THE "PORK" IN NEW YORK, Thoughts of an older American on Constitutional Government in the USA Options

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

AND TALK ABOUT FACILITATION, ALRIGHT!

HERE ARE FINDINGS OF FACT OF FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT JUDGE GARY L. SHARPE IN 2005 AS TO EXACTLY WHAT KINDS OF CONDUCT BY LAND DEVELOPERS WERE BEING FACILITATED IN RENSSELAER COUNTY AS LATE AS 2001 ....

WHICH IS THE SAME KIND OF CONDUCT THAT WAS BEING FACILITATED IN RENSSELAER COUNTY WHEN THE FBI POSTED ITS FINDINGS IN 1989 ....

And so ....

III. FACTS:

On May 22, 2001, Jeffey Pelletier was issued a sewage system construction permit by the County of Rensselaer.

On July 7 (2001), PLAINTIFF (Paul R. Plante, NYSPE) conducted an investigation of defendants Aiken (engineer) and McGrath’s “deliberate falsification of inspection data and fraudulent submissions” resulting in the issuance of the Pelletier permit.

During PLAINTIFF'S investigation, Pelletier assaulted him.

On August 9 (2001), defendant Reiter (Rensselaer County Director of Veterans’ Services Robert "BOB" Reiter) warned PLAINTIFF to “back off” the Pelletier investigation because he (Pelletier) was a “protected person” in the county.

On August 17 (2001), defendant Jimino (Rensselaer County Executive Kathleen Jimino) allegedly phoned PLAINTIFF threatening to harm him if he did not stop his investigation.

end quotes

"DELIBERATE FALSIFICATION OF INSPECTION DATA AND FRAUDULENT SUBMISSIONS" RESULTING IN THE ISSUANCE OF A RENSSELAER COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT SEWAGE SYSTEM CONSTRUCTION PERMIT ......

There is the GAME, Mike ....

THERE IS THE SCAM ....

BOGUS APPRAISALS OF LAND ....

And as I said ....

It never was a secret .....

Just a story not widely told before this ....

And so ....

Posted by John Galt on January 27, 2008 3:23 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...3.html#comments

"Cuomo settles appraisal case with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac"

By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:53 p.m., Monday, March 3, 2008

ALBANY -- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Monday that prospective home buyers will be protected from fraudulently inflated home prices under a new agreement with government-sponsored lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Cuomo said lenders have pressured appraisers to bump up the listed value of homes, contributing to a national mortgage crisis that is forcing families into foreclosure.

Under the agreement, which ends Cuomo's investigation into the two companies, lenders won't be allowed to use in-house staff for initial appraisals and will be prohibited from using appraisal management companies that they own or control.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchase nearly 80 percent of all home loans originated in the U.S., Cuomo said in a phone interview.

"We believe the appraisals were often fraudulent because of a conflict of interest and pressure on the appraisers," Cuomo said.

"To us, this issue was a pervasive issue that needed to be solved."

The companies acknowledged no wrongdoing, and said the agreement will benefit everyone.

"We are pleased to work with regulators to do our part to ensure sound, accurate, independent and reliable appraisals," Fannie Mae General Counsel Beth Wilkinson said in a prepared statement.

She said Fannie Mae will make sure appraisals are independent and the valuation placed on a home is accurate under the Home Valuation Protection Code.

The companies will require lenders to conform to the code beginning in 2009.

"It's going to create massive change," said Brian Chappelle, a partner at Potomac Partners in Washington, D.C., a consulting firm to the mortgage industry.

He said mortgage lenders that own appraisal companies -- such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Countrywide Financial Corp. -- may have to spin off those divisions because they would be prohibited from selling mortgages to Fannie and Freddie unless the appraisal work was being done independently.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will also pay $24 million to create an institute that will monitor the code to make sure it's applied appropriately.

The companies acknowledged no wrongdoing, and said the agreement will benefit everyone.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, also participated and approved the agreement.

"These initiatives clearly serve the interests of the nation's homebuyers, the housing markets and the broader economy," said Robert Bostrom, Freddie Mac's general counsel.

A nationwide hot line will be set up for consumers who suspect fraudulent appraisals or fraud.

Appraisers who feel pressure to pad valuations can also contact the institute, under the agreement.

The institute will report back to the attorney general and the OFHEO every six months.

Cuomo has been investigating billions of dollars of home loans that Fannie and Freddie bought from banks, including the largest U.S. savings and loan, Washington Mutual Inc.

"I believe consumer confidence should be restored," Cuomo said.

"With these reforms we will have a safer, better evaluation process."

In November, after Cuomo issued the subpoenas to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, OFHEO Director James Lockhart accused Cuomo of overstating the risks the two government-sponsored companies faced from faulty home appraisals.

Lockhart objected to Cuomo saying that Fannie and Freddie could no longer afford to continue buying mortgages from Washington Mutual unless they could verify that the loans were based on trustworthy appraisals.

Lockhart, who has often criticized Fannie and Freddie as they have recovered from multibillion-dollar accounting scandals in recent years, said the companies don't have an incentive to knowingly buy mortgages with inflated appraisals.

Unlike other companies that issue mortgage-backed securities, they retain the credit risk on the underlying mortgages by guaranteeing repayment to holders of the securities.

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AP reporter Marcy Gordon in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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On the Net: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/

This post has been edited by Livyjr: Mar 4 2008, 05:40 PM

[Livyjr]

"Nassau wins rulings in bid to block mine - Court refuses to stop town's work on mining restrictions, halts company's work on road"

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

First published: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

NASSAU -- Two recent state Supreme Court rulings have dealt setbacks to a West Sand Lake company's plan to mine hard rock from a hilltop south of the intersection of Route 66 and Radley Road.

On Tuesday, Justice Michael C. Lynch denied a move by Troy Sand and Gravel to stop the town from passing a comprehensive plan that includes tough restrictions on industrial mining.

Town officials and anti-mining forces have been battling Troy Sand and Gravel in the courts since shortly after the mining company filed an December 2003 application to mine graywacke stone, prized by the state for its durability for use in paving highways.

The company's state mining permit was granted in May 2007.

But it also needs a town permit and variance to proceed with mining operations and town officials turned them down for that permit in August 2006.

The town is working on legislation to ban industrial mining altogether.

To do that, officials have been hammering out a town comprehensive plan that includes tough restrictions on industrial mining.

The mining company, arguing the town was in a "race to legislate" to stop their mine, asked Lynch to impose a preliminary injunction stopping the town from proceeding to work on or to pass the townwide planning mandate.

Lynch refused.

"It is acknowledged that the record demonstrates that the town board has demonstrated vigorous opposition to the conduct of mining activity within its borders," Lynch wrote in his decision.

"Notwithstanding that however, there can be little dispute that it may do so."

It was the mining company's second recent setback in state Supreme Court.

In January, TS&G sent out notices to residents surrounding its proposed site on a hill near Pikes Pond that it would be blasting.

Such a notice is mandated by the state permit.

Mining company counsel Andrew Gilchrist said the blasting was not connected to mining activity, but was for work to carve out a road from the site to Route 66.

The town asked Lynch to stop the company from doing any work.

In a Feb. 11 ruling, Lynch sided with the town.

TS&G argued their state permit and the state Mined Land Reclamation Law trumped any town law or local ordinance.

Lynch disagreed and ordered any work to cease.

Town officials praised the ruling.

"The recent Supreme Court decisions are victories for the residents of Nassau," said Town Supervisor David F. Fleming Jr.

"We clearly have a right to defend our residents and protect our community character."

TS&G representatives did not immediately return calls for comment.

Bob Gardinier can be reached at 454-5696 or by e-mail at bgardinier@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

"Outcry after cop abuse claim - Albany officials call for probe after allegations of illegal search surface"

By BRENDAN J. LYONS Senior writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

ALBANY -- The city's legislative leaders have called for an outside agency to examine the Albany Police Department's handling of a woman's claim she was subjected to a cavity search on a public street two months ago, according to several members of the city's Common Council.

The elected leaders were responding to a Times Union story on Sunday that exposed the woman's allegations about a Dec. 22 traffic stop.

During the stop -- for an alleged routine traffic violation -- three police officers searched her body, purse and car without her consent or any apparent probable cause, she said.

One of the officers also took her cellphone and used it to call someone in her contacts' list, the woman, Lisa Shutter of Ravena, said.

Shutter became dismayed by the way police handled her internal affairs complaint and said she was dissuaded by a police official from going to Albany's Citizens' Police Review Board.

Councilman James Scalzo, chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said he is in the process of scheduling meetings to discuss Shutter's case and the department's protocols for reporting complaints to the police review board.

Councilwoman Barbara Smith, the committee's vice chairwoman, said she is deeply concerned by any breakdown in reporting of cases to the review board.

"It's disturbing to me that if indeed the statements of Ms. Shutter are accurate ... if she was discouraged from filing a complaint with the Citizens' Police Review Board," Smith said.

Chief James W. Tuffey and Mayor Jerry Jennings have scheduled a news conference for this afternoon at police headquarters to discuss the department's policies and procedures, training and their handling of internal affairs complaints.

Tuffey said he would be limited in what he can discuss regarding Shutter's allegations because it's an open investigation.

