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

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK SUN"

"Inspector General Failed To Use Subpoena Power in Spitzer Probe"

By JACOB GERSHMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun

July 30, 2007 updated 7/29/07 11:17 pm EDT

Although armed with subpoena power, the New York State Office of the Inspector General completed an investigation of the Spitzer administration's plot against a political rival without interviewing two key aides to the governor, issuing any subpoenas, or preparing any final report, a spokesman for the office said.

Unlike Attorney General Cuomo's office, which conducted a separate, concurrent investigation into the matter, the state inspector general had the subpoena power to compel the two aides — Mr. Spitzer's communications director, Darren Dopp, and chief of staff, Richard Baum — to testify under oath and force the administration to turn over e-mail records.

A spokesman for the inspector general's office, Stephen Del Giacco, declined to say why the office did not issue any subpoenas.

In response to questions, he said repeatedly: "We concurred with what the attorney general found."

http://www.nysun.com/article/59375?page_no=1

THE NEW YORK POST

"SPITZER 'GAG' REFLEX - 'COUNSEL' PLOY SILENCED AIDES IN AG'S PROBE"

July 30, 2007 --

Gov. Spitzer's administration silenced two more top figures in the dirty- tricks scandal - using a highly unusual maneuver that prevented Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigators from questioning them, The Post has found.

Peter Pope, the governor's close friend and "policy director" who once headed Attorney General Spitzer's criminal division, and Sean Patrick Maloney, the governor's No. 2 administrator, were secretly named "special counsels," even though neither is on the governor's legal staff, sources said.

The two were dispatched to "debrief" and coach two central figures in the alleged conspiracy to have the State Police collect damaging information on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno - Spitzer's chief-of-staff, Richard Baum, and now-suspended communications director, Darren Dopp - as they prepared to answer questions from Cuomo's probers.

The rare, if not unprecedented, designation of Pope and Maloney as special counsels granted them "lawyer-client privilege," blocking Cuomo's probers from interviewing them on all aspects of the shocking scandal.

The appointments were made two weeks ago, after Cuomo began the probe on July 5 in the wake of The Post's stunning disclosure - initially denied by the governor and his aides - that a secret State Police surveillance program aimed at destroying Bruno, the state's top Republican, was under way.

Pope and Maloney were named special counsels two weeks ago, after Cuomo began investigating.

Baum and Dopp repeatedly rejected requests from Cuomo's probers to answer questions under oath about the scandal - most likely at the direction of Pope and Maloney, administration insiders say.

Their refusal to testify set off a storm of criticism last week, even as Spitzer repeatedly defended it.

"The designation of Pope and Maloney hindered the investigation," said a source with first-hand knowledge of the situation.

"Maloney, as Baum's No. 1, would have known all about what Baum did or didn't do in relation to the scandal.

"Pope, given his past role in the Attorney General's Office, most likely would have been providing advice on any possible criminal exposure," the source added.

A top legal expert familiar with the probe said Pope and Maloney could have advised Baum and Dopp without special-counsel status, "except if there was a desire on the part of people in the chamber [Spitzer's office] to make sure nobody learned what they knew."

The rare special-counsel designation for Pope and Maloney was approved without public notice by Spitzer's chief counsel, David Nocenti, and relayed to the governor's staff in an internal "executive chamber" memo that raised eyebrows among some who received it, sources said.

Meanwhile, as knowledge that Pope and Maloney were providing legal assistance to Baum and Dopp spread, some members of the governor's office began asking why senior Spitzer aides were serving "as private counsels to public officials under investigation for improper behavior," said a source close to the probe.

"Was this the proper use of government resources, or was this the providing of public lawyers as private defense counsels to public employees who may have broken the law?" asked a former senior counsel to former Gov. George Pataki.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07302007/news/...c_u__dicker.htm

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK POST

"ELIOT'S STONEWALL

July 30, 2007 -- How high is the stone wall the Spitzer administration has erected around Troopergate - its deployment of the State Police to destroy state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno?

It's hard to say.

But news that the governor's men conferred "special counsel" status on two top-level administration lawyers - in an apparent effort to shield them from being forced to tell investigators what they know of the scandal - suggests that it is higher than any outsider had imagined.

That it is a very high wall, indeed.

Details of the new development are reported this morning by Post State Editor Fredric U. Dicker - who also brings word that the state Senate Investigations Committee is moving closer to opening a probe of its own into the sordid affair.

According to Dicker, Peter Pope, the governor's principal policy adviser and a close friend, and Sean Patrick Maloney, principal deputy to the govenor's chief of staff, were detailed to provide legal advice to two other high-ranking administration officials - chief of staff Richard Baum and communications director Darren Dopp.

The Pope-Maloney designation arguably conferred a lawyer-client privilege on the two men - possibly enabling them to avoid testifying as to any independent knowledge of the Bruno plot at any point in the future.

The most benign explanation of the assignments is that the administration assigned counsel to Baum and Dopp to spare them the expense of hiring lawyers of their own.

(This would be ironic, insofar as Bruno's alleged misuse of taxpayer funds is what the Troopergate plot was supposed to demonstrate.)

Equally likely, however, is that Pope and Maloney got their assigments precisely to keep them out of the chain of evidence should the scandal proceed beyond Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Troopergate inquiry.

And that could amount to obstruction of justice - an extraordinarily serious matter at any level of government, but a wholly unacceptable state of affairs when it occurs in the Executive Chamber.

In the event, Baum and Dopp refused Cuomo's requests to testify before his investigators.

The attorney general didn't have subpoena power, and the result was a huge hole in the effort to find out who knew what, and when they knew it, regarding Troopergate.

So, as it stands, four principal figures from the highest echelons of the tightly knit Spitzer administration - Baum, Pope, Maloney and Dopp, the men most likely to know precisely who sicced the State Police on Bruno - have had nothing to say on the matter.

It must not be allowed to end like this.

And, as noted here last week, the state Ethics Commission simply doesn't pack the necessary horsepower to clear things up.

Yes, the commission has announced a preliminary probe of its own.

But the commission is an executive branch entity - that is, it is largely controlled by Spitzer himself - and so cannot conduct a credible investigation.

An independent prosecutor - armed with subpoena power - is what's needed.

To that end, Dicker also reports this morning that Senate Investigations Committee chairman George Winner is going to ask Spitzer to give Cuomo special-prosecutor status - complete with subpoena power - and turn him loose.

Winner also will make clear that if the governor declines, he intends to do the job - get to the bottom of the scandal - all by himself.

We would prefer that Cuomo - or, if not, an equally credible independent attorney - get the job.

But Winner will do, if it comes to that.

The stone wall around Troopergate simply must come down - if only because Eliot Spitzer simply cannot govern effectively while it stands.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07302007/posto...editorials_.htm

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Spitzer Moves to Rebuild His Image"

By PATRICK HEALY

Published: July 29, 2007

Eliot Spitzer was at a loss for words.

Gov. Spitzer faced scrutiny at the Capitol last week over efforts by his staff to discredit a political rival.

The governor’s senior staff had gathered at short notice on Monday morning in Albany, and a grave Mr. Spitzer was addressing them.

All their hard work for the last seven months was about to be subsumed by scandal, he said, according to several people present.

A trusted aide was being suspended over a dirty-tricks operation.

Ethics was supposed to be the gold standard, not the black eye, of a Spitzer administration.

“This is what we stand for,” Mr. Spitzer began, and then stopped.

