"Soares: Scandal broke no law - District attorney weighs whether to criticize politics, Cuomo's investigation"

By JAY JOCHNOWITZ, State editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

ALBANY -- Albany County District Attorney David Soares has found no criminality in his review of the Troopergate scandal.

Moreover, the freshman prosecutor is weighing whether to include in his report a condemnation of the political atmosphere that drew his office into the matter, and a critique of what he is said to consider was a badly done investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Soares on Monday said he would not comment on the findings, but a person familiar with the investigation said the district attorney has concluded that aides to Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer broke no laws in what a report by Cuomo described as a political scheme to discredit Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Soares did say he plans to release his report within the next couple of weeks.

He said he wanted to respect the process and was sticking to his goal of a "dispassionate" review of the matter.

"I don't want to participate in the political theater," said Soares, a Democrat who bucked the Albany County party establishment in 2004 to win a primary for the Democratic nomination.

Soares, the source said, also is considering commenting in the report on how Bruno, in particular, dragged his office into a needless investigation after Cuomo's office already had concluded no laws were broken.

And, according to the source, Soares is weighing voicing his irritation that Cuomo's investigation was so poorly done that his office "had to start from scratch."

Bruno, who has called for multiple investigations of the Spitzer administration, had no immediate comment.

Spitzer's office also had no comment.

A lawyer for Darren Dopp, the governor's communications director and a key figure in the Cuomo report, was pleased with the outcome.

"I've been saying all along that Darren did nothing wrong, and this confirms it," attorney Terence Kindlon said.

"This has just been a very powerful example of Rovian spin."

"Joe Bruno gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and all of a sudden he's screaming, 'you planted the cookie jar.' "

Cuomo's investigation concluded that Dopp and homeland security deputy William Howard improperly, but not illegally, set about trying to discredit Bruno by gathering information on the senator's trips to Manhattan using a state helicopter and State Police chauffeurs.

Howard, Cuomo found, asked acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton to have Bruno's police drivers reconstruct his itineraries in order to release them to the media.

The Times Union obtained the travel records in June through a Freedom of Information request.

Dopp was suspended without pay for at least 30 days, a period that is ending this week.

The governor's office had no comment on his status.

Howard was removed from the executive chamber and reassigned.

Senate Republicans have said that since the attorney general doesn't have subpoena power, he may not have gotten to the truth, including whether the scheme went higher up to Spitzer's secretary, Richard Baum, or the governor.

In addition to Soares' investigation, Bruno's majority has opened its own probe through the Senate Investigations Committee.

The state Ethics Commission is also investigating.

In the wake of the Cuomo report, the Ethics Commission revised the aircraft policy last week to require that official business be the primary purpose of such trips, that officials pay for any private or political use of the aircraft at costly charter rates and that they provide a detailed itinerary subject to public disclosure.

The records showed that among Bruno's taxpayer-funded trips, he made three on days when he had political fundraisers.

He insisted that he also conducted government business, but has refused to say what it was.

Several people in business and government backed him up, and Cuomo's report, without providing details, found he'd complied with the state's liberal policy on mixing public and private business.

Spitzer, who has made his itineraries public, also made some political stops on his official travels.

Jochnowitz can be reached at 454-5424 or by e-mail at jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

"Council sees a city in crisis - Members say immediate action necessary in wake of shooting death, stabbings"

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

ALBANY -- Upset by weekend violence that included the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy, Common Council members said Monday the city is in a state of emergency and needs to take immediate action.

Council members, shaken by the killing and three separate stabbings, said their approval earlier this year of the creation of a gun violence task force does not mean steps cannot be taken before the task force completes its yearlong study.

"We need some kind of immediate reaction, a call for action," said Council Majority Leader Carolyn McLaughlin.

"We come to the eighth month of the year before we lost a life, but one life is too many."

Contacted later in the evening, Mayor Jerry Jennings responded angrily, saying council members aren't visible in the neighborhoods and should not react by spreading fear.

Shahied Oliver -- the first homicide victim of the year -- was shot and killed early Saturday during a party at the Skyline Garden apartments in Arbor Hill.

A day later, separate stabbings occurred outside two Pearl Street nightspots.

A third stabbing happened at the corner of Lark and Lancaster streets.

Council member Catherine Fahey agreed with McLaughlin.

"I think it's an emergency," Fahey said.

"We need to shift money from someplace to programs for the kids after school."

"It is a crisis."

McLaughlin said she was concerned about remarks being made on the Web site MySpace calling for retaliation against the killer or killers of Oliver.

"There is too much of this first reaction when something happens: 'I'm going to get my gun' or 'I have a knife, I'm going to cut you,' " Council member Dominick Calsolaro said.

He told of getting a call from a business owner whose employee was afraid to leave her home in the city.

"No one in this city or anywhere should be afraid to leave their house," Calsolaro said.

Jennings blasted the council, saying he visited the affected neighborhoods over the weekend and saw no other elected officials there.

"It's typical reaction from council members who aren't engaged in the community," he said.

