For Democrats demoralized by Al Gore's defeat and dismayed by the victories of Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in New York City and Governor George Pataki in Albany, Spitzer was a godsend.

His image as a tough prosecutor fighting the battles of what he called "the investor class," supposedly an emerging GOP constituency, propelled him to stardom.

He was variously described by the national press as the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt, Batman in a three-piece suit, and the new King Arthur.

A New York Times Magazine story in 2005 asked, "Is a prosecutor's zeal what the Democrats need?"

The angry avenger suddenly seemed the party's savior.

Long before the 2006 gubernatorial election, he was the presumed winner, especially after Pataki decided not to seek a fourth term.

Already there was talk that Spitzer had his eye on bigger fish--becoming the first Jewish president of the United States.

The way he was going, it certainly seemed possible.

Ah, but there is a catch.

His admirable argument about how even the big guys have to play by the rules didn't apply to his own conduct.

Eliot Spitzer, it turns out, is a deeply flawed savior.

From the very beginning of his political career, there was evidence of a character problem, one marked by an uneasy relationship with the truth.

He misled the public, the press, and state election officials about how he was financing both his failed 1994 race for attorney general and his successful one in 1998.

Confronted by Michael Goodwin about his repeated lies on the subject just before election day in 1998, Spitzer didn't deny it.

"I had to," he said of his lies, as though it was the most natural thing to do, and therefore acceptable.

His reason, he said, was that his father, who had funded his campaigns to the tune of some $7 million, wanted to keep his role private.

But even that wasn't the whole truth.

As a neophyte with no political base, Spitzer would not have been able to raise the money for his first campaign legitimately, so the candidate himself had reason to keep the source secret.

These were the days before Bloomberg broke the taboo on the ultra-rich running for office, so Spitzer was careful not to advertise that he was the scion to a real estate empire said to be worth $500 million.

Indeed, Spitzer has always been uncomfortable about his background, often suggesting he was a tough guy by saying "I'm from the Bronx" even though he grew up in a mansion in the exclusive Riverdale section.

He never set foot in a public school, going through a series of prestigious private ones: Horace Mann School, Princeton, Harvard Law.

Spitzer still goes to great lengths to hide the extent to which his multimillionaire father supports him.

Few people realize that Spitzer, his wife, and three daughters do not live in the governor's mansion in Albany, but instead live rent-free in a huge apartment overlooking Manhattan's Central Park.

The 25-story building, on Fifth Avenue near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has just two apartments per floor, and Spitzer lives in a pad that real estate brokers say would easily go for $20,000 a month on the open market.

His father, Eliot Spitzer's office said, pays unspecified gift taxes for his son's use of the apartment in the building, which the father owns.

After quitting the Manhattan DA's office in the early '90s, Spitzer toyed with starting a local think-tank modeled on the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and, in the days when Giuliani was shaking up Gotham, was a rare Democrat saying nice things about the GOP mayor.

Yet Giuliani, also a former prosecutor, did not return the favor.

He once joked that, after being in a room with Spitzer, "I feel like I need a shower."

Democratic voters might have reached a similar conclusion, for Spitzer's first attempt at elective office was a dud.

In that run for attorney general in 1994, he finished fourth in a field of four Democrats seeking the party's nomination.

Instead of going into the family business--something he said he would have done if all else failed--Spitzer got into his car and drove around upstate New York, making nice with local pols.

He told New York magazine he racked up 70,000 miles in what he called "purgatory."

Others have hinted that he wasn't just spending time--he was buying support with Dad's cash.

Whatever the truth, the turnabout was dramatic.

Spitzer easily rolled through the 1998 primary and was on the verge of ousting Republican incumbent Dennis Vacco when he finally admitted that the millions in loans he had taken out for both races were really being paid off by his father--a no-no under even New York's notoriously lax election laws.

To describe Spitzer's campaign books as convoluted would be an understatement.

Early in the 1994 campaign, Spitzer took out a $4 million loan from a bank, using as collateral eight condominium apartments his father had given him.

The apartments, in 200 Central Park South, a prime location near the Plaza Hotel, had been leased to tenants, with Eliot living off the income stream, probably several hundred thousand dollars annually.

(Spitzer also received $200,000 from his father for "consulting.")

Spitzer then loaned the $4 million to his campaign.

Under state law, however, campaign loans automatically become donations if they are not repaid by election day.

They were not repaid in this case, and, even worse for Spitzer, he lost.

His $4 million loan was now deemed a contribution, and he owed the money to the bank.

Four years later, the public learned how Spitzer repaid the bulk of the loan: He borrowed $3 million from his father, which he then gave to the bank.

Under the terms of the loan, Eliot had 10 years to pay his father back the $3 million, at 7 percent interest.

Early in the '98 race, Spitzer repeated the process.

He got a new bank loan, this time for $4.8 million, again using the eight apartments as collateral, then gave the money to his campaign, again as a personal loan.

When he disclosed the '98 transaction, Vacco complained that no bank would lend anyone that much money based on Spitzer's reported income, and began demanding details on how Spitzer repaid the '94 loan.

Spitzer responded by saying that the $4.8 million loan covered both of his campaigns, a statement he made over and over.

Then suddenly, late in the race, Spitzer confessed that the $4.8 million loan covered only 1998, and that he had repaid the 1994 bank loan by borrowing from his father.

The news hurt him and gave Vacco a lift, but it was not enough to stem the partisan tide in a strong Democratic year that saw Chuck Schumer defeat incumbent senator Al D'Amato by 10 points.

Spitzer won, but he had a new problem: He owed the bank $4.8 million, in addition to owing $3 million to his father.

Of course, technically, the $4.8 million was owed to him by his own campaign.

As for the $3 million, Dad was not exactly a demanding creditor, since his terms did not require any payments for 10 years.

As the incoming attorney general, Spitzer was in a commanding position to raise the money from contributors to repay himself.

Although the maneuver would have been legal, it would have failed the smell test.

It's one thing for a candidate to solicit contributions during the race, it's quite another for a victorious candidate to do the same thing to repay himself.

The Daily News editorial board recognized the ethical sinkhole and urged Spitzer to make a clean break by declaring the $4.8 million a donation and forgo asking contributors for money.

"If I did that, I'd be a pauper," Spitzer told the paper.

But he did another honorable thing, or so it seemed.

In February 1999, a month after he took office, he sold the eight apartments for $6.1 million to repay the 1998 bank loan and his father some of the money he owed him.

The News asked Spitzer who had bought the apartments.

The answer was shocking, if not surprising: Dad.

Bernard Spitzer paid $6.1 million to buy back the same apartments he had once given his son as a gift.

(Only in late 2004, as he prepared to run for governor, did Spitzer finally finish paying back his father for the 1994 loan. Spitzer told Daily News editorial writer Michael Aronson that he had sold $4 million of municipal bonds to retire the remaining debt, with interest. It's a safe bet that, somewhere along the line, that money had also come from Dad.)

Even now, the family wheeling and dealing hasn't stopped.

Eliot's government salary when he became attorney general in 1999 was about $150,000, not nearly enough to support his lifestyle, even with a free apartment.

The rental stream from the eight condos had been Eliot's main source of income, and now it was gone.

Again, Dad came to the rescue.

Several days after buying the apartments back, he secretly made Eliot and his other two adult children each one-third partners in a real estate firm called Spitzer-Madison.

For his share, which required him to put up no money and allowed him to be a passive investor, Eliot was given the income stream from a block of high-end storefronts on glitzy Madison Avenue that were part of a master lease on an apartment house the father owns.

That made the attorney general, and now the governor of New York, a landlord of such tenants as Church's shoes, Ghurka leather store, and jeweler Georg Jensen.

The rents paid him $949,581 that first year, according to financial filings.

Daily News investigative reporter Douglas Feiden, who unearthed the cozy landlord deal, questioned Spitzer's office in 2006 about the arrangement.

Eliot Spitzer's office said Bernard Spitzer paid a gift tax when he made his three children partners in Spitzer-Madison.

The spokesman wouldn't disclose the gift's value or the amount of tax Bernard paid, saying that Spitzer prefers to keep details of his personal finances private.

That Spitzer is embarrassed by the fact that he is living off his father's money is clear from the way he fought disclosure of his father's role and continued support.

Yet the plutocratic populist seems to want it both ways.