Aides in the room recalled that he seemed to choke up as he had to remind them, and himself, about a core principle he had hoped would define his tenure.

In conversations with allies and friends this week, as he has grappled with his aides’ misuse of the State Police to try to tarnish a political opponent, Mr. Spitzer has expressed regret and frustration.

He knows that he has alienated people with his steamroller style and needs a plan to win them back.

Yet he has also told friends that he will not allow the scandal to straitjacket him.

At the same time, friends say, he has acknowledged that perhaps his fighting spirit helped create an atmosphere in which his aides may feel comfortable pushing the line (and, in this instance, crossing it).

Hovering over everything appears a cloud of self-doubt for this most self-assured man: How much does Eliot Spitzer need to change?

And how much can he?

“His overwhelming feeling is to take this responsibility on his own shoulders,” said Lloyd Constantine, Mr. Spitzer’s mentor and a senior adviser.

“On a personal level, not a legal level, he’s feeling mea culpa."

"People have urged him to fight back and defend himself, but his view is, ‘No, we have to heal ourselves first.’"

"He’s taking it very hard.”

Aides to Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, say that as he moves to rebuild his image and relationships, he will take some of the bluster and confrontation out of his day-to-day language and the statements made by his office.

There will be more talk of cooperation with Republicans, with the Legislature.

Of course, New York has been here before with Mr. Spitzer.

In 2005, when he was attorney general, he declared “war” on an ally of Gov. George E. Pataki during a telephone conversation; afterward, he said he regretted his word choices and flashes of temper.

But the harsh language did not fade for long.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Spitzer said he still planned to campaign for Democratic legislative candidates — a long-standing point of contention with his Republican critics.

Pete Grannis, Mr. Spitzer’s commissioner of environmental conservation, said that “it would be impossible for this governor to defang himself,” given his nature.

Still, he added, there is now a need for Mr. Spitzer to re-evaluate his style.

“He knows he needs friends and more friends — you can’t govern this state without people beside you,” Mr. Grannis said.

“I think the entire administration is going to have to figure out how to govern a little better.”

Mr. Spitzer himself appears clear-eyed about the implications of the scandal.

In the interview, he conceded that he had lost political capital, and that his reputation for steely adherence to ethics had been damaged.

He also acknowledged elevating the target of the State Police operation, Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate Republican leader, to the status of an obstacle in the eyes of his staff.

Still, he said he would not speculate publicly on whether he had fostered a taste for combat in his office that led some of his aides, according to the investigation by the attorney general, to use the State Police to gather records on Mr. Bruno’s taxpayer-financed travel in hopes of weakening him as an opponent.

“This is going to be seen — and I understand it very clearly — it is going to be seen as more than a blemish,” Mr. Spitzer said in the interview, conducted in his Manhattan office.

“My feeling is real loss, both substantively and from a perception perspective, about what we’re trying to do."

"The perception matters, not just because I’m worried about what’s the public perception of me, but because the perception about what we’re doing affects our capacity to do it."

“I’m going to work extraordinarily hard to rebuild that and say to myself, ‘You’re now back at a point where you’ve given away, through a self-inflicted wound, the upside of the capital that you’ve accumulated by doing many good things,’ ” Mr. Spitzer said.

The governor is preparing himself for a possible onslaught of scrutiny.

The State Ethics Commission is reviewing the attorney general’s report, and the Senate plans to hold hearings.

None of Mr. Spitzer’s friends say he is self-pitying; they say he still sees his future as bright, be it running for re-election in 2010 or possibly for president after that.

But they say this is a personally challenging moment for a man trained to look at facts and problems with a lawyer’s eye.

He is now dealing with betrayal and controversy, accusations of lying and arrogance, and questions swirling around him: “What did you know and when did you know it?”

“We can’t allow the Republicans to drag Eliot into a Whitewater-type four-year investigation here,” said Len Lenihan, the Democratic Party leader in Buffalo, who discussed the matter with Mr. Spitzer last week.

“Our mission now is to move forward, so he’s trying to apologize very clearly and get this moving."

"But this is all very new for him.”

Mr. Spitzer made clear early on that he would vigorously challenge his opponents, especially Mr. Bruno.

Even before taking office in January, he poached one of Mr. Bruno’s senators, Michael A. L. Balboni, for a job in the administration as deputy secretary for public safety.

Then, audaciously by Albany standards, he campaigned hard for the Democrat who went on to win Mr. Balboni’s Senate seat, further eroding Mr. Bruno’s slim majority in the Senate.

“I think he saw Senator Bruno as an obstacle, period,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, said in an interview.

“He tries to weaken his opponent through having a public debate, usually."

"I don’t think he wanted to take Joe out, but weaken him and weaken his position.”

Asked about his view of Mr. Bruno, Mr. Spitzer said: “Obstacle in the sense that we disagree on policy?"

"Sure.”

But it was never personal, he said — even though people close to Mr. Bruno said the governor had once referred to the 78-year-old majority leader as “senile.”

“Does Eliot realize that he fostered a climate that may have encouraged his office to attack Bruno?"

"Absolutely,” said one New York Democrat who discussed this point with Mr. Spitzer last week, and who described their private conversation on the condition of anonymity.

Noting Mr. Spitzer’s previous job, the Democrat added:

“This is the way a prosecutor works."

"He had obstacles that he wanted to overcome; he had enemies to weaken."

"And he was the general, and he had an army.”

Although Mr. Spitzer has accepted responsibility for the scandal on his watch, some of his closest allies remain worried for him — and, indeed, some are skeptical that he is being fully truthful, noting that he worked closely on media and political strategy for eight years with Darren Dopp, the architect of the plan to embarrass Mr. Bruno.

(Mr. Dopp, Mr. Spitzer’s communications director, has been suspended indefinitely.)

“A lot of his supporters think he has a dirty hand in this,” said a Spitzer ally in New York City who figures prominently in the governor’s social and political circles.

“It comes down to a man’s image."

"If George Pataki — no micromanager, him — said, ‘I didn’t know what was going on,’ people would believe him."

"If Rudy Giuliani said it, people wouldn’t believe him."

"And with Eliot, they don’t believe it.”

Mr. Spitzer said he had not heard this concern, but added that he needed to “get back to work and rebuild the notion that we’re doing the people’s business.”

Neither Mr. Spitzer nor his aides are suggesting, though, that the scandal will ever entirely fade, or that it will never be used against him again.

“This will have a long-term good effect and a long-term negative effect for Eliot’s political future,” Mr. Constantine said.

“The good effect is that you grow through adversity, and this is a big bad thing, and Eliot has already grown from it — though, as he said to me, ‘I don’t want to grow quite this much, this fast.’

“The negative thing is, this controversy will always be there — it will come up in the next debate, in the next campaign,” Mr. Constantine added.

“For the rest of his life, he’ll be talking about it."

"It’s neither fair nor unfair."

"He understands that."

"He’s awfully smart, awfully smart.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/nyregion...ml?pagewanted=1

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Spitzer and Two Aides May Testify Before Ethics Panel"

By PATRICK HEALY

Published: July 28, 2007

Gov. Eliot Spitzer said yesterday that he would allow two senior aides to testify — and that he might testify himself — if the State Ethics Commission called or subpoenaed them as it reviews the misuse of the State Police by Spitzer aides in an effort to undermine a political rival.

In an interview in his Manhattan office, Mr. Spitzer said he was inclined to appear before the Ethics Commission if asked, but said that before sitting for sworn testimony, he would need clearance from his legal counsel, David Nocenti.