"It's really irresponsible to warn everybody about the start of this school year."

"They sit back, they wait for some information and they criticize."

"They should not just take one night and comment on it."

The reference was to a remark made Sunday by Calsolaro, who said he expected a violent start to the school year next month when students return to Albany High School and renew old rivalries.

Jennings said police are working hard to find who killed Oliver.

"We had a murder, yes," he said.

"Our police are working very hard on it, as I would expect them to."

"It's not just Albany, New York."

"It's happening everywhere."

The solutions need to come as part of a national effort that includes focusing on ending youths' access to guns, the mayor said.

"Everybody's got to be involved, clergy, parents," Jennings said.

"There has to be dramatic changes and not just lip service."

At the meeting, council members had no immediate solutions.

"I have no answers individually," said member Barbara Smith, who noted the murder and Pearl Street stabbings were all in the Fourth Ward she represents.

"The only answers we can come to are collectively."

McLaughlin said the city needs more facilities where children and teens can go.

"The fact that we are still arguing in 2007 about community centers frustrates me," she said.

"We have to do something proactive so they don't choose the streets before they choose an education."

Calsolaro said at the meeting that remarks he's made about crime aren't attacks on the mayor.

"I'm not trying to embarrass the mayor," he said.

"I'm trying to do my job."

In other action, the council approved spending up to $1 million to buy land next to the city's Rapp Road landfill and up to $625,000 to expand the dump.

The city wants to enlarge the landfill because, at its current rate, it will be full by 2009.

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

"Death leads to Web threats - Promises of revenge for killing Albany 15-year-old posted on MySpace site"

By DAN HIGGINS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

ALBANY -- City police were monitoring social networking sites on the Internet Monday after learning revenge threats were posted following the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy over the weekend.

The threats, on the Web site MySpace, promised to find whoever shot Shahied Oliver at a party over the weekend, and that the attacker would be "taken care of."

The MySpace threats were reported by local TV station CBS-6.

Albany Police spokesman Detective James Miller said the department was aware of the postings.

"It's no different than threats made on the street," Miller said.

"This is just a different way to do it."

"We are aware of it and we are monitoring."

Oliver's death was the city's first homicide of 2007.

Oliver, of Albany, was shot in the chest during a birthday party early Saturday at the Skyline Gardens apartments near Lark Street in the Arbor Hill neighborhood.

No arrests have been made.

Police said it's possible the shooting was related to a feud between uptown and downtown Albany youth.

For several years, violence has erupted on city streets -- including drive-by shootings, stabbings and assaults.

Police have said the incidents have stemmed from ongoing feuds between street gangs and other groups of young people who live in the South End, Arbor Hill and West Hill.

At the party, a witness next door reported loud music interrupted by a single gunshot.

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER

"Cuomo Leak Charge"

by Azi Paybarah

Published: August 17, 2007

Now this is kind of fascinating.

Alan Hevesi's lawyer is seeking to explain those stories in the Post about millions of dollars Hevesi may have directed towards financial companies connected to his adviser, Hank Morris, with the following statement:

“Evasive responses from the Attorney General’s press spokesman with respect to these leaks will no longer suffice."

"Furthermore, the repeated leaking to the press of unproven allegations and details of the inquiry violates the New York State Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility.”

I've tried to get an answer out of said press spokesman in Andrew Cuomo's office about the leak allegations, so far, without any luck.

Interesting that out of the two figures seemingly afflicted by prosecutorial leaks in Albany, Eliot Spitzer and Hevesi, only Hevesi is making an issue of it.

(Spitzer, the erstwhile investigator, has stopped answering questions about the investigation.)

UPDATE: Jeffrey Lerner, Cuomo's Director of Communications, said, "We have no comment on this ongoing investigation or an obvious defense lawyer ploy to portray his client as a victim."

http://www.observer.com/2007/leaks-albany

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Spitz scandal prober 'close' - Albany DA vows to uncover truth in Troopergate"

BY JOE MAHONEY, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Tuesday, August 21st 2007, 4:00 AM

ALBANY - Investigators are "getting closer" to determining whether any laws were broken in the scheme by Gov. Spitzer's aides to discredit his top Republican rival, Albany County District Attorney David Soares told the Daily News yesterday.

Soares, interviewed outside his office, said he had not decided yet whether to place the matter before a grand jury, suggesting he would first have to determine whether a crime was committed.

Spitzer has noted that previous probes, including one by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office, showed "egregious" behavior but no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

High-ranking staffers set out to damage Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) with a leaked newspaper story on his use of state aircraft.

Soares, a Democrat like Spitzer, said he would aggressively follow every lead.

He said top state leaders will face the same amount of scrutiny as they would if they were "Joe Blow" because "no one is above the law."

Soares said he expects to issue a written report regardless of whether his probe finds criminal wrongdoing.

Among those expected to be interviewed by both Soares' investigators and the state Ethics Commission is Richard Baum, the governor's chief of staff, who has retained a white-collar criminal defense lawyer, Steven Reich of Manhattan, to represent him.