"Money is a cancer in politics," he told an interviewer in 1998.

But it's not a cancer he intends to eliminate.

As Feiden also documented, Spitzer has a questionable relationship with his family's foundation, the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust.

With assets of nearly $26 million, it has given away millions to good causes such as combating juvenile diabetes and battling anti-Semitism.

Eliot, his brother and sister, and parents all serve as unpaid advisers who decide where the money goes.

Reporter Feiden discovered that Spitzer had continued to serve quietly in that role even as attorney general, when he was responsible for regulating charities, a fact that brought criticism from good-government groups.

The dual roles are more than an appearance of conflict, with some of the trust's donations helping Eliot's career.

The trust has donated at least $140,000 to public advocacy groups that have, in turn, endorsed Eliot for political office.

An offshoot of the Working Families Party, a liberal group that has a coveted line on the state election ballot, and a foundation tied to NARAL, the abortion-rights group, have each gotten tens of thousands from the Spitzer trust while endorsing Eliot.

In one remarkable instance, the head of NARAL blasted Spitzer's primary opponent in 2006 for governor as "not trustworthy" even though the opponent and Spitzer had nearly identical records and positions in support of abortion rights.

NARAL has received $101,000 from the Spitzer trust since Eliot became a trustee.

Most of the trust's millions have been invested with hedge funds, whose managers contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Eliot's campaigns.

That fact led a Common Cause official to caution that "his private life, family life, and charitable life could all bleed into his public life."

Spitzer dismissed those concerns, and a state ethics panel later allowed him to continue to advise the trust, though he would have to recuse himself if there were to be an investigation.

In terms of raising money for his campaigns, Spitzer has come a long way.

He was such a prohibitive favorite to become governor in 2006 that he had no trouble raising nearly $40 million, with his family giving at least $326,000.

And although he captured 80 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary and 69 percent in the general election, Spitzer pushed the ethical envelope.

Indeed, when victory was his, Spitzer proposed a series of changes to election laws that would have outlawed some of the very practices he used.

For instance, New York state allows individuals to make direct contributions to candidates of $50,100, one of the highest totals in states that have limits.

But a loophole allows individuals to give an endless number of times if they do so under different legal umbrellas.

A favorite tactic is to form limited liability companies, or LLCs, which allows individuals to contribute that $50,100 maximum under each LLC.

One study estimated that Spitzer took in $1.8 million that way, with some of the companies apparently created solely for the purpose of making the extra contributions.

In the "reform" proposals he made in early 2007, Spitzer would have limited the individual contributions to $10,000 and closed the LLC loophole.

Astonishingly, he denounced opponents of the plan as "immoral," even as he was sending out a fundraising letter inviting his supporters to continue to donate up to the $50,100 limit.

He also promised that "bundlers" who raised $1 million from friends and family for his 2010 reelection race would get private time with Spitzer and his family.

About the same time, Spitzer paid $4.6 million for a country home in upstate New York set on about 100 acres.

Spitzer's arch-political enemy Joe Bruno, the Republican state senate majority leader, is a genius at distributing political pork.

Bruno, who is under federal investigation for, among other things, helping a contributor secure state contracts, is a 78-year-old grandfather whose courtly ways and white hair belie this former boxer's toughness.

With Democrats holding a huge edge in the Assembly, and its leader intimidated by Spitzer into submission on virtually every issue, Bruno is all that stands between Spitzer and effective control of all three branches.

Although Bruno's GOP margin has shrunk to two seats in the 62-body Senate, iron-tight leadership control enables him to block any legislation.

He is also in a position to deny Spitzer confirmation of any judicial picks.

Bruno resisted Spitzer's campaign-law changes, arguing that with Spitzer's wealth and with unions giving heavily to mostly Democratic causes, Republicans would soon be extinct.

He accused Spitzer of being "obsessed" with the issue, and denounced the governor for linking it to other issues.

Albany, in effect, was stalled over the governor's stance, so Bruno adjourned his chamber and sent his members home for summer recess.

Spitzer denounced Bruno, calling him a "senile piece of s--" to one lawmaker, and talked openly about trying to replace him with a more compliant Republican.

The result was gridlock, familiar ground in Albany, but one of the things Spitzer had promised to fix.

His campaign motto was "Day One, Everything Changes," and he had cited secret negotiations, higher taxes, and unchecked spending as targets for his new administration.

Yet it was already clear that Spitzer no longer saw those practices as problems.

His first budget, despite repeated promises not to raise taxes, did just that.

He increased spending by close to 8 percent--nearly triple the rate of inflation.

Perhaps most troubling, he continued the discredited practice of meeting with legislative leaders in private to make secret deals on laws and spending.

When Michael Goodwin confronted Spitzer by noting that not a single public hearing had been held on any major issue before the deals were cut, Spitzer responded icily.

"I'm the governor of the state," he said.

"I'll be Lyndon Johnson."

"I'll craft the deals and I'll get the job done."

"You will write and I will do."

"That's why you're there and I'm here."

That confrontational mindset revealed itself in a number of tasteless incidents.

A legislator who had the nerve to gently question Spitzer was speechless when the governor referred to himself as a "f--ing steamroller" who would smash everything in his path.

Another lawmaker described Spitzer in a private meeting as "eyes bulging and neck veins popping."

The target of that attack later said:

"I've never seen an eruption like that, except in a child who's 6 or 7 years old."

"If we'd had a camera, we would have had to have the governor committed."

As temper tantrum reports increased, others from the past took on a new light.

One incident centered on John Whitehead, the former head of Goldman Sachs.

At the time of the incident, in late 2005, Whitehead was serving as the unpaid chairman of the city-state agency guiding the rebuilding of the World Trade Center.

Whitehead had written an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal that criticized Spitzer's conduct in a case involving Hank Greenberg, head of AIG, the huge insurance company.

Under the headline "Mr. Spitzer Has Gone Too Far," Whitehead wrote:

"Something has gone seriously awry when a state attorney general can go on television and charge one of America's best CEOs and most generous philanthropists with fraud before any charges have been brought, before the possible defendant has even had a chance to know what he personally is alleged to have done, and while the investigation is still under way."

As Whitehead later recounted in a second Journal piece, Spitzer went ballistic.

"After reading my op-ed piece, Mr. Spitzer tried to phone me," Whitehead wrote.

"I was traveling in Texas but he reached me early in the afternoon."

"After asking me one or two questions about where I got my facts, he came right to the point."

"I was so shocked that I wrote it all down right away so I would be sure to remember it exactly as he said it."

"This is what he said: 'Mr. Whitehead, it's now a war between us and you've fired the first shot.'"

"'I will be coming after you.'"

"'You will pay the price.'"

"'This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done.'"

"'You will wish you had never written that letter.'"

Whitehead continued: "I tried to interrupt to say he was doing to me exactly what he'd been doing to others, but he wouldn't be interrupted."

"He went on in the same vein for several more sentences and then abruptly hung up."

"I was astounded."

"No one had ever talked to me like that before."

"It was a little scary."

Such eruptions were so commonplace that people began mocking the governor--riffs on the steamroller incident were a favorite--but by early July, the joking stopped.

That's when the first reports surfaced that Spitzer's office had used the state police to try to gather dirt on Bruno.

As a report by the new attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, later put it, Spitzer's communications director used the pretext of a Freedom of Information request from a newspaper--one was filed only much later--to have the state police track Bruno's use of state aircraft.

The goal was to make it seem that Bruno was breaking the law by taking the planes and helicopters to political meetings instead of on state business, apparently in the hope that a damaged Bruno would agree to Spitzer's campaign proposals or maybe even resign.

Unfortunately for Spitzer, the report by Cuomo, a fellow Democrat and the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, found that while no laws were broken, the conduct of Spitzer's aides was so egregious that punishment was warranted.

The narrative of the dirty-tricks plot seemed right out of Richard Nixon's playbook, and almost immediately the questions arose about what Spitzer knew and when he knew it.

He denied any role or even knowledge and said his aides had "misled" him.

He suspended one and transferred another--rather light punishment if indeed he was "misled" about a plot that had caused him such trouble.

Few believed his claims of innocence, and suspicions grew dramatically when it emerged that lawyers from Spitzer's office had blocked two of the main players from talking to Cuomo's investigators and had not turned over all emails, including any to the governor.