“I would want to — I hesitate only because executives tend to sometimes have their lawyers say, ‘Executive privilege, you’ve got to think about this,’ ” Mr. Spitzer said.

“Of course I would want to."

"What I’ve said about this matter, I’ve said 100 times."

"I don’t mind repeating it over and over again.”

It was Mr. Nocenti who advised the two aides, Richard Baum and Darren Dopp, to refuse to submit to questioning by investigators from the state attorney general’s office.

A report from that office, released Monday, revealed that members of Mr. Spitzer’s staff had improperly used the State Police to develop a dossier on the use of state aircraft by Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate Republican leader, in order to plant an embarrassing article about Mr. Bruno in the news media.

Republican leaders and some in the news media have attacked Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, and his office for not heeding the request of the attorney general’s investigators to interview Mr. Baum, a senior adviser to the governor, and Mr. Dopp, his communications director.

Some have suggested that the administration is stonewalling and has not faced up to the seriousness of the scandal.

Mr. Spitzer was elected in November on a platform of ethical reform.

Mr. Spitzer said in the interview that he would not fight any attempt by the Ethics Commission to compel testimony from Mr. Baum and Mr. Dopp, and added that he was not involved in the decision that the two men not testify in the attorney general’s investigation.

Mr. Baum said yesterday that Mr. Nocenti had decided against it to protect the privacy of the conversations between Mr. Spitzer and his advisers.

The attorney general did not have subpoena power to compel testimony in this case; Mr. Nocenti provided brief, sworn statements from the two men instead.

Walter Ayres, a spokesman for the Ethics Commission, said yesterday that the commission had only begun gathering relevant documents from the attorney general’s office and the state inspector general, and that it was too soon to say whether a full-blown investigation would begin.

He said he could not comment on whether Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Baum or Mr. Dopp might be subpoenaed.

He said that as far as he knew, there was no commission precedent for subpoenaing a sitting governor.

Mr. Baum added in a separate interview about the Ethics Commission, “If they feel sworn testimony is necessary, I will give it.”

Mr. Dopp, who was an architect of the State Police operation, has not responded to interview requests this week.

By signaling their willingness to cooperate with the Ethics Commission, Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Baum made clear that they preferred the scrutiny of that body, led by a Spitzer appointee, to that of the Republican-led State Senate, whose calls for an inquiry drew sharp resistance from the governor.

Mr. Dopp has been suspended indefinitely, and Mr. Spitzer spoke of him yesterday as almost certainly gone from his staff.

“On a personal level it’s very painful; this is somebody who I’d spent a lot of time with over eight and a half years, who I like,” Mr. Spitzer said.

“That is never easy.”

“He had a sense of the world that I appreciated,” the governor added.

“I will miss him.”

Mr. Baum, who has denied any knowledge of the misuse of the State Police, remains on staff as Mr. Spitzer’s staff secretary and chief political adviser.

He has been subject to intense scrutiny, given that he and Mr. Dopp often worked hand in glove.

Asked if Mr. Baum would still be in his job a month from now, Mr. Spitzer said: “Oh, yeah."

"Absolutely."

"Yes.”

Other Spitzer aides said the only reason Mr. Baum might step aside at this point is if Mr. Baum believed he was proving harmful to Mr. Spitzer.

Mr. Baum said he also expected to remain on the governor’s staff.

“As always, I work at the pleasure of the governor,” he said.

“I don’t contemplate me leaving, and neither does the governor.”

In the interview, Mr. Spitzer reiterated his statements this week that he was unaware of any effort by his staff to discredit Mr. Bruno, and that he had been told that the State Police were following procedure in complying with inquiries from reporters about Mr. Bruno’s travel.

Mr. Baum has been a focus in the scandal because Mr. Dopp worked for him; the two men have coordinated media and political strategy on Mr. Spitzer’s behalf for years, operating in similar roles when Mr. Spitzer was attorney general.

According to the report, Mr. Baum received e-mail messages from Mr. Dopp in May and June about travel records that would apparently show that Mr. Bruno used state aircraft for travel to both political events and state business appointments.

(Such trips are allowed under state rules, the investigation concluded.)

One of Mr. Dopp’s e-mail messages, sent at a time when Mr. Bruno was awash in negative news reports about his personal business dealings, said, “Think a travel story would fit nicely in the mix.”

Mr. Baum said he was aware of general news media inquiries about Mr. Bruno’s travels, but did not respond to Mr. Dopp’s e-mail messages, nor did he dissuade him.

“I didn’t know what he was doing,” Mr. Baum said of Mr. Dopp.

“I didn’t engage; it wasn’t a priority for me.”

Asked yesterday if he believed Mr. Baum should have blocked Mr. Dopp’s effort, Mr. Spitzer said: “I think when you look back at it, the answer speaks for itself at this point."

"But if you believe, as Rich did, that this was stuff in response to media inquiry, it is what it is."

"Now just to be clear, I never got those e-mails."

"This was stuff I wasn’t involved in.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/nyregion...ref=todayspaper

This post has been edited by Livyjr: Aug 4 2007, 03:22 PM

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Two Powerful Men, Two Powerful Egos and a ‘Clash of Titans’"

By LESLIE EATON

Published: July 28, 2007

They are both outsized political powerhouses, with aggressive habits, huge ambitions and a history so tangled that political mavens have been waiting months for what seemed an inevitable explosion.

One, of course, is Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

The other is not — as one might expect — Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate’s Republican majority leader, who has recently emerged as the governor’s most prominent foe.

No, the other figure who has fascinated Albany watchers is Andrew M. Cuomo — like Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat.

Mr. Cuomo, who replaced Mr. Spitzer as attorney general in January, has made no secret of his desire one day to be governor, a post he disastrously sought in 2002.

Many eyes have been on Mr. Cuomo as he has handled the recent Bruno imbroglio, investigating the senator’s penchant for traveling by state aircraft and the related efforts by the governor’s staff to try to discredit him.

As shell-shocked New Yorkers know by now, the attorney general released a toughly worded report saying that some of Mr. Spitzer’s top aides tried to use the state police to embarrass Mr. Bruno.

In the days since, the report has created new complications for Mr. Cuomo’s already complex and, some say, competitive relationship with the governor — and sparked speculation about his motives.

Did Mr. Cuomo, some people have asked, pull his punches by not demanding that two of Mr. Spitzer’s aides testify about the scheme?

Mr. Cuomo’s office has said the attorney general’s office did not have the power to compel the two aides to talk.

But Paul Shechtman, a criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor who was chairman of the State Ethics Commission under Gov. George E. Pataki, called the report a “puzzlement” because investigators did not talk to the two aides, Darren Dopp, Mr. Spitzer’s communications director, and Richard Baum, his chief adviser.

“It is hard-hitting and critical and at the same time, given the failure to interview two principal players, sort of stunningly incomplete,” Mr. Shechtman said.

(Mr. Spitzer has said he will allow the two men to testify before the State Ethics Commission.)

But others have wondered whether the attorney general was trying to embarrass Mr. Spitzer by releasing the report on a Monday, ensuring that it would be talked and written and gossiped about for days.

“People will look at it and say Andrew’s ambitious, out to get Eliot,” said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor at Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs.

His own opinion is that Mr. Cuomo “called it the way he saw it.”

Yet there is also a sense among some political analysts that Mr. Cuomo has emerged with his reputation enhanced and his power increased because both the governor and state Republicans have embraced the report’s findings.