"We're not going to tolerate any misconduct by our police," the mayor said, adding that his administration has encouraged people to bring complaints to the review board.

"I am concerned."

"There's absolutely no reason why someone would not want to report something to the Citizens' Police Review Board."

"There shouldn't be any reluctance on anyone's part."

"I have a lot of confidence in that board."

Tuffey, meanwhile, said he has tried to hold his officers and supervisors accountable for any misconduct or poor decision-making.

"My job is to represent the public and run this police department in an open and honest fashion."

"I'm confident that I've done the job over and above what I've had to do," Tuffey said.

"At the end of the day when guys understand that they can't do things that they want to do, or used to do, it'll change the mind-set."

"I firmly believe the tide is changing from that so-called 'blue wall of silence.' "

The two officers who stopped Shutter are assigned to the Strategic Deployment Unit, a special patrol that is assigned to crack down on street-level crimes.

They pulled over Shutter for failure to use a turn signal but never issued a ticket.

Shutter said she became lost that evening driving through West Hill as she was trying to pick up her best friend's brother, who is on parole.

Shutter was behind the wheel of a rental car and claims the officer told her they pulled her over because she was "a white girl in a rental car."

The officer pressed Shutter about drug use and where she was going.

They dumped the contents of her purse, found an empty wallet and asked her if she'd spent her money on crack cocaine, she said.

Shutter said she panicked at one point under their questioning and told the officer she was picking up her best friend, Mandie Buxton, and not Buxton's brother, because of his parole status.

But Shutter said she had not been drinking, had offered to take a Breathalyzer test and had no drugs on her or in the vehicle.

Shutter said an officer reached into her pants and used his finger to search her vagina for drugs or contraband.

The officers needed her consent or a reasonable suspicion to search Shutter or her car.

Police normally obtain a search warrant before seizing a person's phone.

In her first meeting with internal affairs detectives a few days after the incident, Shutter said she offered to submit to a drug test and a polygraph examination.

They declined the offers, she said.

"Overall, I think that across the board people were appalled by the report in Sunday's paper and certainly geared toward doing doing something about it," said Shawn Morris, president of the Albany Common Council.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares said his office has requested to review the police department's files in the case.

Shutter canceled a follow-up interview with internal affairs three weeks ago after growing suspicious of their motives and on the advice of her attorney, Kevin Luibrand.

A male detective had been assigned to handle Shutter's case, and he had requested twice that she wear the same clothing as the night of the incident to re-enact what happened on the street.

There are at least two female detectives assigned to the internal affairs unit.

Luibrand has handled dozens of cases involving allegations of police misconduct and has represented many police officers who were subjected to internal affairs investigations, he said.

He instructed Shutter to cancel her last interview with internal affairs.

"I advise clients -- whether victims or police officers -- not to speak to internal affairs, not to give them statements and not to cooperate," Luibrand said.

"Internal affairs units do not, in my experience, look out for the victim or even the police officer but instead the command and political structure in the police department."

A member of the city's Citizens' Police Review Board, who spoke on condition of anonymity because only their chairman is authorized to make public statements, said the panel has met twice since December and was never notified about Shutter's case.

In cases involving allegations of excessive force or civil rights violations, the board is empowered to appoint a monitor to the case.

The board also used to receive some transcripts of the interviews conducted by internal affairs during their investigations, "but now they stopped giving us transcripts a couple months ago," the member said.

Councilman Richard Conti, who helped draft the legislation that created the review board, said he wrote the specific language in the law that requires the police department to notify the review board "within two working days" of its receipt of a complaint.

"The intent was the CPRB should be aware of all complaints filed regardless of whether or not they were filed with the CPRB," Conti said.

"If that's not happening, there's some kind of a breakdown here."

J. Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

"Ex-CEO to seek McNulty's seat - Gary Mittleman, formerly of Plug Power, will run in 21st Congressional District race"

By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Gary Mittleman, former CEO of Latham's Plug Power, will announce Thursday that he'll run as a Democrat for Michael McNulty's 21st Congressional District seat.

Mittleman, 55, of Loudonville is the fifth Democratic candidate to seek to replace McNulty, D-Green Island, who is retiring at year end after 20 years in office.

Mittleman said Tuesday he has the right ideas and the desire to change things.

"I do think it's great that the people of this district will have a real choice when they go to the polling place," Mittleman said.

The other declared Democratic candidates are Tracey Brooks, former regional director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; Lester Freeman, Albany's Equal Employment Opportunity coordinator; Darius Shahinfar, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand; and Phil Steck, an Albany County legislator.

No Republicans have declared in the race.

Mittleman, a native of Long Island, came to the Capital Region in 1997 to create Plug Power as a partnership of his company, DTE Energy Co. of Detroit, and Mechanical Technology of Colonie.

Plug Power, which makes fuel cell systems for homes and cars, went public in 1999.

Mittleman left Plug Power in 2000 and has since been involved in various investment ventures.

He will make his formal announcement at 3 p.m. at his campaign headquarters, 255 New Scotland Ave., Albany.

The district covers parts of Fulton, Rensselaer and Saratoga counties, and all of Albany, Montgomery, Schenectady and Schoharie counties.

[Livyjr]

"New agreement on appraisals will benefit independent firms"

By MARCY GORDON, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:13 p.m., Tuesday, March 4, 2008

WASHINGTON -- A new agreement by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to only buy mortgages for which appraisals are made by firms independent from lenders will shake up the industry, analysts said.

The accord announced Monday between the country's two largest mortgage purchasers and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo likely will benefit independent appraisal firms and could force lenders that own appraisal operations to sell them off.

Cuomo's office has investigated billions of dollars of home loans that Fannie and Freddie bought from lenders, including the largest U.S. savings and loan, Washington Mutual Inc.

He says that lenders have pressured appraisers to inflate the listed value of homes, contributing to a national mortgage crisis that is forcing families into foreclosure.

With the cost of a home appraisal running about $300-$400, the industry has reaped billions in revenue a year during the housing boom of recent years.

The agreement ends the practice of lenders using their in-house staff for initial home appraisals and prohibits the use of appraisal-management companies owned or controlled by lenders.

Among the lenders that own such companies are Wells Fargo & Co. and Countrywide Financial Corp.

Appraisal-management firms act as intermediaries between lenders and appraisers.

"It's going to create massive change," said Brian Chappelle, a partner at Potomac Partners in Washington, D.C., a consulting firm to the mortgage industry.

"It's going to be a huge boon to independent appraisal firms."

Independent firms that are owned by public companies are LSI, based in Coraopolis, Pa., and owned by Fidelity National Information Services Inc., and Poway, Calif.-based eAppraiseIT, part of First American Corp.

Jeff Schurman, executive director of the Title-Appraisal Vendor Management Association, and Bill Garber, government affairs director at the Appraisal Institute, also see such a reshaping of the appraisal industry landscape.

For the appraisal companies owned by lenders, "it penalizes them because they're captive," Schurman said.

The trade group representing mortgage brokers, which often designate specific appraisers under the current system, protested the agreement and threatened legal action.

The agreement "will increase costs to consumers by removing thousands of small-business competitors from the marketplace," Roy DeLoach, executive vice president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, said in a statement.

Shares of Wells Fargo slipped 4 cents to close at $28.83 Tuesday; Countrywide stock fell 24 cents to $5.93.

Shares of Fidelity National declined 21 cents to $40.80 and First American fell 50 cents to $33.

[Livyjr]

"Advocates call on lawmakers to increase welfare benefits"

By JESSICA M. PASKO, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:13 p.m., Tuesday, March 4, 2008

ALBANY -- Under the state's basic welfare grant, a family of three receives just $291 a month, and advocates say that's insufficient.

Welfare recipients and advocates joined Assembly Social Services Committee Chairman Keith Wright in Albany Tuesday to call on lawmakers to increase the basic welfare grant, which hasn't increased in 18 years.

They'd like to see the basic benefit increased to $475 a month for a family of three.

That amount doesn't include the shelter allowance, which varies by county.

"It's making it more and more difficult for people to help themselves out of poverty," said Chantale Soekhoe, a 20-year-old student at Hunter College, who grew up on welfare.

Education seems like a way out, she said, "but it becomes really difficult when you have to choose between getting something to eat between classes or buying a Metro Card to get home."

More than 500,000 New Yorkers currently receive welfare benefits, although that number has continued to decline in the past 10 years, according to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

Wright said the Assembly will include an increase in welfare benefits when it passes its budget resolutions.

Senate Democrats have introduced legislation sponsored by Sen. Velmanette Montgomery that would increase the basic grant by 25 percent.

Advocates such as Mark Dunlea of the Hunger Action Network say opposition from Senate Republicans has blocked efforts to raise welfare benefits.

Mark Hansen, spokesman for Senate Republicans, said he couldn't say yet whether the bill has a chance of being passed this year because they're still in the process of putting together their own budget resolutions.

[Livyjr]

"Assembly considers higher tax on wealthiest New Yorkers"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:52 p.m., Wednesday, March 5, 2008

ALBANY -- The Assembly's Democratic majority on Wednesday proposed a temporary increase in income tax paid by New Yorkers making more than $1 million a year.