Because Cuomo did not have subpoena power for the case, the withholding of testimony and potential evidence was probably not a crime.

But the revelations made a mockery of Spitzer's claim that his office had "cooperated fully," and in the court of public opinion, the verdict was swift: guilty.

More than half of those surveyed in three different polls said the governor was lying.

Bruno and senate Republicans have launched at least two investigations, and the state ethics commission, which Spitzer controls, also said it would try to get to the bottom of the issue.

All three have subpoena power, though Spitzer has hinted he would not testify before the Republican panels, setting up a potential legal showdown.

But after both Mario Cuomo and former New York City mayor Ed Koch, Democrats and Spitzer supporters, publicly urged him to testify under oath to clear his name, Spitzer responded by saying he would "love" to do just that.

It's a promise that will be tested.

The Albany County district attorney announced on August 1 that he will conduct his own investigation to make sure no laws were broken.

The development raised the distinct possibility that the Sheriff of Wall Street and his top team will have to face a grand jury.

The prospect of legal jeopardy for his staff, and maybe even himself, would seem to end any remaining illusions about a glorious future for Spitzer.

He is already damaged politically, perhaps beyond repair.

Any new sordid details could finish him.

With his reputation shredded and his administration under fire, he is now in desperate need of a savior himself.

Michael Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a columnist for the New York Daily News; Fred Siegel is a professor of history at the Cooper Union for Science and Art and the author of The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life (Encounter Books).

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...0cljul.asp?pg=1

[Livyjr]

"Rensselaer judge admonished for case delays"

By BOB GARDINIER, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 10:35 a.m., Tuesday, August 14, 2007

RENSSELAER -- A city judge has been admonished by a state panel for delaying judgments in cases and motions and for failing to report the delays to her administrative judge.

Kathleen L. Robichaud, a part-time judge of the Rensselaer City Court since 1996, was cited by the Commission on Judicial Conduct for failing to render judgments in nine small claims actions and one civil claim within 30 days of the hearings.

The judge also delayed issuing her decisions for up to 23 months, according to a commission report released this morning.

The commission's punishments for ethics violations range from the least severe, admonishment, to removal from the bench.

In 11 commercial claims and one civil claim Robichaud failed to render decisions on submitted motions within 60 days and in some cases failed to issue decisions for up to 20 months after final submission, according to the commission.

From April 2005 to about April 2006, the judge signed and submitted five quarterly reports to her administrative judge, as required by judicial rules, in which she reported she had no matters pending decision longer than 60 days.

Robert Tembeckjian, administrator and counsel to the commission noted that there was no evidence to indicate Robichaud's delays in the cases were deliberate or the result of anything other than poor management.

The judge, who also maintains a private practice, appears to have lost track of the cases, did not realize they were pending, and did not realize that her quarterly reports were inaccurate, Tembeckjian said.

As a result of the inquiry, Robichaud has instituted better calendar controls and administrative oversight to ensure that in the future her decisions will be timely and her reports to her administrative judge will be accurate, Tembeckjian said.

[Livyjr]

METROLAND - The News Weekly Of The Capital Region

April 20, 1989

"Down For The County- Since becoming Rensselaer County Environmental Health Director, PLAINTIFF has taken the Sanitary Code very seriously - and it may be costing him his job"

by Stephen Leon

"I was raised in Rensselaer County," says PLAINTIFF, gazing out at a sylvan stretch of land in Poestenkill, land that these days increasingly is dotted with housing developments.

"When I was young, back then, people's sewage just ran in the ditches."

"In the summertime, you'd be riding your bike down the road and you'd have to weave from side to side (because the ditches were full of sewage."

"I see us in 1989, we're going back to what I had to grow up with in the '50's."

PLAINTIFF has been the Environmental Health Director for Rensselaer County since June 1986.

But he doesn't report to work these days - HE'S LOCKED OUT OF HIS OFFICE.

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Comment by ruralgeek: I, too, think that someone should write something up on Paul Plante, although I’d be more likely to want a well-researched case study than a ballad.

JOHN GALT REPLIES: There are now literally thousands of pages in existence, ruralgeek, that were either written directly from words by Paul Plante in the form of various transcripts where he was testifying, such as down at the Lane Mine hearings in Nassau, and in court documents, or that were written about Paul Plante in the various media in this area, including an informative METROLAND piece from April 20, 1989 entitled “Down For The County- Since becoming Rensselaer County Environmental Health Director, Paul Plante has taken the Sanitary Code very seriously - and it may be costing him his job” by Stephen Leon which can be viewed at:

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...mp;#entry531730

Plante is the one referred to as PLAINTIFF at that web site …

That Laurie Anderson piece in the 1988 TU that was linked to above here froms a sort of ALPHA, and the METROLAND piece is a sort of OMEGA to the Laurie Anderson ALPHA piece …

And then the METROLAND piece itself becomes the ALPHA leading up to August 22, 2001, when Plante was taken into custody at the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany and incarcerated in the secure mental facility there as an alleged “dangerous mental patient” who had allegedly escaped from psychiatric custody at Samaritan Hospital in Troy earlier that day, until the Albany Police Officer showed up on the scene and debunked that whole proposition and got Plante free again ….

And so ….

Down in the files of the Rensselaer County Clerk, there is a veritable tresure trove of documents and evidence about Plante, including two or three boxes of evidence which contain video and audiotapes from 1988, including the now-famous Christine Kapostacey “SPLICE JOB” tape from October 11, 1988, which touched off a kind of firestorm in the local news media in this area in and after October of 1988 …

In the “SPLICE JOB” tape, Chris Kapostacey of TV-13 in Menands re-arranged the sequence of events which had occurred on the evening of October 11, 1988 after TU scribe Timothy O’Brien called Plante at home to inform him of a press conference called that evening by Rensselaer County Legislative leader Joe Manupella where Manupella informed O’Brien that he was going to ask Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono to remove Plante as Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer …

She did that by taking snippets of videotape and splicing them together out of sequence in such a way that they painted a false picture which all the local news media then picked up on and ran with as the story of what had happened that evening, when in fact Kapostacey’s presentation was false …

And it was through that set of experiences that we naive countryfolks learned a lot about the interactions between the media in the Albany area and the politicians …

And so …

It is an interesting story, alright …

But one that we countryfolks don’t believe will ever get told …

It’s not news what happened to Plante at the VA that day, you see …

It’s just the way it is around here …

As was said by local attorney and judicial candidate Thomas Marcelle in the TU article “Trying to fly under the radar - Contributors find $99 limit to campaign contributions won’t always guarantee anonymity” by RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, first published: Monday, October 16, 2006:

“The reality is that the culture in Albany, the political culture, is that we have a rich tradition of retaliation for dissent,” said Marcelle.

end quotes

And so it is, ruralgeek ….

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 15, 2007 @ 7:15 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5211#comments

[Livyjr]

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION

WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1993

"Ex-health engineer wins one"

By Fred LeBrun

It's been four years since Paul R. Plante of Averill Park, civil engineer and Vietnam War veteran, was fired as Rensselaer County's environmental health engineer.

But given Paul's fiery intensity and dog-on-a-bone persistence, it isn't surprising that four years might as well have been 40 minutes.

His firing remains a hot issue for him.

It rankles, and goads him.

He's a tormented man, as convinced today as he was four years ago that the county did him wrong.

Paul was dumped for insubordination by his boss in the health department, Ken Van Praag.

Ken has since retired.

Officially, Paul was terminated for talking directly to the media after he'd been told to route through his boss his brutally candid observations concerning the competence and motivations of those around him, and the public with which he dealt.

Unofficially, what got Paul bounced was his hard-headed, uncompromising view of his official duties.

A vision not always shared by others in the county health department, or few others on the planet for that matter.

As the environmental officer, his signature was needed for projects large and small.

He had the hammer, and he used it.

I know of one major developer who lost everything trying to meet Paul Plante's conditions.

I'm not really questioning Paul's motives.

I think he was at one with nature, a man who felt a mission to bring the severest scrutiny to anyone who set a spade in Rensselaer County's sacred soil.

Such fiery devotion was perhaps a first for the county, and maybe a last, and certainly created a lot of confusion.

At any rate, he had to go and did.

Given Paul Plante's behavior at the time, it seemed reasonable to assume that once he dropped out of the limelight, he would disappear, no matter how many lawsuits he filed for redress.