Henry J. Stern, for example, the longtime parks commissioner who founded the good-government group New York Civic, said:

“If anyone thought six months ago which one would be incompetent, they thought Cuomo would be the jerk and Spitzer would be the cool guy."

"But that appears not to be the case.”

Mr. Cuomo’s spokesman, Jeffrey B. Lerner, would not comment on how involved Mr. Cuomo was with the investigation, the report, or the timing of its release.

The report itself lists as the authors Ellen Nachtigall Biben, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office who now heads the attorney general’s public integrity unit; Linda A. Lacewell, a former federal prosecutor who worked on the government’s Enron cases; and Jerry H. Goldfeder, an election lawyer who, like Ms. Lacewell, is a special counsel to Mr. Cuomo.

But many people give Mr. Cuomo credit for the outcome.

“This is the kind of issue, this clash of titans, that most politicians would have ducked,” said Stuart H. Brody, a labor lawyer and chairman of the Democratic Rural Conference.

“Instead of ducking, Andrew stood up and got the job done.”

If people sometimes see Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Spitzer as rivals, that may be because they are so much alike.

They are almost the same age: Mr. Cuomo, at 49, is only 18 months older than Mr. Spitzer.

They both have powerful fathers; Mr. Cuomo’s, of course, was the governor of New York and remains an influential figure in the state, while Mr. Spitzer’s is a wealthy real estate developer who bankrolled his son’s first political forays.

Early in their careers, both Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Cuomo worked as prosecutors for Robert M. Morgenthau, the legendary Manhattan district attorney, though Mr. Cuomo’s tenure was relatively brief, while Mr. Spitzer became chief of the rackets bureau.

But their relationship has been rocky at times.

In 2000, Mr. Spitzer complained publicly that Mr. Cuomo had taken over — and taken credit for — his efforts to control hand-gun sales.

Mr. Spitzer did not endorse Mr. Cuomo until after he won the Democratic primary for attorney general, which some believe rankled Mr. Cuomo.

The two men have become polite and mutually complimentary, if not warm; George Arzt, a political consultant who has worked closely with both, describes them as cordial.

But, he said, “the relationship will not get any better after this.”

Mr. Cuomo, known as a media-seeking missile during his days as federal housing czar, has kept a much lower profile as attorney general.

He did not hold a news conference to publicize his findings, instead putting out a three-sentence statement saying basically, “We were asked to investigate, and we did.”

During last year’s campaign, Mr. Cuomo promised voters that he was no longer the brash young man who had served as an enforcer for his father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

Or even the Andrew Cuomo who was accused of arrogance when he unsuccessfully challenged the party favorite, H. Carl McCall, for the Democratic nomination for governor five years ago.

Instead, Mr. Cuomo portrayed himself as humbled by hard knocks, which included his highly public divorce from Kerry Kennedy.

The way he handled the Spitzer/Bruno investigation not only allows Mr. Cuomo to prove he has changed; it also lets him position himself as a real reformer, said Hank Sheinkopf, a political consultant who has advised Mr. Cuomo’s past opponents.

“He’s much smarter and uses power a lot better,” Mr. Sheinkopf said.

“He’s showing patience.”

Although New York’s attorney general is elected, not appointed, and in theory can oppose the governor, in practice such clashes have been rare.

Even Mr. Spitzer, in his two terms as attorney general, seemed to spend far more time and effort prosecuting Wall Street firms than policing the Pataki administration.

But in his campaign for governor, Mr. Spitzer vowed to clean up Albany, as did Mr. Cuomo.

John Marino, who worked for Mr. Cuomo’s father and knows Mr. Spitzer, acknowledged that the two had had some problems, but insists that they have been on friendlier terms in recent times.

At a Labor Day breakfast last year, “they were talking about stuff I don’t know anything about, Nascar and cars," he said.

Still, Mr. Marino added, "They are now in jobs that make things more difficult."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/nyregion...&oref=login

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Op-Ed Contributor

"An Apology From Albany"

By ELIOT SPITZER

Published: July 29, 2007

Albany

WE made mistakes.

Though two independent investigations proved that no illegal activity occurred on my watch, it is crystal clear that what members of my administration did was wrong — no ifs, ands or buts.

I have apologized to Joe Bruno, the Senate majority leader, and now I want to apologize to all New Yorkers.

What you’ve been reading about in the papers and watching on television this week is not what we are about.

In fact, it represents just the opposite.

On my first day in office, I brought my staff together and told them what our guiding principles must be:

“First, we’re going to fight for what we believe in."

"And second, we’re going to maintain the highest ethical standards while doing it.”

Over the past few weeks, two members of my administration forgot that second principle — creating an appearance that the State Police were being used inappropriately.

As soon as this became clear, we acted immediately and decisively, suspending one of my longtime advisers indefinitely and transferring the other out of the governor’s office.

These steps were not taken lightly.

Both of these people have served New York with distinction for decades.

But the message was simple: even though they didn’t break the law, they forgot what we were about, and that won’t be tolerated.

The worst thing that could happen now would be for this to stop our progress, preventing us from building on our many successes of the past six months: health insurance for every child; historic investment in our schools tied to accountability; the largest property tax cut in history; ethics, lobbying and campaign finance reform; breaking the impasse at ground zero; and a 20 percent cut in workers’ compensation rates that will save New York businesses $1 billion and make our state more competitive.

Albany had long been mired in gridlock, but we are changing that.

Working together with the Senate and Assembly, we have managed to make remarkable progress — and we are on the brink of so much more.

There are two ways this can go.

We can get bogged down in partisan politics that serve only to distract us from the business at hand — the kind of head-hunting that we’re beginning to see for people in my administration who were cleared by these investigations.

Or we can move forward and pick up where we left off, addressing the long list of issues and challenges that matter to all New Yorkers — which are just as important today as they were last week.

So let us keep our eye on the ball and focus our energy and our resources on the needs of New Yorkers — fighting for a revitalized economy, more jobs, lower health care costs, better schools and lower taxes.

We will renew those two guiding principles I spoke about on my first day in office.

We will continue to fight vigorously to change the status quo on behalf of all New Yorkers.

I’m never going to apologize for that.

But we must recognize that this effort will succeed only if our means for changing the status quo are as honorable as our ends.

Eliot Spitzer is the governor of New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29spitzer.html

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THE NEW YORK OBSERVER

"Goo-Goos Ready to Join the Spitzer Chorus"

by Azi Paybarah

Published: July 30, 2007

Citizens Union, Common Cause and several other good-government groups who have been conspicuously absent from the conversation about Eliot Spitzer's staff problems are about to weigh in.

They're working on a joint statement about the Joe Bruno affair that could be released later today or early tomorrow, according to a person working on it.

Recent precedent suggests that what the groups say is more than an academic exercise.

Former comptroller Alan Hevesi, you may recall, suffered badly in his struggle to hang on to his statewide post when the good government groups abandoned him.

http://www.observer.com/2007/goo-goos-are-almost-ready

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THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

"Goo Goos To Spitzer: Direct Your Staff To Testify"

As promised, Citizens Union of the City of New York, Common Cause/NY, the League of Women Voters of New York State, and NYPIRG have sent a letter to Gov. Eliot Spitzer urging him to have his aides cooperate with the state Ethics Commission investigation in the interest of "transparency and openness in state government."

"We write to urge you to direct all relevant staff members to fully cooperate with and testify before the New York State Ethics Commission regarding the events surrounding New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's use of state aircraft and misuse by your office of the State Police to provide documentation of Senator Bruno's activities."