The plan, expected to be in the Assembly's budget proposal next week, would raise $1.5 billion annually, said Dan Weiller, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

The measure would raise the income tax from 6.85 percent to 7.7 percent for New Yorkers making more than $1 million a year.

The first year's revenue would go to the general fund, which the state uses to fund most functions and from which it will need to fill a $4.8 billion deficit.

The second year's revenues would be split between the general fund and transportation needs.

The last three years' revenues would be used for transportation costs, split between the New York City mass transit and the state Department of Transportation, Weiller said.

The proposal was supported in Wednesday's closed-door conference of the Democratic majority.

It evolved from a proposal by the influential Working Families Party, which is associated with the Democrats.

The Working Families Party, however, had sought a graduated tax for New Yorkers making more than $250,000 a year.

The revenue was estimated at $5.1 billion and half would have been devoted to property tax relief, which was expected to entice the Senate's Republican majority to support the idea.

"It's not done," said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party.

"There's still time here."

"The Senate at first blush will denounce this idea."

"Then perhaps they will realize they, in fact, favor reducing property taxes and some may be reasonable enough to find the proper way to do it."

Cantor sees his party's plan as providing relief for millions of taxpayers, while asking a very few who can afford it to pay a little more.

But the party also has a barely concealed hammer: Its support or opposition can mean the difference in political races, including Assembly Democratic primaries, close races for the Senate Republicans hoping to keep a slim majority, and a governor low in the polls.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said.

"We've had a good alliance with the Assembly, but it's fair to say our people are pretty disappointed."

Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno and Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, however, had objected to the Working Families Party version of the measure earlier on Wednesday.

"We have no plans to raise the personal income tax."

"None," said Bruno.

"Not one penny in new taxes."

"When you increase taxes, you deprive people of income that they can spend as they please for education, mortgages, to buy homes, cars, refrigerators, TVs, restaurants," Bruno said.

"You affect the whole economy."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Spitzer is calling for no increases in broad-based taxes in his $124 billion budget proposal.

The budget is due by the April 1 start of the fiscal year.

"I have said that we should not raise taxes," Spitzer said.

"That is something that we cannot afford to do."

"We are finally making New York state competitive."

"When I speak to executives and those who make the decisions about where to locate jobs, the idea that we would turn around at this moment and start raising taxes is the wrong way to go."

------

AP Writer Jessica Pasko contributed to this report from Albany.

[Livyjr]

"Intel lowers gross profit margin outlook"

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press

Last updated: 10:22 p.m., Monday, March 3, 2008

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Intel Corp. lowered its profit forecast for its fiscal first quarter Monday, blaming the shortfall on a steeper-than-expected drop in prices for memory chips.

Intel's primary business is making microprocessors -- the brains of personal computers -- but it also makes memory chips.

The company's microprocessor business is thriving from robust PC demand, but Monday's announcement illustrates that Intel is still vulnerable to swings in the volatile memory market, which has been under intense pricing pressure because of oversupply.

Other companies have also been hurt by falling memory-chip prices.

Intel has benefited from making a quicker transition to a new chip-making process than its smaller rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The two compete primarily in the market for microprocessors.

Intel made nearly $7 billion in fiscal 2007, which ended in December, an improvement of roughly $2 billion over 2006, when the company was hurt by a fierce price battle with AMD.

AMD, meanwhile, lost nearly $3.4 billion last year, dragged down primarily by expenses from a costly acquisition.

"AMD aims to bring chip work back home - Company's goal to resume silicon wafer manufacturing in U.S. could aid in closure of Luther Forest deal"

By LARRY RULISON, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

COLONIE -- Officials at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. hinted Tuesday that one of the reasons the company is considering Saratoga County for a $3.2 billion "chip fab" is because all of its current manufacturing takes place overseas.

AMD, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., once manufactured chips in Austin, Texas, a city that has become a second headquarters for the company.

Now, its only two fabs are in Dresden, Germany.

It subcontracts for additional manufacturing in Asia.

"We want to bring that technology back home again," Terry Caudell, director of wafer manufacturing strategies at AMD, said Tuesday at a breakfast organized by the Center for Economic Growth.

The breakfast was held at the Holiday Inn Albany on Wolf Road in Colonie.

AMD will continue to make chips in Dresden regardless of whether it builds in New York.

The company is upgrading its older fab in Germany to newer technology.

Caudell, who helped AMD build fabs in both Austin and Dresden, was in the Capital Region again this week, along with other AMD executives.

They are moving AMD's newest project through the local regulatory process in the towns of Malta and Stillwater.

If AMD decides to go ahead with Fab 4X, it would acquire about 200 acres at the Luther Forest Technology Campus, located in both Malta and Stillwater.

That decision could come as soon as the end of the year, when AMD hopes to have a building permit in hand from the town of Malta.

Caudell also shed new light on how Fab 4X would operate -- and what its eventual name will be.

AMD, founded in 1969, has traditionally named its fabs with numbers that correspond to the number of years the factory is completed after the company's birth.

Therefore, Fab 4X might be called Fab 42 or Fab 43 depending on whether the facility is completed in 2011 or 2012.

Caudell also said that once AMD makes a decision to move ahead with the project, it would take the company about four to six months to prepare the site and about 18 months to complete the complex.

Fab 4X would have between 500 and 600 of the sophisticated manufacturing "tools" used to etch circuitry onto the 12-inch, or 300-millimeter, silicon wafers that the fab would process.

Caudell said each 300-millimeter wafer holds about 350 microprocessor chips, with about 85 percent being usable.

After the CEG breakfast, he said that AMD's two fabs in Dresden process 45,000 wafers a month, and the first Luther Forest fab would process 35,000.

AMD has plans for up to three.

That means, according to rough calculations done by the Times Union, Fab 4X could make as many as 10.4 million computer chips a month.

A single processor, depending on its power and capabilities, has a wholesale cost of between $50 and $290 on average, according to the AMD Web site.

Some high-end server processors sell for more than $1,000.

Caudell said AMD, which struggled financially last year with more than $3 billion in losses, is still working on a new financial and manufacturing strategy before it decides if Fab 4X fits into those plans.

The company has until the end of July 2009 to make a decision and still be eligible for $1.2 billion in incentives for the project.

AMD makes about half of its chips in Dresden.

The rest are made in foundries, third-party manufacturers, in Asia.

It's possible that AMD could decide to make more of its chips in-house in the future, although the company has never tipped its hand on what type of manufacturing mix it is planning.

"Those are the kinds of decisions within the company that we're looking at," Caudell said.

Many of those in the audience were wondering how the rest of the local economy would benefit from AMD.

Caudell said the creation of Fab 4X, which would employ 1,465 people, would likely bring 1,500 to 4,000 additional jobs outside the plant.

One of those interested in those figures was Jay Niles, mayor of the village of Granville in northern Washington County.

Niles told the Times Union that the Granville area, with its own manufacturing base, could help supply both employees and vendors to AMD.

"We feel poised for this," he said.

Larry Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at lrulison@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

"Proposal aims to protect subprime borrowers - Spitzer's legislation requires lenders to give notice before taking action, targets foreclosure scams"

By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, March 4, 2008

ALBANY -- Gov. Eliot Spitzer plans to introduce a bill today intended to help subprime borrowers statewide who are at risk of losing their homes.

The bill would also establish further protection in the law to prevent a similar crisis in the future, according to a description of the bill provided to the Times Union on Monday.

Subprime mortgages are high-cost loans typically given to borrowers who have shaky credit, relatively low incomes or little money for a deposit.

Rising default rates among holders of the loans have rocked the nation's financial institutions, leading to a credit crisis that some believe is pushing the economy toward recession.

Subprime loans frequently have adjustable payment rates.

Some borrowers can pay the introductory rate, but struggle to make the higher payments that come one or two years into the mortgage.

Spitzer's bill would require lenders to send a notice to borrowers at least 60 days before legal action could be taken against a borrower who is behind on his loan.

It would also require a mandatory settlement conference before any action can be taken.

The bill also would target foreclosure "rescue scams," by prohibiting the taking of power of attorney from a homeowner except in very limited situations, prohibiting consultants from performing any services for the homeowner without a written contract and require services to be performed before any payment is made to the consultant.

The bill also includes language that would define and criminalize the act of mortgage fraud and would set a standard of behavior for mortgage brokers to act in a borrower's best interest.

While foreclosure rates in much of the Capital Region and upstate generally are lower than in other parts of the country, areas of Troy and Schenectady have a relatively high number of subprime mortgages in default, according to recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

[Livyjr]

"More fall into spiral of poverty - From poor to working poor: Between 2001 and 2005, 14,000 Capital Region residents fell below poverty line"

By JIMMY VIELKIND, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, March 3, 2008

TROY -- Terry Behan is used to living in poverty.

The 38-year-old father of three young boys ran away from home at age 15, living hand to mouth and fix to fix on the streets of Troy for the next few years.

He did time, but straightened out when he met Shannon Brayman, the mother of his children.

They doubled up with Brayman's twin sister in a Halfmoon trailer, as Behan and Danny Dunham, his soon-to-be-brother-in-law, worked full-time but still struggled.

The family had made the transition from poor to working poor.