He filed several, in state and federal courts, so far with little success.

Until now.

Last week, after a long hearing before a Workers' Compensation Board administrative law judge in Menands, Paul was awarded $30,000 and $150 a week as long as he remains unemployed.

He argued successfully that post-traumatic stress disorder, from which he suffers as a result of combat duty in Vietnam, was aggravated by his county job.

What clinched it, apparently, was that psychiatrists for both Paul and the county agreed that what he claimed was true: he was destabilized by his county employment.

The county will not appeal.

"I've been reduced to an abject physical and mental condition as a result of working for Rensselaer County," Paul said after the compensation award was announced.

He's been unable to work since he was fired.

Workers' Compensation cases often are nutty and offer a strange circular logic peculiar to this twig of the law.

This one is no exception.

According to County Executive John Buono, Paul never mentioned a medical condition or any stress-related restrictions when he actively sought employment with the county.

The county contended it can be accused of many things, but Vietnam is not one of them.

Therefore, Paul must have had a pre-existing condition, which ought to have let the county off the hook.

Instead, if Paul doesn't work again, he'll receive $150 a week for flunking out of a job because he couldn't handle the stress.

It does seem odd to me.

I know they call these Workers' Compensation heatrings, not employer compensation.

But I think it's worth pointing out that the taxpayers of Rensselaer County are the ultimate employer here, and wouldn't a number of them like to sue somebody for the stress incurred by the yearly tax bill.

Technically, none of this has anything to do with his being fired.

So far, the state courts have affirmed the county followed the rules in that regard.

But a $4 million civil rights case still looms in the distance like a huge cash cow over in federal court.

Paul contends his firing was retaliatory and deprived him of his right to free speech, a constitutional right, of course.

Who can guess what effect the comp case will have on the constitutional one.

Presumably, little.

But then, we've been surprised once already.

[Livyjr]

SO!

There we all were!

Us, the FBI, and the press, and the REPUBLICANS, of course!

And they were in charge!

Of everything.

This is 2/13/89, of course, at the bogus disciplinary hearing that starts this whole farce, but that is me speaking!

Let's see how the FBI finishes up that REPORT, as it is an illuminating look into what passes for JUSTICE in Rensselaer County, and the State of New York, and the Northern District of New York, as well:

After a half-hour recess, the Hearing Officer advised those present that he saw the proceeding solely as a personnel action and, citing pending litigation against the county, ruled to close the hearing to the public.

The Hearing Officer, in his comments, mentioned the need for balance, the balance being the public's interest and fairness to other county employees.

The Hearing Officer mentioned "fairness to other employees" as one of the reasons for closing the hearing.

The Assistant County Attorney then asked HEARING OFFICER to clear the Hearing Room, stating again that this is a personnel matter not a criminal matter, and opposed a motion to adjourn the meeting, pending an appeal regarding the openness of the hearing.

A reporter then requested the Hearing Officer adjourn the meeting until such time as an attorney for the media could present arguments as to why the meeting should be open rather than closed.

The meeting, in fact, adjourned, adjourned until 2/14/89, at 1 P.M., at which time a closed session was held between the Hearing Officer, PLAINTIFF, and attorneys for the county and the media.

Coming out of this meeting was another adjournment until 2/22/89, which would give the media's attorney an opportunity to get a New York State Supreme Court ruling forcing the county to have an open hearing.

The writer (FBI SPECIAL AGENT) observed that the county's representative, GORDON MAYO, was extremely nervous and is further of the opinion that in a normal hearing such as this, the government body involved, in this case Rensselaer County, should not insist on a closed hearing when the person being disciplined or facing the charges waives his right to such a hearing, as the principle reason for a closed hearing is to protect the employee who faces disciplinary charges!

end quotes

The writer, a SPECIAL AGENT of the FBI, observed that the county's representative, GORDON MAYO, was extremely nervous, and to be truthful, so did everyone else in that room, including the REPUBLICAN HEARING OFFICER, and the press, of course, but, the REPUBLICAN HEARING OFFICER himself was just as nervous, in my opinion, anyway, as before this farce even got going, it was already losing its wheels and was coming off the tracks, and neither of them were in control of that, and they both knew it!

BUT ......

That was merely then!

Never underestimate politicians!

That's what we learned!

You can fight city hall, but take my word for it, the fight against you, BY CITY HALL, is going to be extremely vicious and ugly, and in the end, well ........

To be continued!

SO!

There we all were, Mr. A.B., us, the FBI, the "MEDIA", and Gordon Mayo, the DEPUTY ATTORNEY FOR THE COUNTY OF RENSSELAER, was trying to have this "hearing officer", in reality, nothing more than a County Social Services lawyer, throw us all out of the room, IN OUR OWN COUNTY BUILDING, to boot; as OUR presence there, in the words of RENSSELAER COUNTY, through its attorney, Mayo, allegedly was "DETRIMENTAL" to a "fair hearing" of a person WHO WANTED AN OPEN HEARING, WITH THE PUBLIC IN ATTENDANCE, to see how what passes for "justice" in Rensselaer county is really "dispensed", or "meted out", which just might be a better phrase for what was to come to pass, up here in Rensselaer County, in the State of New York, where it was all to "go down", as they say out there in the "BIG CITY" somewhere or other, here in OUR America!

Now, at this time, Mayo was working on working up a head of steam for the cameras, and he was strutting back and forth, and if I recall properly, at one time, he even had a pair of eyeglasses in his hands, as if in his anger at the PLAINTIFF here, he was going to snap those glasses right in half, and he was going on and on and on, BUT .....

Rather than trust my recollections, let's go to the BIBLE, or GOSPEL, which is the eye-witness account of the FBI Special Agent himself:

MAYO, in comments to the Hearing Officer, referred to the "circus atmosphere such as this" (referring to the atmosphere in the hearing room), although the writer noted that the room was quiet, none of the spectators interrupted any of the proceedings, and everyone appeared to be respectful!

The only comment made by any member of the public was when one elderly gentleman requested that the hearing officer find a larger room to conduct this hearing.

end quotes

You can guess, perhaps, Mr. A.B., from what this FBI agent is saying here, as to what the press was picking up on, which was the totally false and specious comments of Gordon Mayo about the "circus atmosphere" in that room, and OBVIOUSLY SO, false, that is, if the FBI agent's Report is any sort of guide on that subject!

REGARDLESS OF THE TRUTH, as seen through this FBI agent's eyes, above, we were all going to be turned by Mayo, through the MEDIA, into a "lunatic fringe", in order to discredit us, as well as the engineer, and the MEDIA was there to do its job of portraying us as such, so that if you had seen MEDIA coverage of this event, you would have thought the room was full of wild animals, and social misfits, when this FBI Special Agent makes clear such was not the case at all!

BUT .....

It was "supposed to be", ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPT, and that is all the MEDIA cared about, getting right what Gordon Mayo had them there to hear him say!

Oh, it was to be quite an experience, Mr. A.B., and this was just the beginning!

SO!

To be continued where we left off last!

Gordon Mayo!

And what a man he was, and he wanted everyone to know that, and this TRIAL OF THE CENTURY was his way of making "HIS BONES" with the Albany boys, and in a big way, to boot, as his face would be dominating the news on ALL THREE Channels that evening, as well as the newspapers and the AM radio news, which was there in force to hear him speak, and he had them in the palm of his hand!

Gordon Mayo was a veritable bear of a man, with a large blocky head, and huge hands, and a kind of "jutting forward" presence that was very intimidating, indeed, as if at any moment, he might "go off", and start using his fists on someone in the room who did not quite suit him the right way!

And so, Mayo was using his very intimidating physical presence to great effect on television that day, painting this picture of the Rensselaer County Public Health Engineer as this ravening beast, suffering from some cock-a-mamie affliction known as Post-Vietnam Syndrome, who was a danger to "un-named" persons, whose names could not be revealed to the ACCUSED!

And isn't that a most basic right here in America, to be able to confront one's accuser?

Well, not in Rensselaer County, in the State of New York is it a right, and on March 31, 2005, Federal District Court for the Northern District of New York put its IMPRIMATUR on that LOCAL CUSTOM UNDER COLOR OF STATE LAW in Rensselaer County, in the State of New York, which to me is so incredible as to defy comprehension!