"We support the Ethics Commission's review of this matter and believe this step is essential to answering lingering questions about this episode, allowing the air to be fully cleared and for your administration to move forward without distraction."

Interestingly, the letter makes no mention about what Spitzer himself should do if called on to testify.

These groups have all supported Spitzer to varying degrees, with Citizens Union going so far as to endorse him outright during last year's election.

They have appeared at Spitzer's side during many press conferences to chide Bruno and his fellow Republicans for failing to see things the governor's way.

They have acted as traveling spokespeople on Spitzer's behalf, spreading the gospel of his reform message across the state.

All of which only serves to make their abandonment of Spitzer on this issue all the more significant.

NOTE: Upon reflection, I realize the people who have joined the Spitzer administration are all from the environmental advocacy side of things as opposed to good government, with the exception of former NYPIRGian, Blair Horner, who, as noted earlier, now works for AG Andrew Cuomo.

Posted by Elizabeth Benjamin on July 30, 2007 4:27 PM

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

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THE NEW YORK OBSERVER

"Maloney Debunks Special Counsel Powers"

by Azi Paybarah

Published: July 30, 2007

So I just spoke with one of Eliot Spitzer's top aides, Sean Patrick Maloney, who, along with another staffer, was named “special counsel” right around the time when the attorney general's investigations into the governor’s office began.

According to this story in the New York Post, the appointments may have been intended to thwart the investigation into whether other aides to the governor tried to use the state police to gather travel information about Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

Maloney, a lawyer who worked in the White House in Bill Clinton’s second term, said that in fact, his new title didn’t provide him any kind of shield.

He said that there's no such thing as after-the-fact attorney client privileges, meaning that he was, and still is, available to be questioned about anything he knew before he became a "special counsel."

(He has yet to be questioned by investigators.)

For what it's worth, Maloney's assessment squares with that of one legal expert I spoke to, who said that the only privileges that apply retroactively are marital ones.

(A wife can't be forced to testify about any conversations she had with her husband, ever, no matter when they got married.)

http://www.observer.com/2007/draft-maloney...-counsel-powers

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NEWSDAY

"Legal experts aren't backing senators' call"

July 31, 2007

Mario Cuomo named the attorney general as a special prosecutor to take over the racially charged Tawana Brawley case when a local district attorney had a conflict of interest.

George Pataki had Attorney General Dennis Vacco take over a capital case from a Bronx district attorney who was averse to asking for the death penalty.

But the push by Senate Republicans yesterday to have Gov. Eliot Spitzer name Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as special prosecutor to probe possible crimes in the Spitzer administration's effort to discredit Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno got negative reviews from legal experts yesterday, because it doesn't fit the pattern.

On one hand, some said, Cuomo already has prejudged the case by concluding last week that Spitzer's office engaged in no "unlawful" conduct.

On the other, Albany County District Attorney David Soares has no known conflict if he wanted to launch a probe, and an inquiry by the state Ethics Commission is already under way.

"I think we have institutions already in place to make this inquiry," said Eric Lane, a Hofstra University law professor who once served as a legislative counsel in Albany.

"In my view, it's a waste of time and absolutely unnecessary at this point to name Cuomo."

"I think it's a terrible idea," said Stephen Gillers, a New York University Law School criminal-law expert.

In New York, the attorney general typically does not have criminal jurisdiction, including the power to subpoena witnesses or question them before a grand jury.

The governor has virtually unlimited power under the state constitution and a section of the Executive Law to confer that jurisdiction in a particular case.

Senate advocates of the idea argued yesterday in a letter to Spitzer that Cuomo's report last week did not include testimony from two top Spitzer aides - Darren Dopp and Richard Baum - who refused to be interviewed.

Naming Cuomo as special prosecutor would give him the power to subpoena them, potentially changing his conclusions.

Spitzer rebuffed the idea in a statement.

Lane said that new facts might indeed lead to different conclusions, but pointed out that the Ethics Commission also has subpoena power, as does the Senate itself.

"The ethics board is already going on; they'll find the facts and they have the power to make a criminal referral," he said.

Gillers thinks Cuomo's office erred by reaching a conclusion to exculpate Spitzer before it heard from the aides.

"Cuomo's office has committed itself to a position," he said.

"If the reason to appoint an outside counsel now is to ensure that there's a full airing of the facts, you don't want to ask somebody who's already jumped the gun to say there was nothing unlawful."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny...enews-headlines

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NEWSDAY

"Legal experts aren't backing senators' call"

July 31, 2007

Gillers thinks Cuomo's office erred by reaching a conclusion to exculpate Spitzer before it heard from the aides.

"Cuomo's office has committed itself to a position," he said.

"If the reason to appoint an outside counsel now is to ensure that there's a full airing of the facts, you don't want to ask somebody who's already jumped the gun to say there was nothing unlawful."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny...enews-headlines

STAR-GAZETTE

"Poll: Many believe Spitzer lied"

July 31, 2007

By Cara Matthews
clmatthe@gannett.com
Star-Gazette Albany Bureau

ALBANY -- More than half of New York voters believe the governor was not telling the truth when he said he was unaware of his top aides' campaign to discredit his lead political rival, a poll released Monday found.

By a margin of 51 percent to 28 percent, voters think Gov. Eliot Spitzer knew what his top-level staffers were doing, according to Siena (College) Research Institute's poll of 620 registered voters last week.

"I would say that the voters essentially told Siena that the governor has a growing issue with his credibility," said Steven Greenberg, a spokesman for the Siena New York Poll.

Spitzer has maintained that neither he, nor his second-in-command, Richard Baum, was aware of what the employees had been doing.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released a report last week that found two staffers in the governor's office conspired to release information meant to damage the reputation of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County.

Spitzer has apologized, disciplined the employees and said the matter required no further investigation since Cuomo did not find any violations of law.

"We don't put too much stake in polls, but the findings are understandable given the news stories," said Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Spitzer.

Cuomo's report said the employees, with help from the state police, collected information about Bruno's use of state aircraft and transportation in New York City and released it to an Albany newspaper.

Cuomo said the aides did not break any laws.

The same went for Bruno, who was found to have conducted at least some legislative business on days he took the state helicopter to New York City and attended major GOP fundraisers.

The Siena poll results are similar to those in a WNBC/Marist College poll released Friday.

About half of those interviewed for that poll said they believe Spitzer was aware of what the aides had been doing, and 80 percent said he should testify about what he knows.

Despite the significant hit the Spitzer administration has taken on the matter, voters interviewed by Siena said the governor has been the most effective state leader over the past seven months.

They think he has done an average job in getting his agenda enacted, working with the Legislature and following through on his promise that, "On Day One, everything changes," according to the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Spitzer has a favorable rating of more than two-to-one (59 percent to 28 percent), compared with 75 percent to 10 percent in January, the poll said.

http://www.stargazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...4%2F1001%2FNEWS

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Four Inquiries Face Spitzer in Bruno Case"

By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: July 31, 2007

ALBANY, July 30 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration is facing the possibility of as many as four investigations following a scathing report issued a week ago by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s office, a reality that could tie up many of the governor’s top staff members in legal wrangling for months to come.

On Monday, the Republican-led Senate called for Mr. Cuomo to be designated a special prosecutor with broader powers to investigate the governor and his staff for their efforts to discredit Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate leader.