Between 2001 and 2005, 14,000 Capital Region residents fell below the poverty line -- a slow but consistent rise even as median household incomes in the area rose and statewide poverty rates leveled, according to a Times Union analysis of recently released census data.

The apparent cause is the rising cost of necessities and stagnant wages.

In Rensselaer County, 11.5 percent of people live in poverty, including 16.1 percent of children under 18 -- increases of 2.1 and 4 percent from 2001.

Albany and Schenectady counties each reported that 11.9 percent of their residents live in poverty, both more than 2 percent over 2001.

The poverty threshold for a family of four rose $3,067 between 2001 and 2007 to $21,027.

Social service providers say they see those data in the greater numbers of people -- including more and more families -- showing up at food pantries, soup kitchens and even homeless shelters.

There is no single precipitating factor, just a slow squeeze of family budgets as the price of basic necessities -- food, electricity, gasoline -- rose while wages struggled to keep up.

According to federal statistics, energy prices rose 19.6 percent from January 2007 to January 2008.

Transportation costs rose 9 percent while food rose almost 5 percent.

Overall, prices rose 4.3 percent for urban consumers.

"It sort of went under the radar," Diane Reed, program director of Catholic Charities of Rensselaer County, said as she walked through the storeroom of a food pantry in Troy's North Central neighborhood.

In a side room, Reed opened three refrigerators.

The shelves were nearly empty, save for some hamburger, bacon and chicken patties.

Other nonperishable goods that can be stretched over many meals, like peanut butter, were also in short supply.

More people come during the last and first week of each month as food stamp benefits run out, said Joyce Daniels, who has seen the pantry's clientele grow in the six years she has run it.

According to Mark Quandt, director of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, which provides food to pantries around the region, demand is up and donations are down.

"When costs go up, and something needs to be cut and that often is food," Quandt said.

According to Food Pantries for the Capital District, people sought food assistance 65,758 times from 44 area pantries in 2006.

But more and more of the newcomers are the working poor.

According to a report published by Catholic Charities in January, 71 percent of impoverished families in Albany County had at least one worker; it was 70 percent in Rensselaer County, 59 percent in Schenectady County and 52.6 percent in Saratoga County.

The minimum wage in New York was raised in 2004 over a veto by then-Gov. George Pataki.

It reached $7.15 hourly in January 2007, gradually increasing from $5.15.

The money doesn't go far enough, said Sister Maureen Joyce, head of Catholic Charities in the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese.

"What you have is a batch of people who are working two or three jobs on minimum wage, and they are probably doing worse than they were 10 years ago," she said.

The pinch is felt by everyone: gasoline now costs well over $3 a gallon, but was under $2 in 2004, Joyce said.

The same trend is evident on utility bills.

Most can afford the higher increases, maybe by putting a little less into savings or cutting back on some luxuries, Joyce said.

But many lower-income people don't have that buffer.

Thomas Coates, the director of Catholic Charities' housing services, did the sad math, and said that the "transitional" housing he runs has now become permanent as families who move in are unable to find apartments they can afford.

People who fall behind on their rent are ending up in shelters.

"The increase we've seen is less so because people who have problems or issues -- though those people are there -- but now we're seeing plain old poor people who can't afford to pay their bills."

"And they're working," Coates said.

In the 19-bed St. Charles Lwanga homeless shelter in Albany's South End, 23-year-old Shane Patton was seeking refuge as he tried to save enough money for a security deposit on an acceptable apartment.

"It's tough to find a job where you can sustain yourself," he said, despite his training at Glenmont Job Corps as a computer technician.

He now earns minimum wage working in a restaurant.

"And the housing market is really tough."

"Some of these places are so disgusting you'd rather live in a shelter."

Many service providers are lobbying governments to do more.

Terry Behan just wants a job.

It's tough with a criminal record and just a GED, but he still managed to find employment in Clifton Park at Marshalls.

Danny Dunham worked at Wal-Mart.

Even with two full-time incomes, they still visited pantries and the Salvation Army.

Then they were forced to leave when the trailer they called home was condemned.

Behan had to quit because he had no way to get to work after they moved to Troy.

Now the family is scraping by again.

Brayman can't work because she is disabled.

Behan balances his time scouring the classifieds and collecting bottles.

On a good day, he said, he earns $40 in returns.

"I just want a decent job to take care of my family."

"I want to not have to worry about where I can get diapers," he said, gesturing to Landon, 2, and Cody, 1, as his eldest, 3-year-old Kyle, played nearby.

"I want to take my kids to baseball games ... anything on a bus line."

Jimmy Vielkind can be reached at 454-5043 or by e-mail at jvielkind@timesunion.com.

Several thousand people have fallen into poverty in the Capital Region in recent years, according to Census data.

Here are the numbers, by county, and the change from 2001 to 2005.

Albany County: 33,187, or 11.9 percent of the population

Rensselaer County: 17,165, or 11.5 percent of the population

Saratoga County: 13,361, or 6.4 percent of the population

Schenectady County: 17,044, or 11.9 percent of the population

Statewide: 2.58 million, or 13.9 percent of the population

Number of people added to poverty rolls, 2001 to 2005

Albany County: 6,380, up 23.8 percent

Rensselaer County: 3,553, up 26.1 percent

Saratoga County: 836, up 6.67 percent

Schenectady County: 3,110, up 22.3 percent

[Livyjr]

"State seeks deep sites to hold greenhouse gas - Old natural gas wells could hold key to permanent storage of carbon dioxide"

By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ALBANY -- The state is joining the hunt for the holy grail of global warming -- a way to reach deep underground to permanently entomb fossil fuel-emitted carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that fuels rising temperatures.

This summer, geologists will study old natural gas wells and other subterranean features in the Southern Tier and western New York as potential resting places for pumped-in CO2 from power plants, under a $4 million, three-year program by the state Energy Research and Development Authority and a host of energy companies.

The storage method known as sequestration could give extended life to high-CO2 fuels like coal and oil, whose emissions are worsening global warming.

President Bush has been a powerful advocate for sequestration, which could help the fuel industry avoid potential CO2 emission limits that climate scientists say will be needed to to avoid catastrophic temperature increases.

"This is one of our efforts to mitigate climate change," said authority President and CEO Paul Tonko.

"We are going to scope out areas that might be suitable for this and address some of the geological uncertainties."

Nearly a dozen fossil-fuel-based companies are providing $2.3 million toward the state effort.

They include AES Eastern Energy, which owns coal-fired power plants near Buffalo, Johnson City in Broome County, and Cayuga and Seneca lakes in the Finger Lakes, and Nornew, a company that owns natural gas fields in the Southern Tier.

Tonko said preliminary field studies done last year identified areas with the porous geologic features necessary to hold large amounts of CO2 and prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere.

Field researchers will use seismic equipment to study sandstone, limestone and shale formations in the Southern Tier counties of Broome, Chenango, Cayuga, Steuben, Yates, Schuyler and Tompkins, and also in Erie, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties in the western edge of the state, Tonko said.

Geologists from the State Museum also will study storage potential of shale formations.

"Our target will be from 2,500 feet to 10,000 feet underground," said John Martin, a senior project manager with the authority.

Trucks outfitted with seismic frequency collectors and "thumpers" will vibrate the ground and collect reflected sound waves to build a three-dimensional underground map.

Areas of fractured sandstone or limestone -- sometimes mixed with salty water -- have the room needed to hold CO2.

Also, the state is joining the federal Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, one of seven state partnerships supported financially by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Today, the cost of carbon storage appears prohibitively expensive at up to $300 per ton, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

That would greatly increase the cost of electricity generated by coal, which accounts for half of the nation's electricity.

The government's goal is to reduce that storage cost to less than $10 per ton by 2015.

DOE estimates underground saline formations could store up to 500 billion tons, according to the agency's Web page on the effort.

That's equivalent to 300 years of the U.S. total CO2 emissions of 1.6 billion tons in 2004.

More study needs to be done but the storage method does have risks.

One danger could be the sudden and unintended release of CO2 gases into the atmosphere if an underground storage area were to crack or rupture.

Coal accounts for more than a third of all U.S. fossil-fuel CO2 emissions, according to DOE's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center.

"NYSERDA Studies Explore Viability of Carbon Sequestration"

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) today announced a State-funded research program to determine the feasibility of storing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—a potent greenhouse gas—in New York geological formations.

The public-private studies will be conducted by NYSERDA, in cooperation with research firms, energy developers, universities, and government agencies.

NYSERDA is investing $1.7 million in this research effort; this funding is leveraged with an additional $2.3 million in cofunding from research partners.

Paul D. Tonko, NYSERDA president and CEO said:

“Carbon capture and sequestration offers tremendous potential in our effort to fight climate change."

"These important studies will put New York at the forefront of carbon sequestration research in the region and will bring us one step closer to commercializing capture and sequestration technologies.”

Carbon dioxide capture and geological sequestration (CCS) is achieved by chemically capturing CO2 at a power plant or other source, before it is emitted to the atmosphere.

The CO2 is then compressed and transported by pipeline to an appropriate site to be injected and stored, or “sequestered,” in geological formations deep underground.

The technologies used and the storage concept are similar to those used in oil and natural gas exploration.