In Rensselaer County, in the State of New York, one can be instantaneously incarcerated as a dangerous mental patient in a secure mental health facility, and one does not ever have to be told who made that happen, or why!

SPECIAL FILES, they are called, and they cannot know what is in those SPECIAL FILES, or how it got there.

And once you are a SPECIAL FILE, you are branded for life!

Branded!

Just as if a HOT IRON were set right in your forehead, branding you for all to see as mentally deranged!

Incredible!

Hence this thread!

Please stay tuned!

Thank you!

SO!

2/13/89!

And there we all were, crowded into a smallish conference room in the Rensselaer County Office Building for what was being billed by the land developers in Rensselaer County as the "TRIAL OF THE CENTURY", and before it all was to be over, which was really March 31, 2005, in Federal District Court for the Northern District of New York, in Albany, New York, it ended up being quite a marathon, indeed, although up until now, it was a story only a veritable handful of people even know transpired, involving such giants in New York State, anyway, as Dr. David Axelrod, the controversial State Health Commissioner appointed by Democrat Mario Cuomo, versus Joseph "Big Joe" Bruno, a powerful New York State Senator from Rensselaer County who directly opposed Dr. Axelrod's efforts to clean out the corruption in the Rensselaer County Department of Health, and who further had the CLOUT to blow Dr. Axelrod "right out of the saddle", and to thereby make him into an OBJECT OF DERISION in Rensselaer County, which was to happen on March 16, 1989, but that was in OUR future yet, as of February 13, 1989, when We, and the FBI, and all the press and media for quite a distance around Troy, New York, were crammed in that conference room, listening raptly as the TRIAL OF THE CENTURY began!

And in the words of the FBI, here is that opening, continued, from Exhibit L of the ORIGINAL COMPLAINT in this matter, which is a memorandum on FBI stationary to the Special Agent in Charge of the Albany, New York Office of the FBI, from the Special Agent who was investigating corruption in Rensselaer County government in connection with land development in Rensselaer County between 1978 and 1988:

PHILLIP LANCE is Rensselaer County's Hearing Officer for this disciplinary hearing.

LANCE is assistant counsel to the County's Department of Social Services!

Representing the County was Assistant County Attorney GORDON MAYO.

AT THE BEGINNING of the hearing, MAYO proposed that the hearing be closed despite the fact that PLANTE, the subject of the disciplinary hearing, waived his right to a closed hearing, and desires the hearing to be open to the public, and media!

MAYO contended that there was "due cause" to close the hearing and cited numerous lawsuits against the county which might be affected by comments made in an open hearing!

MAYO put forth the position that the proper forum for this disciplinary hearing was a "closed hearing" and contended that a public audience was detrimental to a "fair hearing", citing pressure against witnesses!

MAYO alleged that people had received threateneing phone calls from PLANTE and further stated that two unnamed county employees were "worried about their well-being" if PLANTE returned to work.

end quotes

To be continued .....

October 9, 1990

Hon. Raymond J. Elliott, III
North Greenbush Town Court
2 Douglas St.
Wynantskill, N.Y. 12198

Dear Judge Elliott,

Enclosed herewith, please find a copy of the People's Notice of Appeal from a dismissal in the North Greenbush Town Court on Tuesday, October 2, 1990.

Mr. Jones (one of the defendants in the Federal Civil Rights lawsuit) contacted this office and requested this course of action.

By way of judicial economy, I hereby move to reargue the Motion to Dismiss in order to afford the People an opportunity to be heard on this matter.

The complainant in this case feels that there has been an injustice, and has sought the assistance of this office.

We have agreed to accept the responsibility to represent the People in this case.

My understanding of the events which took place in your court on October 2, 1990 clearly demonstrate that Mr. Jones is not familiar with the criminal justice system!

Mrs. Jones, while her actions were, without a doubt, inappropriate and arguably contemptuous, I do not believe such actions warrant or give rise to a dismissal.

Furthermore, as PLAINTIFF'S familiarity with the law has been demonstrated in another action pending in your court, I sincerely believe adequate representation of the People's position should be provided by this office!

By copy of this letter to PLAINTIFF, I am making this motion returnable on October 30, 1990, the same date that PLAINTIFF has another motion returnable.

Respectfully submitted, Richard J. McNally, Jr.
Assistant Rensselaer County District Attorney

- O'CONNOR "BIBLE" SUBMITTED TO THE FEDERAL SECOND CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS ON BEHALF OF THE RENSSELAER COUNTY DEFENDANTS, pp. 118-119

ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

And since there are a lot of “evidence” types in here who want to “SEE THE BEEF” as it were, when charges of on-going public corruption are laid against public officials in here ..

In support of what I am stating about the “use” of the NYSP to intimidate and harass citizens in order to cover over public corruption in NYS, I have here before me right now on my desk a copy of a March 2, 1990 correspondence on STATE OF NEW YORK NEW YORK STATE POLICE letterhead from Edward J. Minahan, Lieutenant Colonel, Assistant Deputy Superintendent, NYSP, to former Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer Paul R. Plante, P.E., of Joe Bruno’s CORRUPT Rensselaer County acknowledging receipt of a February 15, 1990 letter from Plante to the Superintendent of the NYSP at that time …

That letter to the NYSP from Plante concerned itself with the cover-up by the NYSP of a HIT-AND-RUN ASSAULT on Plante on December 29, 1989 by a GOON allegedly associated with the JOE BRUNO MACHINE in Rensselaer County …

At the time, Plante had been investigating corruption in the Rensselaer County and New York State Departments of Health, which had resulted in a March 15, 1989 REPORT OF INVESTIGATION by then-NYS Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod which confirmed corruption in the NYS and Rensselaer County Dept’s. of Health going back to around 1977 or 1978 …

That REPORT OF INVESTIGATION was subsequently in the hands of the FBI in Albany in connection with a federal Hobbs Act “public corruption” investigation in Rensselaer County that had roped in none other than “BIG JOE” Bruno himself, in connection with his own “land dealings” in Rensselaer County, where the Rensselaer County Department of Health was Joe’s personal “rubber-stamping machine” for him and his protected and connected “buddies” and “pals” …

So …

To get rid of the investigation, all that was necessary to do was to get rid of the witness …

And so it was done …

And the NYSP were an integral part of that “final solution” …

And this is not just smoke that I am blowing here ..

There is already discussion of this same incident at:

http://blogs.timesunion.com/localpolitics/?p=193#comments

Where then-Assistant Rensselaer County District Attorney Richard McNally can be seen having to stand before then-Rensselaer County Court Judge M. Andrew Dwyer to tell the judge that McNally “had no evidence” …

The “evidence” that McNally did have was lies from New York State Troopers …

Which is what the March 2, 1990 Minahan letter to Plante was about …

The highest echelons of the NYSP knew of this hit-and-run, and they knew of the cover-up by NYS Troopers …

And they elected to protect the Troopers and the lies …

All of which is a sorry, ugly chapter in NYS history that is very well-documented in the records of the Rensselaer County Clerk …

And yes, two of those Troopers involved in the cover-up of that hit-and-run were promoted to BCI …

And so …

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5169#comments

July 11, 1990

Thomas A. Constantine
Superintendant
New York State Police
Building 22
The State Campus
Albany, N.Y. 12226

RE: harassment and intimidation

Dear Mr. Superintendant;

On January 26, 1990 I sent you a letter stating a belief that an attempt to run me down was being covered-up with possible involvement of uniformed members of the New York State Police.

Because of that letter,on February 7, 1990, I met with a Lieutenant and a Zone Sargeant in the East Greenbush sub-station.

During that meeting, I pointed out some factual errors in the information and supporting deposition made out by the individual who attempted to run me down.

The following day, February 8, 1990, a trooper contacted my assailant and apparently assisted him in making out a new information and supporting deposition which essentially corrected the erroneous facts, contrary to provisions of the CPL.

These facts are contained in a 38-page affidavit made out by myself and submitted to Rensselaer County Court on June 26, 1990 in support of a motion to present the facts to a grand jury.

Also mentioned in the affidavit is a conversation that I had with Trooper Gonzalez in January 1990 wherein Trooper Gonzalez had informed me that my assailant had just left the Sand Lake sub-station after attempting to have Trooper Gonzalez sign the information dated December 28, 1989 that was used to arrest me, a fact that has apparently been concealed.