The governor quickly rejected the request, but the Senate’s move and the governor’s swift reaction appeared to embolden Senate Republicans to begin an investigation of their own.

In addition, the State Ethics Commission is conducting a preliminary review in advance of a potential investigation.

Republicans have also called for the State Commission of Investigation, an independent body created in the 1950s and initially charged with investigating organized crime, to review the conduct of the governor and his staff.

A spokesman for the commission declined to comment.

The office of P. David Soares, the Albany County district attorney, also said on Monday that it was likely to comment further on the case later this week.

Mr. Soares, a Democrat, has indicated that he was not reviewing the matter, even though Senate Republicans have asked that he do so.

Calls for new inquiries have accumulated in the week since Mr. Cuomo’s office issued its report finding that the governor’s staff had misused the State Police to collect information about Mr. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, in an effort to plant a negative article about him in the news media.

The report concluded that no laws had been broken, and Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, has maintained that he was misled by his staff and knew nothing about the effort to discredit Mr. Bruno, the state’s top Republican.

The state inspector general, Kristine Hamann, concurred in the attorney general’s findings; she is one of the governor’s appointees.

The governor indefinitely suspended his communications director, Darren Dopp, and reassigned another aide after the report was released.

Senate Republicans have been considering how to proceed with a further inquiry.

Though top Republicans say they are confident they would win any legal battle over their right to subpoena the governor, his aides and their correspondence, they are concerned that it is likely to take months to resolve such disputes, let alone uncover new information.

They are also concerned that a full investigation by the Senate would so poison the atmosphere in Albany that little progress could be made on other issues.

On Monday afternoon, Senator George H. Winner Jr., the chairman of the Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, called on the governor to designate Mr. Cuomo a special prosecutor, giving him the power to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony.

During the attorney general’s investigation leading to his report, two of the governor’s top staff members declined to be interviewed at the direction of the governor’s counsel, one factor that has led for calls for a fuller review.

The governor has apologized publicly and said it is time to move on.

Several Republican senators interviewed Monday cited polls published during the last few days showing strong support for further inquiry into the Spitzer administration and widespread doubt that the governor himself was unaware of his aides’ actions.

Though the polls also show generally high approval of Mr. Spitzer, Republicans seemed confident that they could move fairly aggressively with public sentiment behind them.

Senator Thomas W. Libous, a Binghamton Republican who is a member of the investigations committee, said, “The public wants an investigation.”

Even as Mr. Winner made his announcement, however, leading Senate Democrats questioned whether the investigations committee could handle a Spitzer inquiry fairly.

Thomas K. Duane, a Manhattan senator and the committee’s ranking Democrat, said Mr. Winner had yet to contact him or respond to a letter he sent last week outlining conditions that would need to be met for any committee investigation to proceed fairly.

“I think that at the very least, there’s a very problematic appearance if a committee, the majority of whose members are appointed by Senator Bruno, would be in charge of an investigation of something when Senator Bruno was the offended party,” Mr. Duane said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/nyregion...ml?ref=nyregion

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THE NEW YORK POST

"MARIO SAYS SPITZER MUST TAKE OATH"

By KENNETH LOVETT, Post Correspondent

July 31, 2007 -- ALBANY - Former Gov. Mario Cuomo yesterday said the scandal engulfing Gov. Spitzer won't end until the governor testifies under oath about what happened.

"The thing will be virtually over when and if the governor is given a chance to speak under oath and he speaks under oath and just repeats what he's already said," Cuomo told The Post.

Cuomo, the father of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose office last week found that Spitzer's aides improperly used State Police in a bid to disgrace Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, expressed surprise over the scandal enveloping the freshman governor.

"Why do they do any of this?" Mario Cuomo asked of the Spitzer administration.

"Why did they even start thinking about [allegedly siccing the State Police on Bruno]?"

"It was all so naive."

The former three-term Democratic governor made the statements after being asked about a Post report yesterday on the Spitzer administration's decision to deputize two top aides as "special counsels" during the probe by Andrew Cuomo.

The Post reported that the two aides, Sean Patrick Maloney and Peter Pope, coached the two central figures in the campaign against Bruno as they prepared to answer investigators' questions.

That gave Maloney and Pope "lawyer-client" privilege and blocked probers from interviewing them.

Meanwhile, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani - campaigning in New Hampshire - said Andrew Cuomo should be given subpoena power to grill Spitzer aides who refused to testify in his initial probe.

"These are very serious allegations."

"We don't know if they're true or not."

"How much he know, how much they knew," said Giuliani, a hard-charging former federal prosecutor before serving as mayor.

Giuliani praised Andrew Cuomo's actions to date as independent and fair.

Three former federal prosecutors contacted by The Post about the naming of the special counsels declared the move unusual enough to raise questions about a possible cover-up.

"The situation of the unusual appointment of executive-branch aides and operatives as 'special counsel' raises a sufficient red flag to warrant further and intense investigation by a special prosecutor," said Guy Heinemann, a former assistant U.S. attorney during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Another former federal prosecutor, who served during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, said he views the move as "an obstructionist tactic."

"How are you saying you're cooperating fully when you're engaging in those sort of machinations?" the former prosecutor-turned-private practice attorney asked.

"To me, it raises the questions of whether they are hiding something."

He added that "federal prosecutors are always skeptical of the assertion of privilege."

kenneth.lovett@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07312007/news/...rrespondent.htm

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THE NEW YORK POST

"MARIO SAYS SPITZER MUST TAKE OATH"

By KENNETH LOVETT, Post Correspondent

July 31, 2007 -- ALBANY - Three former federal prosecutors contacted by The Post about the naming of the special counsels declared the move unusual enough to raise questions about a possible cover-up.

"The situation of the unusual appointment of executive-branch aides and operatives as 'special counsel' raises a sufficient red flag to warrant further and intense investigation by a special prosecutor," said Guy Heinemann, a former assistant U.S. attorney during the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Another former federal prosecutor, who served during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, said he views the move as "an obstructionist tactic."

"How are you saying you're cooperating fully when you're engaging in those sort of machinations?" the former prosecutor-turned-private practice attorney asked.

"To me, it raises the questions of whether they are hiding something."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07312007/news/...rrespondent.htm

THE NEW YORK SUN

"Giuliani Wants a Probe of Spitzer - Subpoena Power Is Key, Ex-Mayor Says on Stump"

By SETH GITELL
Special to the Sun

July 31, 2007

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mayor Giuliani, using his strongest words yet to describe the allegations that Governor Spitzer's office employed the state police to improperly scrutinize the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, is calling upon Attorney General Cuomo to conduct a full inquiry into the matter with subpoena power.

While Mr. Giuliani did not specifically call for Mr. Cuomo to be made a "special prosecutor," as some Senate Republicans want, the statements by the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York appear to echo their request for a complete probe backed by subpoena power.

"These are very serious allegations."

"We don't know if they're true or not — how much he knew, how much they knew."

"If that's what they were doing to Joe Bruno, siccing the state police on him, that is a very serious allegation," Mr. Giuliani said, cautioning that "nobody should draw a conclusion before the investigation is over."

Mr. Giuliani praised the work of Mr. Cuomo and said he ought to be more fully empowered to investigate the matter.

Mr. Cuomo's office last week issued a report into the alleged misuse of the state police, concluding "that no surveillance occurred, but that serious issues have been raised about the use of the State Police to collect, create, and produce to the Governor's Office documents and information regarding Senator Bruno's travel."