Two NYSERDA co-funded research projects will characterize the geology of two sections of western New York to determine if sequestration is possible there.

A third project will characterize the geology of central New York for CO2 sequestration and assess the potential for enhanced gas recovery in the area—a process that increases natural gas production while also sequestering CO2.

A fourth research project will evaluate gas shale formations for CO2 sequestration and enhanced gas recovery potential throughout the state.

This last project will build on a current NYSERDA contract with the geologists at the New York State Museum, to assess New York’s shale formations for sequestration potential.

NYSERDA and the State Museum have already initiated membership in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership.

In 2006, NYSERDA began its climate change research program.

Joint research planning with the New York Academy of Science and stakeholders identified near-term and long-term research goals for New York in CCS, including detailed characterization of New York’s geological formations as potential storage sites.

The program will also seek to develop New York’s strategic technical capability by assisting New York State companies and universities to lead in this global effort; to leverage federal and private industry funds for demonstrations; and to assess terrestrial sequestration options (e.g., soil management practices, reforestation).

NYSERDA is also supporting research to advance long-term research goals of storing CO2 in ocean sediments and for CO2 mineralization, a chemical process that reacts CO2 gas with minerals to create a stable solid like calcium carbonate.

Participants and co-funders in the NYSERDA sequestration research effort include:

Advanced Resources International (Arlington, VA);

AES Eastern Energy (Ithaca, NY);

Ansbro (Denver, CO);

Battelle (Columbus, OH);

BQ Energy (Patterson, NY);

Columbia University (New York, NY);

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY);

Covalent Energy (Salt Lake City, UT);

Dresser Rand (Houston, TX);

Ecology & Environment (Lancaster, NY);

Foster Wheeler (Clinton, NJ);

Geomatrix (Amherst, NY);

the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities (Jamestown, NY);

the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Palisades, NY);

Nornew (Amherst, NY);

the NYS Museum (Albany, NY);

Praxair (Tarrytown, NY);

Process Energy Solutions (Patterson, NY);

Schlumberger Data & Consulting Service (Pittsburgh, PA);

SUNY Buffalo (Buffalo, NY); and

Talisman Energy (Calgary, Alberta).

“These efforts to explore CO2 sequestration are one of several State strategies being pursued by the Spitzer Administration to reduce greenhouse gases,” said Tonko.

Other steps include the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative , and the Governor’s “15 x 15” plan to reduce electricity consumption by 15 percent by the year 2015, which is the subject of a current proceeding at the Public Service Commission.

http://www.nyserda.org/Press_Releases/2008...e20081401_3.asp

[Livyjr]

"State seeks deep sites to hold greenhouse gas - Old natural gas wells could hold key to permanent storage of carbon dioxide"

By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ALBANY -- The state is joining the hunt for the holy grail of global warming -- a way to reach deep underground to permanently entomb fossil fuel-emitted carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that fuels rising temperatures.

The storage method known as sequestration could give extended life to high-CO2 fuels like coal and oil, whose emissions are worsening global warming.

President Bush has been a powerful advocate for sequestration, which could help the fuel industry avoid potential CO2 emission limits that climate scientists say will be needed to to avoid catastrophic temperature increases.

"NYSERDA Studies Explore Viability of Carbon Sequestration"

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) today announced a State-funded research program to determine the feasibility of storing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—a potent greenhouse gas—in New York geological formations.

“These efforts to explore CO2 sequestration are one of several State strategies being pursued by the Spitzer Administration to reduce greenhouse gases,” said Tonko.

http://www.nyserda.org/Press_Releases/2008...e20081401_3.asp

"Some cautionary notes about CO2 sequestration"

02/24/2008

By Deb Donahue

LARAMIE - Twenty years ago a huge explosion of gas from Lake Nyos in the central Africa Republic of Cameroon killed nearly 1,800 people and untold livestock up to 15 miles away.

The naturally occurring gas was carbon dioxide (CO2).

A year later, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce decided that, “since CO2 is deadly, CO2 pipelines should have appropriate federal safety regulations.”

Concerns about CO2 today center not on its ability to asphyxiate, as in the Lake Nyos incident, but on its role in global warming.

Many are hopeful that new carbon capture and geological storage technology can reduce CO2 emitted from coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources by 80 percent or more.

Carbon capture and storage involves removing CO2 from fuels, compressing it, and injecting it under pressure deep underground.

Wyoming, the country’s biggest coal-producer, is at the forefront of this effort.

Two interesting bills now before the Legislature address carbon capture and storage.

House Bill 89 establishes that the surface owner also owns below-ground “pore space” in which CO2 might be stored; House Bill 90 charges the Wyoming Dept. of Environmental Quality with regulating “geologic sequestration” of CO2.

However well intentioned, the second measure jumps the gun.

The legal status of sequestered CO2 is a thorny issue that the federal Environmental Protection Agency must address and which it is only now beginning to take on.

Two types of CO2 injection - for experimental purposes and “enhanced oil recovery” - are regulated under the federal Underground Injection Control program to protect drinking water, which the state administers with EPA approval.

No law explicitly permits long-term CO2 storage.

In addition, U.S. Dept. of Transportation rules for pipelines treat CO2 as a hazardous liquid.

HB 90 directs the Wyoming Dept. of Environmental Quality to establish and issue permits to new “sub-classes of wells” within the Underground Injection Control program and to regulate well standards, bonding and monitoring.

Carbon capture and storage technology is already well advanced, but law and policy lag behind.

Last fall, Governor Freudenthal blamed “the absence of a well-thought-out, cogent federal policy” for the difficulties states face in “setting workable rules, regulations and operating practices.”

Although he told a congressional committee that Wyoming “favor(s) a model of federal standards and state implementation” (pointing to the Clean Air Act), he has urged the state legislature to “act now.”

If HB 90 is enacted, Wyoming will be the first to regulate long-term geologic sequestration of CO2.

Whether that law will mesh with EPA’s proposed underground injection rules, due in summer 2008, is the big question.

In the case of conflict, the Constitution dictates that federal law prevails.

Why legislate on a matter that the federal government controls?

HB 90 is brief and couched in the most general terms, leaving the specifics to Dept. of Environmental Quality, so the law will do little to influence EPA rules.

Raising the public profile of this issue is desirable.

But might this bill actually mislead the public?

HB 90 gives no hint that the state may not have complete discretion and ignores the risks of carbon capture and storage.

At concentrations above ten percent CO2 can cause adverse health effects.

The Lake Nyos incident illustrates what happens when CO2 is suddenly released: it blankets the ground and (at concentrations above 25 percent), asphyxiates humans and animals.

CO2 removed from combusted coal contains impurities, some toxic.

CO2 dissolves readily in water, forming carbonic acid, hence the Department of Transportation pipeline requirements.

“Supercritical” CO2, forcefully injected underground in vast quantities, can contaminate aquifers, escape through geologic faults or abandoned wells, and trigger seismic events.

Of greatest concern, say deputy state engineer Harry Labonde and Univ. of Wyoming School of Energy Resources director Mark Northam, is the potential for groundwater contamination.

CO2 dissolves toxic minerals in rock, which can then pollute aquifers.

Northam, a research scientist with a Ph.D. in organic geochemistry, cautioned legislators in a judiciary committee meeting not to proceed too hastily, warning that CO2 storage involves “unbalancing geologic systems that have been in balance for millions of years.”

The “core question,” he says, is where CO2 should be stored.

Few sites are appropriate and safe.

CO2’s unresolved legal status also clouds the viability of carbon storage.

Is the purpose to store a commodity for future use?

The governor has said as much, and one sentence in HB 90 provides for state jurisdiction over “any subsequent extraction … for commercial or industrial purposes.”

Or is the purpose to dispose of a waste product - a pollutant?

Under the law, the distinction matters.

According to the Congressional Research Service, “it is unlikely that the quantities of CO2 captured under a widely implemented CCS policy could all be absorbed in EOR or ECBM [enhanced recovery of coal bed methane] applications."

"In the long run, significant quantities of captured CO2 will have to be disposed as industrial pollution ….”

A crucial question is whether sequestered CO2 might be subject to regulation under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act as a solid, and perhaps a hazardous, waste.

Don’t scoff: the act’s regulations stringently regulate land disposal of hazardous wastes, including in injection wells.

In sum:

• if supercritical CO2 - a dense vapor or fluid contained in pipelines prior to injection - is deemed a “liquid” or “contained gaseous material”, and

• if the sequestered CO2 is deemed to be “discarded,”

the CO2 will be a “solid waste” subject to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

If the stored CO2 (under pressure, soluble in water, able to cause seismic fractures and dissolve toxic constituents in rock) is deemed to pose a hazard, it also will be “hazardous waste.”

Even if EPA doesn’t act, governors can petition the agency to list any substance as a hazardous waste, and citizens can sue to prevent the storage or disposal of any “solid waste” that “may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.”

The large scale of carbon storage, if widely adopted, reinforces the need for federal regulation.

Many potential CO2 storage areas straddle state boundaries, as would some pipelines.

Finally, carbon capture and storage, by appearing to solve the carbon problem, might reduce the public pressure to develop alternative energy sources or to conserve.

This, in turn, would lead to increased consumption of other nonrenewable resources.