Tonight, Trooper Gonzalez called me at my home at about 6:45 p.m. to inform me that he would be serving me with a summons charging me with violation of Section 140.05 of the Penal Law.

At about 7:20 p.m. two trooper cars pulled into my driveway.

I was then approached by Trooper Gonzalez and another Trooper and served with papers.

Trooper Gonzalez presented me with a summons accompanied by an information and a supporting deposition.

The supporting deposition was made out on July 8, 1990 by a Janet Priest Jones and was witnessed by Trooper Gonzalez.

The supporting deposition alleges that I went to the home of these people and threatened them, a recurring theme unfounded by credible evidence.

The supporting deposition states "for years we have tolerated his minor aberrant behavior because our sons are friends with his sons."

"However, there is a fear that his ability to handle frustration in a normal prudent and reasonable manner has become increasingly impaired making his presence a silent threat of potential violence."

The specific point that I wish to make has to do with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law dealing with standards of evidence and the factual part of an information, which provisions any law enforcement person should be well versed in.

In 1979 the Police Chief of Rock Springs, Wyoming shot and killed at close range an investigator from the Wyoming Governor's office who was investigating corruption in Rock Springs.

The defense put forth by the Police Chief was that the investigator had looked at him real mean, so scaring the Police Chief that his only recourse was to shoot the man between the eyes and kill him.

I mention the case because it was explained to me that the precedent might be relevant in my own case.

In January 1989 I presented Dr. David Axelrod, Commissioner of Health for the State of New York, with evidence of widespread corruption in Rensselaer County, which evidence was corroborated by investigators from the State.

Since that time, I have been subjected to threats of violence and general harassment which includes the hit-and-run in December 1989.

There has been a campaign by those in public office against whom I plan to present evidence to a grand jury to make me out as a violent person suffering from some psychoses acquired in Viet Nam which makes me unstable and potentially dangerous.

The information filed by my assailant in January 1990 utilized that theme of potential violence from myself toward the complainant over a period of years, despite the fact that the complainant had just moved from another town to this one only months earlier.

Now, with less than a week before I appear in County Court to request an opportunity to appear before a grand jury, another complaint surfaces alleging violent behavior on my part, with a court appearance required in Town Court the day before I am to appear in County Court.

I am no believer in coincidence, Mr. Superintendant.

The informations were made out on July 8, 1990 and were presented on July 9, 1990 to the same judge in Poestenkill who refused, according to Lt.Colonel Minahan, to entertain charges against the hit-and-run driver who ran me down.

Despite the fact that the summons was signed on July 9, 1990, it was not until tonight that trooper Gonzalez chose to serve me with same, and then only in the company of another trooper.

Why the time lapse?

I intend to find out who is running your troopers out here in the Town of Poestenkill, patiently and diligently.

One rule that I put my faith in is that eventually thieves fall out, and one will sell out the other to save himself.

The Trooper who raped that woman on the Northway did so because he knew he could.

That is the image of the Troopers now in the minds of the people of Poestenkill.

That image is perpetuated by your troopers in Rensselaer County because they are are apparently little better than praetorian guards for some local politicians who can maintain their own version of "rape" by relying on your troopers to subvert the provisions and protections of the Criminal Procedure Law to their own ends.

Sincerely, Paul R. Plante

[Livyjr]

And Phil Lance already knew, when he asked that question of the PLAINTIFF herein back in 1989 what the answer would be ......

The PLAINTIFF was on his way to a GRAND JURY with a box full of evidence of alleged wilful misconduct in office of a number of public officers in Rensselaer County pursuant to section 6 of Article I of the New York State Constitution ....

And he was not going to be deterred .....

And so .....

He had to be destroyed, instead .....

For matters had gone too far .....

Buono was right there on videotape .....

The words "EIGHTY THOUSAND BIG ONES" came from him .....

On television .....

On the Six O'clock News .....

And so .....

To bury that story ...

It was necessary to bury the PLAINTIFF .....

And so ....

It was done ....

Just like that ....

But that is not the story right now where we are talking about citizens in the State of New York being denied access to GRAND JURIES ......

The story is how did Chris Kapostacey-Jansing get REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono to openly discuss what was in reality a BRIBE offered to him by a group of land developers in Rensselaer County in early-1988 .....

And that answer brings us to one of the more interesting documents in the lengthy FBI file concerning this matter back in 1989 .....

And that document is a transcript of the MINUTES of a CONFERENCE between the RENSSELAER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL and the NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, DIVISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, held at the offices of the Department, 2 University Place, Albany, New York, on Tuesday, March 1, 1988, commencing at 1 PM and stenographically reported by Mary Lomonoco, Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of New York.

In attendance at this meeting, according to this document in the FBI files, were as follows:

Dr. Leo Hetling, Director, and James "Mr. Jimmy D." Decker of the Division of Environmental Protection of the New York State Department of Health; Steven Anderson and Fred Nero of Mountain Meadow Properties; Rod Michael of the Eastern New York Society of Land Surveyors; Kevin Brady of the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce; Douglas Clark of Clark Engineering; George Duggan of Best Building; Richard Melius of the Rensselaer County Development Council, and Victor Gush and Jack Leonard, land developers.

And how this TRANSCRIPT came to be in the possession of the FBI is as follows:

This TRANSCRIPT was "made public" in a matter of speaking by this RENSSELAER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL at a "closed door meeting" on the fifth floor of the Rensselaer County Office Building shortly after that CONFERENCE was held, and an "AGREEMENT OF SORTS" was reached with the New York State Department of Health concerning "OVERSIGHT" of the Rensselaer County Department of Health .....

And that agreement was that the New York State Department of Health would turn its back ...

IF the RENSSELAER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL could get Buono to "GET RID OF" the Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer ......

So as to "unplug" their "pipeline" into the Rensselaer County Department of Health for rapid "approvals" of their "subdivisions" so they could then sell lots as "HEALTH-DEPARTMENT APPROVED" ...

When in fact, that was anything but the case .....

A FRAUD, in fact, that was being perpetrated on the public in Rensselaer County on a regular basis ......

But who cares about them, eh?

CAVEAT EMPTOR ......

As the lawyers like "Big BOB" Smith like to say ...

And so .....

The "State Health Department" agreed to turn its back ....

BUT ...

"Big BOB"" Smith, the REPUBLICAN lawyer for Rensselaer County ...

HE WANTED PROOF ......

IF, in his words as I recall them, Rensselaer County was going to be putting itself out on a limb with respect to violating the law, it wanted proof positive that the STATE was not going to come back around afterwards and chop it off ......

And so .....

The TRANSCRIPT ......

Signed by a NOTARY PUBLIC and certified as accurate ......

Placed in "Big BOB's" hands .....

By the RENSSELAER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL .....

As PROOF that the CONFERENCE with the State Health Department had in fact taken place ...

And so ....

The State Health Department was "in their pocket" .....

And as proof of that besides the TRANSCRIPT .....

They also had at that meeting with Buono and Smith, "Mr. Jimmy D." himself .....

Representing the "interests" of the New York State Department of Health at that meeting between the developers and Buono and Smith .....

Where the $80,000 BRIBE was openly offered to Buono .....

If he would "get rid of" the Rensselaer County Associate Public Health Engineer .....

And it was just a matter of logistics, after that .....

And that is how the TRANSCRIPT became "public" ......

On October 11, 1988, when Kapostacey-Jansing was preparing her "splice job" in her assigned role of "political assassin" on behalf of Buono, the PLAINTIFF presented her with a copy of the TRANSCRIPT, along with the full story of how and why the TRANSCRIPT had come into being, along with the $80,000 BRIBE offer to Buono .....

And upon hearing that news, and becoming possessed of a copy of the TRANSCRIPT herself, KAPOSTACEY-JANSING went back and confronted Buono about the BRIBE offer ....

AND NOTHING MORE WAS EVER HEARD OF THE MATTER AFTER THAT .....

Subsequently, when the FBI brought PLAINTIFF into their already on-going HOBBS ACT investigation of Public Corruption in Rensselaer County, the PLAINTIFF gave them a copy of the TRANSCRIPT along with the full story of how and why the TRANSCRIPT had come into being, along with the $80,000 BRIBE offer to Buono .....

AND AGAIN, NOTHING MORE WAS EVER HEARD OF THE MATTER AFTER THAT .....