Two aides to Mr. Spitzer, Darren Dopp, the communications director, and Richard Baum, the secretary to the governor, declined to be interviewed voluntarily for Mr. Cuomo's investigation.

The New York Sun reported yesterday that the inspector general's office conducted its own investigation but did not interview the men despite having the power of subpoena.

"I think the attorney general could conduct the investigation fully and fairly if he was able to subpoena people, which he wasn't able to do in the first round of the investigation," Mr. Giuliani said.

"I think Attorney General Cuomo did every thing that he could."

"I think it was quite remarkable."

"I think it was quite independent, the review that he did, and fair and even fair to the governor in that it drew no conclusions, it just raised the questions."

"I think now it's time for the conclusions."

A spokeswoman for the governor, Christine Anderson, rejected Mr. Giuliani's call for an investigation with subpoena power.

"The attorney general concluded its report."

"Even Senator Bruno deemed the report fair, thorough, and independent."

"The report found no illegality and no surveillance," she said.

As far as a further investigation by a special prosecutor, she said:

"Given that the attorney general and the inspector general have closed their investigations and found no violations of the law, the appointment of a special prosecutor is unnecessary."

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo's office, Jeffrey Lerner, had no comment on Mr. Giuliani's suggestion and said of the possibility of a special prosecutor:

"It is inappropriate for us to comment on this matter."

"The findings of our report speak for themselves."

Mr. Giuliani spoke with sympathy about Mr. Bruno, who endorsed his presidential campaign in May.

"Joe is a good friend of mine, and he's someone I've worked with for a very long time," he said.

"I've always found Joe Bruno to be somebody, who kept his word, whether you agree with him, whether you disagree with him, to see this happen to him is personally very, very disturbing, to see the state police focused on him in a way where the State Police are being used for political purposes."

The former New York mayor said a complete investigation was needed for Mr. Spitzer's sake as well.

"We don't know exactly who did that, who ordered it."

"I don't think it's fair to lay it at the governor's feet until you look at it."

"Maybe it will turn out that the governor didn't know about it."

"That doubt should be removed."

http://www.nysun.com/article/59457?page_no=1

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THE NEW YORK POST

"N.Y NEEDS THE TRUTH"

By GEORGE H. WINNER

July 31, 2007 -- IT'S a great dissappointment that Gov. Spitzer has rejected calls for an independent special prosecutor to investigate the misue of the State Police by his office.

Nearly a month ago, an Albany newspaper alleged that state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno had improperly used state aircraft for political purposes.

That prompted the governor to quickly call for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to conduct an investigation of Sen. Bruno.

Cuomo agreed, but then later reporting - most importantly by The Post's own Fred Dicker - turned the story around.

He found that a circle of the governor's top aides had used the State Police to compile unusually detailed travel records on Bruno - records that were not kept in similar detail on other top officials, such as the governor himself.

This raised suspicions that the governor's aides had misused the State Police in an attempt to damage Bruno politically.

The Post's reporting prompted the majority leader to request that Cuomo also investigate the governor's role in this affair.

Last week, the attorney general released a shocking report that concluded that top Spitzer aides did, in fact, improperly use State Police resources to produce detailed records on Bruno and to plant accusations in the press.

A storm now surrounds the conduct, character and motivation of our chief executive and the administration he has assembled.

How can state government move forward with the Office of the Governor under such a cloud of suspicion?

The Spitzer administration is facing serious and unanswered questions of integrity, propriety and trust - the very building blocks of sustained, effective government.

The overriding responsibility of New York government, always, is to conduct our affairs in a manner worthy of the people's trust, and to preserve the credibility of the institutions charged with carrying out the work of governing.

The Office of the Governor is the highest symbol of this government.

It must be beyond reproach, beyond suspicion.

Right now, it's not.

The unanswered questions here can't be answered with an apology.

I hope the governor won't be satisfied with leaving questions about his leadership lingering in the minds of so many.

To move forward, we need to make every effort to immediately commence an investigation that is absolutely thorough and independent, one that will in no way be tossed aside as partisan.

The naming of a special prosecutor - AG Cuomo or someone of his selection - would have meant a solid start on clearing the air.

It's a great shame that the governor has ruled that out.

The Senate will not be deterred from seeking the truth.

We'll be prepared to take whatever action is necessary to find out who was involved and ensure they're held accountable - and to begin again providing the people of New York with a government worthy of their trust.

George H. Winner (R-C, Elmira) chairs the state Senate's Standing Committee on Investigations and Government Operations.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07312007/posto...e_h__winner.htm

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THE SYRACUSE POST-STANDARD

"Air Bruno - Lost in the 'Spitzer scandal' is the lax policy on use of state aircraft"

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Veteran government-watcher Charles Peters once observed that the real scandal in public life is not what is illegal, but what shouldn't be legal, but is.

The state Attorney General's Office did not find laws broken in the alleged smear plot against Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno by aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Nor did it conclude that Bruno's frequent use of state aircraft, state police pilots and chauffeurs broke any laws.

Bruno, a powerful fixture in Albany, claimed complete vindication for himself but not the governor.

"A lot of people in authority think there was criminality in the executive branch," he insisted.

While the state ethics commission considers a probe into Spitzer's office, further light deserves to be shed on the use or misuse of state aircraft.

According to the attorney general's report, it is legal to mix business and politics on taxpayer-financed trips.

This has been a controversy for more than a decade, since George Pataki accused incumbent Mario Cuomo of abusing the perk - then promptly forgot about it after winning the governor's seat in 1994.

The attorney general's report listed 10 occasions since January when Bruno used state aircraft and ground transportation.

It said that on several occasions, legislative business "constituted a minor portion of the day's schedule."

On May 3, Bruno traveled to New York City, where he had four scheduled afternoon meetings and one the next morning.

In between was a reception by the GOP campaign committee.

On May 17, he again flew to New York.

This time he held three meetings in the afternoon, then attended the state GOP's annual dinner.

He stayed in New York overnight and was flown back to Albany the next morning.

The attorney general has concluded his investigation, but taxpayers deserve a few more answers.

What exactly did the senator accomplish on behalf of New Yorkers during his trips?

How much did his air travel cost taxpayers?

The attorney general's report doesn't say, but commercial rates for helicopter flights range beyond $1,600 an hour.

An hour in a state helicopter cost about $2,000 - and that was back in the early 1990s when records were kept.

Then there is the cost of the state troopers who were commandeered as chauffeurs.

Bruno, who accused the governor's men of misusing the state police, should explain why it is not an abuse of the troopers - and taxpayers - to require them to drive him to political fund-raisers.

What should be done about what the attorney general calls the "overly permissive and porous" state aircraft policy?

In many states, officials can tell the difference between right and wrong, between politics and public policy, between proper use of state resources and self-indulgence.

Apparently not in New York.

The attorney general refers to a "bright line" rule that would reserve aircraft for "exclusively governmental" purposes.

Alternatively, it lays out a policy of "mixed-use with reimbursement" - requiring officials to reimburse the state for the portions of the trip that weren't official business.

Either policy would be an improvement.

http://www.syracuse.com/articles/opinion/i....xml&coll=1

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THE TIMES HERALD-RECORD

"State's top cop in tight spot - Will scandal sink local man's career?"

By Brendan Scott

Times Herald-Record

July 31, 2007

Albany — Calls from the governor's office have carried great consequence for Town of Wallkill resident Preston Felton.

Six months ago, such a call cut short his retirement and lifted him to the pinnacle of New York state law enforcement.