The urgent need to curb global warming ought not lead us to adopt strategies with serious long-term risks of their own.

The legal classification of CO2 must be resolved.

Wyoming should wait, and EPA should act - soon.

(Editor's Note: Wednesday, the House passed on first reading HB 89 and HB 90.)

http://wyofile.com/CO2_sequestration_stora...face_owners.htm

[Livyjr]

The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.

- Theodore Roosevelt

[Livyjr]

"Spitzer adviser used to playing hardball - Longtime friend means business where governor's concerned"

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, March 6, 2008

ALBANY -- "Puhssscht!"

This is the sound of a middle guard smashing the guy in front of the quarterback.

Lloyd Constantine played middle guard at Williams College.

He litigated like a middle guard as an antitrust lawyer.

Now, nursing a mocha latte at Starbucks, he's making the sound to illustrate what that means:

No artifice.

No finesse.

Just straight hits.

Just -- puhssscht!

He's also inspired other labels: Iconoclastic.

Arrogant.

Gruff.

"I'm very direct," says the hard-to-pigeonhole 60-year-old in the Brooks Brothers suit.

"I speak my mind."

You should care about all this because when his cellphone rings, the person he's often speaking his mind to is his protege, friend and tennis rival: Eliot Spitzer.

It's ringing now.

"Hi, Eliot -- how are you?" Constantine says.

"Yes, sir."

"It was hand-delivered."

Constantine is senior adviser to the governor.

He's a consigliere with carte blanche to attend essentially any meeting.

He's also a policy person who spent months on the administration's examination of this question:

How can SUNY rival the "public Ivies" in states like California and Michigan?

The ideas Constantine supports could shake up a system accustomed to what University at Buffalo President John Simpson called an every-child-gets-a-favor, one-size-fits-all approach to setting policy and dividing money.

Constantine wants flagship campuses.

Superstar academics.

Schools liberated to charge different tuitions.

Some dislike and even loathe his goals.

Spitzer hasn't publicly embraced all of them.

But the state, one scholar said, hasn't seen its governor stress SUNY to this extent since Nelson A. Rockefeller transformed it.

More than a generation later, Constantine argues that pumping money into higher education could pay dividends beyond academics, from improving New York's economy to revitalizing its cities.

"It's not a panacea," he said.

"But it's really our best play."

Whether Spitzer can pull off that play is an open question.

The financial anchor of his long-term plan, a $4 billion endowment from leasing a chunk of the state Lottery, needs legislative approval.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno was noncommital when the Times Union asked him about it recently.

Ronald Canestrari, former head of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, welcomed the focus on SUNY but worried that Spitzer, now promoting his higher education plan, has raised expectations too high.

"If we don't deliver it financially," the Cohoes Democrat said, "then we send a terrible signal throughout the system and to the people of the state."

Constantine delivered in the legal world.

Under Attorney General Robert Abrams, he galvanized state antitrust enforcement.

In private practice, he stitched together a coalition of retailers to sue Visa and MasterCard for trying to monopolize the debit card market.

But he's new to three-men-in-a-room Albany government.

Can he get results for higher education?

Friends praise his willingness to "crawl into the bowels of the record" while other lawyers would leave grunt work to their minions.

He can be a persuasive advocate, one whose speech sounds more Upper West Side than upstate and who sometimes touches your arm to stress a point.

"Generally, when he puts his intellect to something, he has a very successful result," said Pamela Jones Harbour, a Guilderland-raised Constantine protege now on the Federal Trade Commission.

In government, he's charming with people he needs to work with to get things done, said one colleague.

He built a relationship with Sen. Ken LaValle, the Long Island Republican who heads the Senate Higher Education Committee.

But some also say he has little use for those not in power.

He can be icy to people he considers inferior, a colleague said.

He seems to look through them, even.

Coordinating Spitzer's higher education policy, Constantine has shown dedication and directness.

He trekked to all 64 SUNY campuses, down to the tuberculosis-ward-turned-classroom at North Country Community College.

He traveled in his BMW SUV and thought of the trip like a triathlon: I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna do it in record time.

I'm gonna do all the driving myself.

But after the state of the state speech -- when Spitzer, in words written by Constantine, crowned Buffalo and Stony Brook flagships -- he put down a college president who was yelling at him about that plan.

His advice: "Grow up."

One feeling he does not generally inspire is ambivalence.

The Spitzer-Constantine friendship feeds on the whatever-you-do-I-can-do-better rivalry of two competitors "finding their other," as Constantine put it.

"He's taller," said Constantine.

"I've got more hair."

Constantine was the attorney general's antitrust chief when a Harvard Law student named Eliot Spitzer walked into his office as a summer intern in 1982.

It was, Constantine recalled, "sort of love at first sight."

Over the decades, Constantine worked with Spitzer as a law partner, donated to his campaigns and led his transitions to attorney general and governor.

He also represented Aon Corp. when the insurance brokerage was targeted by Attorney General Spitzer.

When Constantine wrested a $3.4 billion settlement in the Visa and MasterCard case, which made him a fortune, he told the attorney general, "I had a better week than you."

"No you didn't," said Spitzer.

People who know Spitzer know Constantine is "one of those people who comes with the governor," said Lt. Gov. David Paterson.

As to whom the governor trusts, "He's right up there, battling with Silda" -- Spitzer's wife -- "for first place."

Constantine could spend his days playing tennis at his private Chatham court.

Or he could relax at his Manhattan apartment with some fiction by his beloved Philip Roth -- or by his son, Isaac, who just completed his first novel.

He's reached the stage of life where he might spend all his time worrying about his three grown kids.

Avoiding that, he said, was one of the reasons he took the $155,000-a-year job with Spitzer.

He professes a distaste for political work.

But the consequences of politics have become his business.

The senior lawyer has represented the executive chamber through probes into the administration's alleged efforts to tar Bruno over his use of state helicopters.

He prefers policy.

In higher education, he drafted an executive order that created a commission on improving SUNY and CUNY, vetted people Spitzer appointed to the panel, and served as its bridge to the administration.

Now he's proselytizing.

"To some extent the state has treated this as sort of like Lake Wobegon," he says of Garrison Keillor's fictional town in which all kids are above average.

"Better than average."

"Pretty good."

"Not bad."

"OK."

"As opposed to great!"

Greatness, he said, takes "transformative events."

Like paying a $668,000 base salary to University at Albany nanotechnology chief Alain Kaloyeros -- SUNY's Alex Rodriguez.

Constantine jokes about "cloning" Kaloyeros.

As it happens, Kaloyeros walks into Starbucks as he's talking about all this.

The academic, wearing a black collarless shirt unbuttoned at the top, comes over.

Constantine tells the professor his campus looks like "something from the Martian Chronicles."

He also mentions the cloning remark.

"He's a masochist," Kaloyeros says.

Staff writer James M. Odato contributed to this report. Marc Parry can be reached at 454-5057 or by e-mail at mparry@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

"Spitzer adviser used to playing hardball - Longtime friend means business where governor's concerned"

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, March 6, 2008

Constantine is senior adviser to the governor.

He's a consigliere with carte blanche to attend essentially any meeting.

Constantine was the attorney general's antitrust chief when a Harvard Law student named Eliot Spitzer walked into his office as a summer intern in 1982.

It was, Constantine recalled, "sort of love at first sight."

INSURANCE NEWS

"Spitzer Took 25G From Wrist-Slap Firm's Man"

The New York Post

July 21, 2005 Thursday

All Editions; Pg. 2

"SPITZER TOOK 25G FROM WRIST-SLAP FIRM'S MAN"

KENNETH LOVETT Post Correspondent

ALBANY - A giant insurer investigated by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer got what was widely viewed as a slap on the wrist just days after Spitzer pocketed a $25,000 campaign donation from a high-ranking former employee, The Post has learned.

An ex-senior vice president of Aon Corp. - who sources say still consults for the company and spends time at its offices - made the contribution to Spitzer's gubernatorial war chest three days before a settlement with the international insurance broker was announced, records show.

Richard F. Ferrucci, a Long Island resident who worked for Aon from 1993 through late 2003, made the donation on March 1, according to Spitzer's latest campaign fund-raising report.

Spitzer's settlement with Aon was announced March 4.

Under the deal, no Aon execs were forced to resign and the company admitted no wrongdoing after being probed for steering business to companies that in turn paid fees back to Aon.

The firm paid a $190 million fine.

At the time, critics charged that Spitzer went easy on Aon and noted that the deal differed from a similar case of alleged wrongdoing at insurer Marsh & McLennan, in which the attorney general forced the chairman out and three employees were criminally charged.

Though Ferrucci is no longer with Aon, two Aon employees on Long Island said yesterday he still spends time at the company and serves as a consultant.

Spitzer also received $50,000 from attorneys with Constantine Cannon, one of two firms which represented Aon in the settlement talks with the attorney general's office, records show.

Spitzer is a longtime friend of the firm's chairman, Lloyd Constantine, and the two were partners in private practice.

Constantine, who headed up Spitzer's transition team in 1998, has donated $36,000 to Spitzer's campaigns in recent years - including $15,000 since last October when the Aon investigation was in full swing, records show.