Probably because some CORPORATE DOCTOR who had never ever seen or examined PLAINTIFF suddenly realized that PLAINTIFF must be dangerous and mentally ill ....

And so ....

That was convenient, wasn't it?

Sure did save the "state" the expense of all those trials .....

That never happened ...

BECAUSE ....

The doors to justice have been closed in the faces of common citizens up here in the State of New York ...

And so .....

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION

WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1993

"Ex-health engineer wins one"

By Fred LeBrun

According to County Executive John Buono, Paul never mentioned a medical condition or any stress-related restrictions when he actively sought employment with the county.

Livyjr, if you are still there, I was reading this July 7, 1993 Albany, New York Times Union article above here by this Fred LeBrun, and I came across this following sentence which caught my attention, as it seemed, based upon the record in this matter, to be an obvious falsehood:

According to County Executive John Buono, Paul never mentioned a medical condition or any stress-related restrictions when he actively sought employment with the county.

Am I correct that this statement is a falsehood is my question for you?

LIVYJR RESPONDS: Yes, you are correct!

That statement is patently false.

Paul Plante never "actively sought employment" with Rensselaer County ...

That is pure invention on the part of Fred LeBrun, the Albany, New York Times Union and REPUBLICAN Rensselaer County Executive John L. Buono ....

According to the record, Paul Plante was recruited by Rensselaer County itself for the position of Associate Public Health Engineer because Plante himself had been already investigating corruption in the Rensselaer County Department of Health, and he had made a complaint in writing as an engineer to the Office of Professional Discipline of the New York State Department of Education concerning non-licensed individuals in the REPUBLICAN-controlled Rensselaer County Department of Health performing duties reserved by law in the State of New York to those licensed by the state to practice as professional engineers to protect and safeguard life, health and property in New York State ...

At the time Paul Plante was hired by Rensselaer County in June of 1985 to restore integrity to its environmental health programs, the funding for those programs had been cut off by the New York State Department of Health ...

To restore that funding, Rensselaer County had to secure the services of an independent, qualified licensed professional engineer to restore integrity to those programs, and Paul Plante was approached by Rensselaer County because he had a sterling reputation for honesty and integrity, and because Plante already was aware of and had independently documented problems with corruption in the Environmental Health programs of the Rensselaer County Department of Health ...

And so ...

[Livyjr]

"Ex-Illinois governor's conviction upheld"

By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer

18 minutes ago

CHICAGO - A federal appeals court upheld former Gov. George Ryan's racketeering and fraud conviction Tuesday and refused to grant a new trial that could delay his 6 1/2-year prison sentence in the biggest political scandal to rock Illinois in decades.

Ryan's attorneys immediately began trying to prevent the 73-year-old former governor, once the state's most powerful Republican, from having to report to prison immediately.

Tuesday afternoon, they were filing for a rarely granted "en banc" hearing that would have the entire U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals hear the appeal, said longtime Ryan supporter James R. Thompson, another former Illinois governor whose law firm, Winston & Strawn, represented Ryan for free.

A three-judge panel had issued the split ruling rejecting a new trial.

"Governor Ryan obviously is disappointed," Thompson said.

But he said, "No court ever deprived a defendant of his life and liberty under these circumstances and that is an argument we will make if necessary to the U.S. Supreme Court."

Ryan was convicted last year of racketeering conspiracy, fraud and other offenses for taking payoffs from political insiders in exchange for state business while he was Illinois secretary of state from 1991 to 1999 and governor for four years after that.

Prosecutors said he had steered state contracts and leases to insiders and used tax dollars in his political campaigns.

In his appeal, Ryan's attorneys argued that the jury's deliberations were flawed.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer had replaced two jurors with alternates after deliberations in the case had already started, and the defense said unauthorized documents brought into the jury room poisoned the deliberations.

The three-judge 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel disagreed Tuesday in a 2-1 decision.

"The fact that the trial may not have been picture perfect is, in itself, nothing unusual," Judge Diane Wood wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Judge Daniel Manion.

Judge Michael Kanne dissented and said Ryan and his co-defendant, businessman-lobbyist Larry Warner, should get a new trial.

He called the jury deliberations "dysfunctional."

It wasn't immediately clear when Ryan would have to begin serving his 6 1/2-year sentence.

He has been free on an unusual appeal bond granted by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court had said then that he would have to report within 72 hours unless granted a new trial, said former federal prosecutor Patrick M. Collins, who spearheaded the corruption investigation.

"He can still appeal things, but even with those appeals pending, by court order, he has to report," Collins said.

Ryan and Warner both maintain they did nothing illegal.

The investigation into the men began as a probe of bribes exchanged for commercial drivers licenses in Illinois.

It ballooned into a wide-ranging investigation of corruption when Ryan was a major political power at the Statehouse in Springfield and led to dozens of convictions of state officials, lobbyists, driving instructors and others.

At the same time, Ryan was also being praised by capital punishment foes for suspending executions in the state and clearing Illinois' death row.

Ryan's appeal of his conviction was largely based on the decisions by Pallmeyer to replace the two jurors after deliberations had started.

The dismissed jurors had been found to have omitted mention on pre-trial questionnaires that they had been in trouble with the police.

"The high profile nature of these proceedings gave rise to some unusual problems with the jury, but we are satisfied that the court handled them acceptably," the appeals court said.

[Livyjr]

THE WEEKLY STANDARD

"Troopergate, New York-Style - Eliot Spitzer's character problem"

by Michael Goodwin and Fred Siegel

08/20/2007, Volume 012, Issue 46

Even by the scandal-pocked history of New York politics, Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace is extraordinary.

A mere seven months into his term after a landslide victory, the Empire State's brash new governor is openly ridiculed as a liar and worse.

An astonishing 80 percent of respondents tell pollsters they want the governor to testify under oath to prove his claim that he had nothing to do with "troopergate," a dirty-tricks plot to smear Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, a Republican rival.

His fellow Democratic pols are largely abandoning him.

After two investigations found that his top aides used the state police for a political hit job, and with four more probes gearing up, one of which could bring indictments, Spitzer is suddenly a lonely man.

As one prominent supporter put it, "nobody believes him when he says he didn't know."

The boy wonder, elected state attorney general at the tender age of 39, rocketed to fame as the Sheriff of Wall Street.

For Democrats demoralized by Al Gore's defeat and dismayed by the victories of Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in New York City and Governor George Pataki in Albany, Spitzer was a godsend.

His image as a tough prosecutor fighting the battles of what he called "the investor class," supposedly an emerging GOP constituency, propelled him to stardom.

He was variously described by the national press as the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt, Batman in a three-piece suit, and the new King Arthur.

Already there was talk that Spitzer had his eye on bigger fish--becoming the first Jewish president of the United States.

From the very beginning of his political career, there was evidence of a character problem, one marked by an uneasy relationship with the truth.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...0cljul.asp?pg=1

July 11, 1990

Thomas A. Constantine
Superintendant
New York State Police
Building 22
The State Campus
Albany, N.Y. 12226

RE: harassment and intimidation

Dear Mr. Superintendant;

On January 26, 1990 I sent you a letter stating a belief that an attempt to run me down was being covered-up with possible involvement of uniformed members of the New York State Police.

In January 1989 I presented Dr. David Axelrod, Commissioner of Health for the State of New York, with evidence of widespread corruption in Rensselaer County, which evidence was corroborated by investigators from the State.

Since that time, I have been subjected to threats of violence and general harassment which includes the hit-and-run in December 1989.

There has been a campaign by those in public office against whom I plan to present evidence to a grand jury to make me out as a violent person suffering from some psychoses acquired in Viet Nam which makes me unstable and potentially dangerous.

The information filed by my assailant in January 1990 utilized that theme of potential violence from myself toward the complainant over a period of years, despite the fact that the complainant had just moved from another town to this one only months earlier.

Sincerely, Paul R. Plante

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

I personally think that we, the people of the State of New York are being played with here, with respect to P. David Soares and the GRAND JURY that should be looking into this matter of MISCONDUCT as it relates to TROOPERGATE, now that misconduct in the EXECUTIVE OFFICE has been confirmed by young Andy Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer, who has disciplined 2 executive office public servants based upon young Andy Cuomo’s recommendations of discipline for misconduct ….