Then came calls from William Howard, a high-ranking aide to Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Felton now risks ending his distinguished, 26-year career on a note of disgrace.

As acting state police superintendent, Felton was a vital — if unwitting — accomplice in an effort by governor's aides to engineer an expose on Senate leader Joe Bruno's use of state helicopters, according to a report by the state attorney general.

In light of that, most observers say it's unlikely that Gov. Eliot Spitzer would permanently name Felton the state's top cop.

But some lawmakers question whether Felton can even continue leading the 5,000-member agency in an interim capacity.

"It doesn't show that he's got the ability to resist political pressure," said state Sen. Tom Morahan, R-C-New City, who thinks Felton should resign.

"He's had his integrity compromised," said Assemblyman Tom Kirwan, R-C-Newburgh, a retired state police lieutenant.

"It's cost him his opportunity to be superintendent."

"It's also cost him his good name."

Such an assessment of Felton, 48, would have seemed unthinkable six months ago.

Throughout a career that he began as a road trooper assigned to Middletown's Troop F, the soft-spoken Felton was seen as a straight shooter and a gentleman.

His appointment to the $136,000-a-year superintendent's post drew cheers from the state troopers' union, which later praised his handling of the Margaretville raid that left one trooper dead and another injured by gunfire in April.

It's a testament to such support that Bruno declined an opportunity to criticize Felton last week.

"The superintendent just couldn't have been more apologetic and contrite," Bruno said.

Felton said last week he didn't know the information he gathered would be used for political purposes.

He declined to comment for this story.

Nonetheless, whomever Spitzer appoints as state police superintendent would have to face confirmation before the Republican-controlled Senate.

The botched leak plot would inevitably become an issue.

As for Spitzer, he says Felton was "put in an untenable position" and declined to discipline him as recommended by the attorney general.

He has, however, noted that a national search for a new top cop would continue.

"The governor has full confidence in Preston Felton's ability to lead the state police," Spitzer spoke woman Christine Anderson said.

"In terms of his candidacy for the permanent position, his lapses in judgment must necessarily be considered."

Top cop caught in leak plot

In its investigation into the "dirty tricks" plot by the governor's office, the state attorney general's office found acting state police Superintendent Preston Felton:

• Bowed to pressure: Despite obvious political overtones, Felton never questioned the governor's office inquiry into Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's use of state police helicopters.

• Violated procedure: Felton sought out records on Bruno's travels before a Freedom of Information Law request had been filed.

He released them without a standard security review.

He had documents created to fill in gaps in the paper trail, something not required under FOIL.

• Broke chain of command: Felton personally supervised the document collection, something usually handed by a public information officer.

That involved contacting an investigator familiar with Bruno's security detail.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...318%2F-1%2FNEWS

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

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

By KEVIN FLYNN AND ANDY NEWMAN

Published: November 11, 2003

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

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

His legal pedigree is respectable but unremarkable.

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

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

He played a role in picking State Supreme Court judges.

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

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

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

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

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

He invited them to dinner and his home.

He toasted them at parties.

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

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

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

''Everybody knows Mr. Batra.''

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

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

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

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

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

When Collegiality Tests Integrity

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

Certainly, Mr. Batra thinks so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their 2001 report found the system awash in cronyism.

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

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

Prosecutors have subpoenaed Mr. Batra's business records.

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

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

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

The uproar, however, has taken a toll.

Mr. Batra resigned from the screening panel.

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

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

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

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

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

He was born in India and grew up in Queens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In particular, he showered attention on judges.

He praised them in letters to newspapers.

He invited them to his Christmas parties.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some judges felt uncomfortable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Appointment to Screen Judges

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Farrell denied that such a call took place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

State investigators began looking into courthouse patronage.

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

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

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

The judge said Mr. Batra had done nothing wrong.

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

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

The next month, they were back together in court.

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

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

Mr. Batra said no.

The judge did not return calls seeking comment.

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

Perceptions of Partiality

The rules that govern judicial conduct are broad in scope.

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

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

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

He sued the Brooklyn company that sold him the chair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Livyjr]

New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct

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

THE COMMISSION:

Lawrence S. Goldman, Esq., Chair

Honorable Frances A. Ciardullo, Vice Chair

Stephen R. Coffey, Esq.

Colleen C. DiPirro

Richard D. Emery, Esq.

Raoul Lionel Felder, Esq.

Christina Hernandez, M.S.W.

Honorable Daniel F. Luciano

Honorable Karen K. Peters

Alan J. Pope, Esq.

Honorable Terry Jane Ruderman

APPEARANCES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Respondent is an attorney.

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

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

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

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

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

Respondent and Mr. Batra are friendly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ms. DiPirro and Judge Luciano were not present.

Dated: March 18, 2005

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

[Livyjr]

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

And speaking of Mr. Ravi Batra's "trickeries and deceits", VJ, and the Constitution and law in the State of New York, which Mr. Ravi Batra makes an absolute mockery of with his prattle about young Andy Cuomo acting as a "proverbial good samaritan" for Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer in the COVER-OVER of his and Baum's alleged involvement in the "TROOPERGATE FIASCO", let us go to the MSM for some other points of view on the subject, starting with the July 31, 2007 NEWSDAY article "Legal experts aren't backing senators' call", which starts out by stating:

On one hand, some said, Cuomo already has prejudged the case by concluding last week that Spitzer's office engaged in no "unlawful" conduct.

end quotes

Now, to be fair, that statement refers to young Andy Cuomo being unsuited to be a "special prosecutor", because he had already "prejudged the case" ...

BUT ..

The key sentences in that article which serve to undermine what Mr. Ravi Batra is stating in here, and which serve to buttress the points that I am raising, are as follows:

In New York, the attorney general typically does not have criminal jurisdiction, including the power to subpoena witnesses or question them before a grand jury.

The governor has virtually unlimited power under the state constitution and a section of the Executive Law to confer that jurisdiction in a particular case.

end quotes

There, VJ, is the heart of the matter very clearly stated:

IN NEW YORK STATE, THE GOVERNOR HAS VIRTUALLY UNLIMITED POWER UNDER THE STATE CONSTITUTION AND A SECTION OF THE EXECUTIVE LAW TO CONFER CRIMINAL JURISDICTION ON YOUNG ANDY CUOMO, INCLUDING THE POWER TO SUBPOENA WITNESSES AND QUESTION THEM BEFORE A GRAND JURY, AND ...

And in this particular case, VJ, Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer DID NOT do that ...

According to Mr. Ravi Batra, VJ, who I consider to be a "VOICE FROM INSIDE THE ROYAL COURT", what Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer did instead was to "INVITE" young Andy to be a "GOOD SAMARITAN" for which we all are supposed to now be grateful ...

"AH, SAY, YOUNG ANDY," says the apparently disembodied voice of Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer ...

"I'M DOWN HERE IN THE SWAMP, YOUNG ANDY!"

"I'M IN THE QUICKSAND!"

"I'VE FALLEN, AND I CANNOT GET UP!"

"WOULD YOU BE A GOOD SAMARITAN, AND GET ME A ROPE, BEFORE I GO UNDER ALL THE WAY?"

"THERE'S A GOOD LAD, NOW, YOUNG ANDY!"

"BE QUICK ABOUT IT, NOW, LAD, AND I'LL REWARD YOU WITH SOME CANDY WHEN YOU GET ME OUT OF THIS QUAGMIRE!"

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | August 5, 2007 8:13 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli..._64.html?page=2