Other attorneys from Constantine Cannon have donated an additional $35,600 to Spitzer since October, according to the records.

Constantine, who helps Spitzer raise campaign money, said he believes the attorney general's office actually treated him more harshly to avoid allegations of favoritism during the settlement talks.

"I represented Aon with diligence," he said.

"I don't believe I got any favoritism from the AG's office," he said.

It's the second instance in which Spitzer has taken large donations from lawyers representing companies he's investigating.

The Post reported in April that Spitzer had received $18,500 from members of another of his old law firms that had been hired by AIG - even as the insurance giant was under investigation.

Spitzer's campaign has a policy of not taking donations from employees of companies under investigation, but that does not apply to lawyers representing the firms.

Editor's Note: Lloyd Constantine has done legal work for News Corp., the parent company of The Post.

-----

Follow the money

March 1: Former Aon exec Richard Ferrucci (left) donates $25,000 to Eliot Spitzer’s gubernatorial campaign.

March 4: Settlement with Aon announced.

Critics call it a slap on the wrist.

* Spitzer (right) has received donations of $36,000 from Lloyd Constantine, who represented Aon in the settlement talks, while the investigation was underway.

* Attorneys with the firm Constantine Cannon donated $35,600 to Spitzer.

July 21, 2005

http://www.insurancenewsnet.com/article.as...ws&id=46255

[Livyjr]

"Former NY assemblyman, labor leader pleads guilty to racketeering"

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:42 p.m., Friday, March 7, 2008

NEW YORK -- A seven-term Democratic state assemblyman and ex-president of the nation's largest municipal labor council pleaded guilty Friday to racketeering, admitting he took tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks and forced union members to hang his Christmas lights.

Brian McLaughlin, 55, confessed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to accepting the cash and personal services over a decade.

He said he also used union money to pay personal expenses, including car payments and home improvements.

He will be imprisoned between 8 and 10 years as part of a plea deal with the government that will result in many of the other charges being dropped.

His original charges had a potential prison term of 500 years.

Judge Richard J. Sullivan set sentencing for Sept. 12.

As part of a guilty plea, defendants usually spend just a few minutes outlining their crimes.

It took McLaughlin 45 minutes to describe what he did that qualified him to plead guilty to racketeering and making false statements for crimes committed between 1995 and 2005.

The million-member New York City Central Labor Council is an umbrella group of unions that has supported Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

McLaughlin remains free on $250,000 bail, which was established after the government accused him of stealing more than $2.2 million from the state, labor unions and even a Little League fund.

The admissions may result in forfeiture of $2.2 million in illicit proceeds and a residence in Nissequogue, N.Y., near the Hamptons.

The government also accused McLaughlin, who was the highest ranking official of the J Division of Local 3 of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, of turning union members into a private work force to help him with errands or projects at home.

Prosecutors said McLaughlin directed union members to take his dog to the doctor, hang Christmas lights, shovel snow, clean out a barn and look for rodents in his basement.

They said McLaughlin lived lavishly, buying his wife an $80,000 Mercedes Benz and renovating his Long Island home in Nissequogue near the Hamptons.

Other money went to pay rent on Albany and Queens residences and to pay off personal credit bills, prosecutors said.

At one point during the court proceeding, McLaughlin described how he and others used for personal expenses money raised between 1999 and 2005 for his campaign expenses.

McLaughlin said he also arranged for others to get no-show jobs and once accepted a nearly $2,300 kickback when someone was paid for work they did not do.

He described how he abused the Electchester Athletic Association Inc., created by residents to finance and operate youth sports programs for children in Queens.

The indictment had said McLaughlin used his position as state assemblyman to direct the allocation of state funds to the athletic association so that children and their families could benefit.

McLaughlin said he defrauded the fund between 1997 and 2006 by creating two bank accounts for the association, one to be used to fund children's athletic and the other to be used for personal use.

He did not specify how much he took from the fund.

Prosecutors have said he and others defrauded the athletic association of more than $95,000.

According to the indictment, McLaughlin solicited donations to the athletic fund with sponsorship forms thanking the contributor and concluding with the message: "A CHILD IN SPORTS STAYS OUT OF THE COURTS!"

[Livyjr]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

January 23, 2008, 5:35 pm

"I’m Eric Dinallo. I’m Here to Save the World"

Posted by Heidi Moore

New York State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo sure works fast: only days after announcing plans to find investors to save struggling bond insurers like Ambac and MBIA, Dinallo already is holding meetings about how such a plan would work.

Success in creating the financial detente necessary to rescue the bond insurers would be in marked counterpoint to the modus operandi of his old boss, mentor and former state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, who always seemed more inclined to jail executives than save their companies.

If Dinallo’s plan works, it wouldn’t be the first time he has stepped in to save a troubled financial institution.

Dinallo worked for Spitzer from 1999 to 2003 as head of the AG office’s investor protection bureau and the main point man on Spitzer’s investigations of Wall Street research, late trading and market timing as well as insurance industry kickbacks.

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/01/23/im-e...orld/trackback/

THE NEW YORK POST

"ELIOT'S ENFORCER - STRONG-ARMING INSURERS ON WTC CLAIMS"

February 11, 2008 -- Gov. Spitzer says he wants to make nice to financial firms - brokers, insurers, investment banks.

The very companies he targeted with a vengeance as attorney general.

Does he mean it?

Read on.

Last month, Spitzer chaired the first meeting of an obscure panel he set up to lighten the regulatory load on these businesses.

His avowed goal: "keeping New York the financial capital of the world."

Yet who'd he tap to head the panel?

One of the purported brains behind many of his attacks as AG on the financial industry, now-State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02112008/posto...0661.htm?page=0

"Treasurys lower on Bernanke comments"

By LESLIE WINES, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:43 p.m., Thursday, February 14, 2008

NEW YORK -- New York State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo also appeared on Capitol Hill Thursday.

He argued in favor of splitting troubled bond insurers MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. into two parts.

That would separate the high-risk subprime assets they backed from the healthier municipal bond instruments.

Dinallo has led a coalition of government officials and top banks that is seeking financing for hard-hit bond insurers.

FORBES

"Credit Crunch - What To Do About Wall Street"

Liz Moyer, 02.14.08, 3:05 PM ET

So who's to blame for the subprime mess?

Banks?

Investors?

Regulators?

Ratings agencies?

The epicenter of all this finger-pointing: Capitol Hill Thursday, as lawmakers, regulators, and executives gathered to debate how to deal with the crisis gripping the credit markets, particularly the perilous state of the mortgage bond industry.

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, in testimony to the House of Representatives finance committee, laid the blame at the feet of federal regulators and ratings agencies, who failed to stop the growth of the subprime mortgage bubble before it got out of control.

And he said a swift resolution to the severe capital pressures the bond insurers are facing is necessary to stop a "tsunami" of problems in the financial markets.

Gov. Spitzer said he hoped a private effort by Wall Street banks to inject capital into some of the hardest-hit bond insurers could get done in the next three to five business days.

If not, regulators would have to resort to the "good bank, bad bank" split of the bond insurers, as proposed Tuesday by Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett.

"The clock is ticking," Gov. Spitzer said.

"We will be forced to act."

Forcing bond insurers to hold exposure to credit derivatives while ceding good liabilities like municipal bond insurance would swamp their already over-leveraged capital bases, but save municipal bond investors, taxpayers and local governments from further losses, Spitzer said.

"Municipal investors cannot be allowed to suffer from problems caused by another sector of the market," he said.

New York insurance regulator Eric Dinallo is set to testify this afternoon about his efforts to coordinate a Wall Street solution to the crisis in the bond insurers, including the good bank, bad bank idea, which most admit is the least palatable of the available options.

"There are billions of dollars at stake," Dinallo says in his written testimony.

"There is no agreement on--and indeed, no way to know with certainty--just how big the losses from the subprime market will be."

http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/14/washingto...artner=yahootix

"Dinallo defends monolines handling"

By Aline van Duyn, Francesco Guerrera and Ben White in New York

Published: February 21 2008 22:09 | Last updated: February 21 2008 22:09

Eric Dinallo, New York’s insurance regulator, has defended his handling of the bond insurer crisis, saying his decision to call in Wall Street’s top banks last month for talks was an effort to flag up problems and not the heavy-handed intervention portrayed by critics.

Mr Dinallo rebuffed criticism that he was focused on protecting municipal bond issuers at the expense of Wall Street institutions and investors.

“Not doing anything is doing something, it is accepting the status quo,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

“I knew this would land on our door if we didn’t get pro-active."

"Then I would have been accused of being asleep at the wheel.”

Mr Dinallo hit out at characterisations of his plans as a ruse to make Wall Street pay for bond insurer losses resulting from their guarantees of risky subprime mortgages, which have left holes in their capital.

Mr Dinallo has been attacked for putting pressure on Wall Street to commit up to $15bn and prevent rating downgrades of Ambac, MBIA and FGIC.

But Mr Dinallo said the liquidity injection was only one of the options discussed at the meeting, adding that his intention was to find a solution that would help all parties.

“The meeting was like Nixon going to China."

"I said at the end of the meeting ‘I am trying to get ahead of the curve and am taking a big risk here.'"

"'I hope you will reward the risk I am taking’."