And in support of my position on that in here, I go to ARTICLE 190 of the New York State Criminal Procedure Law - THE GRAND JURY AND ITS PROCEEDINGS - and specifically I refer to CPL section 190.85 as follows:

S 190.85 Grand jury; grand jury reports.

1. The grand jury may submit to the court by which it was impaneled, a report:

(a) Concerning misconduct, non-feasance or neglect in public office by a public servant as the basis for a recommendation of removal or disciplinary action; or

(b) Stating that after investigation of a public servant it finds no misconduct, non-feasance or neglect in office by him provided that such public servant has requested the submission of such report; or

© Proposing recommendations for legislative, executive or administrative action in the public interest based upon stated findings.

Clearly from section 6 of ARTICLE 1 of the BILL OF RIGHTS of the NYS Constitution, the power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments or to direct the filing of informations in connection with such inquiries, shall never be suspended or impaired by law …

And the NYS Criminal Procedure Law provides a mechanism for that to happen, as is clear from NYS CPL 190.85 above ….

Especially with respect to “Proposing recommendations for legislative, executive or administrative action in the public interest based upon stated findings”, which is really what we need coming out of a non-political GRAND JURY with respect to this TROOPERGATE FIASCO, where young Andy Cuomo has uncovered mis-use of the NYSP for political purposes one more time again, here in NYS …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 21, 2007 @ 5:13 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5250#comments

[Livyjr]

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

And with respect to the “power”, or authority, jurisdiction and discretion of a grand jury in the state of New York to make inquiry into misconduct by public servants in NYS such as the SPITZER-ITES, EVEN IF there is no alleged criminal conduct, we have from section 190.05 of ARTICLE 190 of the New York State Criminal Procedure Law - THE GRAND JURY AND ITS PROCEEDINGS as follows:

S 190.05 Grand jury; definition and general functions.

A grand jury is a body consisting of not less than sixteen nor more than twenty-three persons, impaneled by a superior court and constituting a part of such court, the functions of which are to hear and examine evidence concerning offenses and concerning misconduct, nonfeasance and neglect in public office, whether criminal or otherwise, and to take action with respect to such evidence as provided in section 190.60.

end quotes

THE FUNCTIONS OF WHICH ARE TO HEAR AND EXAMINE EVIDENCE CONCERNING MISCONDUCT, NONFEASANCE AND NEGLECT IN PUBLIC OFFICE, WHETHER CRIMINAL OR OTHERWISE ..

Whether criminal ..

OR …

Otherwise …

And so …

Simple words for simple people like us, since it is people like us who comprise GRAND JURY panels in the State of New York …

And since it is simple people like us who are the EXCLUSIVE TRIERS OF FACT in these matters of alleged misconduct, not the political DA …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 21, 2007 @ 5:30 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5250#comments

[Livyjr]

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

And in support of my statement above that as members of a GRAND JURY, we, the common people of this state are the EXCLUSIVE TRIERS OF FACT in these matters of alleged misconduct by public servants in the EXECUTIVE BRANCH of OUR state government, not the political DA, I simply refer to sub-section 5 of section 190.25 of the NYS CPL - Grand jury; proceedings and operation in general - as follows:

5. The grand jury is the exclusive judge of the facts with respect to any matter before it.

end quotes

And with respect to the political DA NOT being a part of the deliberations of the citizen GRAND JURY with respect to matters of MISCONDUCT by public servants in NYS, I refer to NYS CPL S 190.25(3), to wit:

3. Except as provided in subdivision three-a of this section, during the deliberations and voting of a grand jury, only the grand jurors may be present in the grand jury room.

During its other proceedings, the following persons, in addition to witnesses, may, as the occasion requires, also be present: (a) The district attorney;

end quotes

THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY MAY, AS THE OCCASION REQUIRES, ALSO BE PRESENT …

BUT …

DURING THE DELIBERATIONS, HE IS NOT TO BE PRESENT, BY LAW …

For the political DA is not in charge of the GRAND JURY ….

ESPECIALLY NOT ITS OUTCOME …

He is merely an advisor to it in NYS …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 21, 2007 @ 5:54 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5250#comments

[Livyjr]

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

In support of my statement that the political DA is the legal advisor to a citizen GRAND JURY, and not the individual actually running the GRAND JURY, I refer to NYSCPL section 190.25(6) as follows:

6. The legal advisors of the grand jury are the court and the district attorney, and the grand jury may not seek or receive legal advice from any other source.

Where necessary or appropriate, the court or the district attorney, or both, must instruct the grand jury concerning the law with respect to its duties or any matter before it, and such instructions must be recorded in the minutes.

end quotes

INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE RECORDED IN THE MINUTES …

With respect to citizen GRAND JURIES in NYS, the NYS CPL leaves no stone left unturned with respect to how the GRAND JURY is to function, and from the standpoint of a common citizen such as myself, the NYS CPL is easily understandable, and it is elegant in its simplicity …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 21, 2007 @ 6:13 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5250#comments

[Livyjr]

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

That this ARTICLE of the NYS CPL I am quoting from in here, ARTICLE 190, THE GRAND JURY AND ITS PROCEEDINGS, governs the proceedings of the citizen GRAND JURY in the State of New York, which citizen GRAND JURY would be comprised of common people just like us out here in the countryside, is made incandescently clear by the statutory language of sub-section 5 of NYS CPL S 190.20 Grand jury; formation, organization and other matters preliminary to assumption of duties, to wit:

5. After a grand jury has been sworn, the court must deliver or cause to be delivered to each grand juror a printed copy of all the provisions of this article, and the court may, in addition, give the grand jurors any oral and written instructions relating to the proper performance of their duties as it deems necessary or appropriate.

end quotes

THE COURT MUST DELIVER OR CAUSE TO BE DELIVERED TO EACH GRAND JUROR A PRINTED COPY OF ALL THE PROVISIONS OF THIS ARTICLE …

EACH GRAND JUROR …

Not just one …

For a citizen GRAND JURY is not some political circus …

It is a very serious undertaking …

BY WE COMMON FOLKS OUT HERE …

In accordance with OUR written laws …

And not the political whims of some political DA who is angling for position …

For himself …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 21, 2007 @ 6:25 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5250#comments

[Livyjr]

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

In the State of New York pursuant to sub-section 1 of section 190.55 Grand jury; matters to be heard and examined; duties and authority of district attorney:

1. A grand jury may hear and examine evidence concerning the alleged commission of any offense prosecutable in the courts of the county, and concerning any misconduct, nonfeasance or neglect in public office by a public servant, whether criminal or otherwise.

end quotes

This section of OUR NYS laws says in clear and unambiguous language that this SPITZER-ITIC TROOPERGATE FIASCO is the province of a citizen GRAND JURY here in NYS, right now as we speak in here, whether or not DA David Soares thinks that criminal conduct might have occurred …

That the citizen GRAND JURY in NYS is not beholden to a political DA like David Soares to determine what witnesses shall appear before the citizens comprising the GRAND JURY is made patently clear by the statutory language of sub-section 3 of NYS CPL section 190.50 Grand jury; who may call witnesses; defendant as witness, to wit:

3. The grand jury may cause to be called as a witness any person believed by it to possess relevant information or knowledge.

If the grand jury desires to hear any such witness who was not called by the people, it may direct the district attorney to issue and serve a subpoena upon such witness, and the district attorney must comply with such direction.

At any time after such a direction, however, or at any time after the service of a subpoena pursuant to such a direction and before the return date thereof, the people may apply to the court which impaneled the grand jury for an order vacating or modifying such direction or subpoena on the ground that such is in the public interest.

Upon such application, the court may in its discretion vacate the direction or subpoena, attach reasonable conditions thereto, or make other appropriate qualification thereof.

end quotes

So …

While a political DA may be ultimately successful in blocking the GRAND JURY’S access to a witness who has been subpoenaed by the citizen GRAND JURY, IF the GRAND JURY directs the DA to subpoena the witness, the DA must initially comply …

Which statutory language from OUR NYS CPL serves to illustrate the relationship between a citizen GRAND JURY here in NYS, and a political DA like David Soares in Albany County …

And so …

And clearly, with regard to what witnesses it shall have before it, the political DA like David Soares is subordinate to the will of the citizen GRAND JURY …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 21, 2007 @ 7:05 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5250#comments