"Only by rewarding regulators who take these risks will we be able to change the regulatory paradigm.”

He said it was possible banks did not fully appreciate his experience, such as his three years at Morgan Stanley and at the insurance broker Willis, and associated him with his former role at the attorney-general’s office under Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York state.

“I expect people to be judged by their actions, not their reputations,” he said.

“Everything we’re doing is aimed at helping the ratings for the banks, which are policyholders.”

Rating agencies have since cut FGIC’s credit ratings, and Ambac and MBIA will have to come up with a plan soon to avoid cuts from Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fa50d510-e0ab-11dc...00779fd2ac.html

[Livyjr]

"Senate Democrats ready to rule? - Questions over minority party's ability to wield power abound"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, March 9, 2008

ALBANY -- Democrats trying to take control of the state Senate are feeling downright cocky.

But many people watching the 30-member Senate minority are feeling anxious.

They wonder if this group is ready for prime time.

Some political analysts expect Republicans to lose control this fall, with a strong presidential candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket likely to induce heavy voter turnout in this overwhelmingly Democratic state.

But that scenario could fall apart.

In 1965, the last time Democrats held the Senate, squabbling over a new majority leader led to a collapse of power.

Dozens of interviews in recent weeks indicate the current crop of Democrats has work to do.

Several lawmakers, lobbyists and Senate employees, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, say Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, and his 29 members need to develop talent and overcome a perception that they lack what it takes to get things done.

They fear that Democrats will propose ultraliberal laws and offer legislation that could bankrupt the state.

They warn of an unhealthy one-party rule in state government.

Almost everyone agrees it would change Albany's entire dynamic.

There would be no opposition party in control of one chamber to blame for stalled bills or unpopular laws.

"It'll change the nature of the debate, for the better, for the worse, I don't know," said Clarence Rappleyea, the former Assembly minority leader and part-time lobbyist.

He said Gov. Eliot Spitzer may regret pushing for a Democratic Senate, because one-party rule doesn't necessarily mean peace.

In the Rockefeller years, the Republicans ruled but fights were common, he said.

GOP leaders warn that government will lose its checks and balances.

"Those of you who know how to pray -- pray," said Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, 78.

"Not for me, but for you, that things stay Republican."

Bruno's 32-member conference includes several incumbents who will be challenged in re-election bids; at least one isn't running again.

Malcolm Smith is expected to wage battles against 10 or more vulnerable GOP incumbents and for open seats.

"I'm so comfortable with who I am and why I'm here," says Smith, 51.

He says he's ready to take the job from Bruno, whom he says he has considered a friend and tutor.

But unlike Bruno, he said, he won't get into squabbles that impede productivity.

He scoffed at Bruno's depiction of him as a Spitzer pawn.

"It will benefit people in the state," Smith said about a potential majority for Democrats.

"When we disagree, and we have in the past, we will commit to coming to a solution."

"I'm not going to get into a logjam or a freeze and then don't talk to nobody for four months ... and be in the situation we are in now."

Campaign finance overhaul and changes in the Wicks Law to lower contracting costs for local governments and school districts, both of which stalled last year because Senate Republicans walked away from a deal, will happen swiftly, he said.

Also likely: confirmations of Spitzer nominees and support for making Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton the superintendent.

Felton was caught up in a travel records scandal that further alienated Spitzer and Bruno.

Yet miscues by Smith and his staff are raising questions.

And Smith's members' priorities -- such as rent control, abortion rights, gay marriage and a legislative pay raise -- are giving Republicans something to run with.

In a floor debate, Sen. Eric Adams, D-Brooklyn, complained about his pay.

His refrain of "show me the money" is likely to end up in GOP ads this fall.

Republicans also got hold of a politically sensitive letter, tied to allies of Spitzer, that suggested Smith's members should ask the IRS to investigate Bruno.

Democrats complained after Smith added the former Albany County Republican Party executive director, Mark Gronich, as a press officer.

And some criticized Smith for hiring a new policy director, Michael Kink, who, as a lobbyist, attacked Democrats, including Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn.

"Their research should be a lot better," said Mayersohn, the Democratic district leader for Queens.

Minority Whip Sen. Kevin Parker, D-Brooklyn, says the incidents are isolated and insignificant.

He already has his eye on the Energy Committee chairmanship now that Republican Sen. James Wright of Watertown quit to become a lobbyist.

Democrats' rejoiced after Wright left and a Democrat, Darrel Aubertine, won the seat last month in the overwhelmingly Republican North Country district.

That win essentially brought the Democrats within one seat of a majority.

If Republicans lose another seat, the chamber would stand at 31-31, and Democratic Lt. Gov. David Paterson, as president of the Senate, would have the tie-breaking vote.

Before he took his current post, Paterson was Senate minority leader.

Smith, who has been relatively obscure since taking over for Paterson 16 months ago, has been quietly planning for a transition.

He's been making sure the minority members attend "majority school" -- continuing education classes with academics, consultants and interest groups to raise their knowledge about committees.

He's been conducting retreats to set goals and objectives.

And he's been pushing his members to hold task force hearings statewide.

"We started preparing for it last year," said Smith, a Queens lawmaker since 2000.

"People said the minority was not disciplined, not engaged."

Smith said he's gathering resumes -- a heavier stream of applications as well as campaign dollars have been arriving lately -- but he is working with a smaller budget, $17 million, compared with about $113 million for the GOP.

He's got 113 employees; the GOP employs 562.

He said he wants to retain some of the GOP's people.

"I'm not going to make wholesale changes," he said.

"We've got to keep some institutional knowledge around ... I'm not going to tell 500 people 'you're fired.' "

Some officials think Smith uses favoritism when hiring.

Two of his top officers, Mortimer Lawrence, chief of staff, and Curtis Taylor, communications director, come from the church of the Rev. Floyd Flake, Smith's mentor.

Smith's district office is headed by a church follower and the minority employs Flake's son.

Sons of New York City Democrats Sen. Efrain Gonzalez and Assemblyman Jose Rivera are also on the payroll.

But Sen. Toby Stavisky, whose district abuts Smith's, said no influence of Flake, a former congressman who has helped revitalize parts of Queens, is evident in the conference.

Smith is aware that some of his members want his leadership seat, but says he promotes such ambition and debate, which he calls "productive friction."

He said he expects to remain leader.

Allies say the minority has blossomed under Smith.

Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, said Smith has the backing of the conference and looks forward to a less political era.

"Senate Republicans have operated in an extraordinarily political way in order to maintain the majority," he said.

"Senate Democrats will be able to just do what is right."

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

[Livyjr]

"NY governor linked to prostitution ring"

By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer

10 March 2008

NEW YORK - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has told senior advisers that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, The New York Times reported Monday, citing an anonymous top administration official.

Spitzer, who is married with three daughters, was scheduled to make an announcement Monday afternoon.

Spitzer officials wouldn't immediately comment on the story.

The Times reported that a person with knowledge of the governor's role believes the governor is identified as a client in court papers.

Four people allegedly connected to a high-end prostitution ring called Emperors Club VIP were arrested last week.

The Web site of the Emperors Club VIP displays photographs of scantily clad women with their faces hidden, along with hourly rates depending on whether the prostitutes were rated with one diamond, the lowest ranking, or seven diamonds, the highest.

The most highly ranked prostitutes cost $5,500 an hour, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the defendants arranged connections between wealthy men and more than 50 prostitutes in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, London and Paris.

The Times reported that the governor's travel records show he was in Washington in mid-February, and that one of the clients arranged to meet with a prostitute on the night of Feb. 13.

The case is being handled by prosecutors in the Public Corruption unit of U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia's office.

Garcia spokeswoman Yusill Scribner said the office had no comment.

Spitzer, 48, built his political legacy on rooting out corruption, including several headline-making battles with Wall Street while serving as attorney general.

He stormed into the governor's office in 2006 with a historic share of the vote, vowing to continue his no-nonsense approach to fixing one of the nation's worst governments.

Time magazine had named him "Crusader of the Year" when he was attorney general and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness."

But his stint as governor has been marred by several problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear Spitzer's main Republican nemesis.

Spitzer had been expected to testify to the state Public Integrity Commission he had created to answer for his role in the scandal, in which his aides were accused of misusing state police to compile travel records to embarrass Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

Spitzer had served two terms as attorney general where he pursued criminal and civil cases and cracked down on misconduct and conflicts of interests on Wall Street and in corporate America.

He had previously been a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, handling organized crime and white-collar crime cases.

His cases as state attorney general included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and into tourism involving prostitutes.

In 2004, he was part of an investigation of an escort service in New York City that resulted in the arrest of 18 people on charges of promoting prostitution and related charges.
___

Associated Press Writer Mike Gormley contributed to this report from Albany, N.Y.

[Livyjr]

"Official: NY gov's prostitution involvement caught on wiretap"

By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:07 p.m., Monday, March 10, 2008

NEW YORK -- A law enforcement official has told The Associated Press that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's involvement in a prostitution ring was caught on a federal wiretap.

The official says Spitzer is identified in court papers as "Client 9," and the wiretap was part of an investigation that opened in the last few months.

The official says the New York governor met last month with at least one woman in a Washington hotel.

The law enforcement official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.