Baum has denied directing the dirty tricks plot to use state police data against Bruno.

Darren Dopp, the governor's suspended spokesman who steered the information to the Albany Times Union, has already been questioned by Soares' investigators.

Others expected to be interviewed are Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton and former homeland security adviser William Howard.

Dopp's lawyer Terence Kindlon was emphatic in predicting Soares will determine there was no crime "on anyone's part."

Crime or not, Republicans are eager to keep Spitzer on the defensive.

Senate Investigations Committee Chairman George Winner (R-Elmira) threatened to subpoena the Spitzer-appointed inspector general, Kristine Hamann, to a Sept. 5 hearing on how she has conducted investigations into alleged abuses of power by key aides to the governor.

A state Democratic spokesman, Jonathan Rosen, scoffed, "The Senate Republicans holding an ethics hearing is like O.J. searching for the real killer."

jmahoney@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/21...er_close-1.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

After reading the story in the upstate TU entitled "Soares: Scandal broke no law - District attorney weighs whether to criticize politics, Cuomo's investigation" by JAY JOCHNOWITZ, State editor, first published Tuesday, August 21, 2007, wherein is stated:

Albany County District Attorney David Soares has found no criminality in his review of the Troopergate scandal.

And, according to the source, Soares is weighing voicing his irritation that Cuomo's investigation was so poorly done that his office "had to start from scratch."

end quotes

And then comparing that to what was stated in the DN story "Spitz scandal prober 'close' - Albany DA vows to uncover truth in Troopergate" by JOE MAHONEY, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF, Tuesday, August 21st 2007, 4:00 AM, wherein is stated:

ALBANY - Investigators are "getting closer" to determining whether any laws were broken in the scheme by Gov. Spitzer's aides to discredit his top Republican rival, Albany County District Attorney David Soares told the Daily News yesterday.

Soares, interviewed outside his office, said he had not decided yet whether to place the matter before a grand jury, suggesting he would first have to determine whether a crime was committed.

end quotes

I really have to wonder if these two newspapers are reporting from the same planet ...

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | August 21, 2007 8:40 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypoli...the_day_92.html

"Prosecutor says travel scandal report still incomplete"

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:32 p.m., Tuesday, August 21, 2007

ALBANY -- A prosecutor denied a report published Tuesday that he has concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer who used state police to track Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's travels.

"To date, our assessment of these materials is not complete, and no findings have been made," Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares said.

"To draw any conclusions before reviewing all evidence would directly contradict the principles of our process."

In Tuesday's editions, the Times Union of Albany cited "a person familiar with the investigation" in reporting that Soares "has found no criminality" in his review of the scandal.

Soares also denied that he will criticize Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for conducting a poor initial investigation of the case.

"A recent press story that my office planned to negatively critique the Attorney General's report is wholly untrue," Soares said in a prepared statement.

Times Union Editor Rex Smith said the newspaper stands by its reporting.

"We are convinced the Times Union story today accurately represents the findings of the district attorney's office and the feelings of the district attorney," he said.

Cuomo's July 23 report found no illegal conduct, but concluded two Spitzer aides gathered detailed information on Bruno from state police and released it in response to a Freedom of Information Law request from the Times Union.

Bruno used state aircraft and police escorts for trips to New York City, where he says he did state business and also attended political events.

State Inspector General Kristine Hamann, a Spitzer appointee, also investigated and reached a similar conclusion without issuing a report.

Spokesman Steven DelGiacco said it would have been "redundant" and they also concluded "that two officials of the governor's office had engaged in serious misconduct."

Spitzer suspended longtime communications director Darren Dopp for 30 days without pay and reassigned public safety deputy William Howard to a state post outside the governor's office at a reduced salary.

The state Ethics Commission has also been investigating.

On Aug. 13, it tightened state travel rules, saying officials now will have to strictly account for their time on state aircraft and reimburse the state for any portion of a trip that isn't for a "bona fide" public purpose.

Dopp spent more than three hours last week "freely and fully" answering all the questions asked by Soares' assistant district attorneys, defense lawyer Terence Kindlon said Tuesday.

"He's done absolutely nothing wrong in connection with this whole fiasco," Kindlon said.

Kindlon said he has not heard from Soares' office about its conclusions.

Meanwhile, the Senate Investigations Committee held a hearing where Republican senators criticized the Inspector General's Office, saying it didn't adequately investigate the so-called "Travelgate" case and has a seeming conflict of interest since it answers to the governor's office.

Committee Chairman Sen. George Winner, an Elmira Republican, asked Inspector General Kristine Hamann to turn over to Cuomo her ongoing investigation of a former Spitzer aide -- Steven Mitnick -- accused of harassing a member of the State Public Service commission in an effort to make her resign.

Hamann refused.

In a letter Monday, she said state law establishes the inspector general as the state's investigative arm when allegations are made against people in the executive branch.

She said she agreed to let Cuomo take the investigative lead in the travel case in part because questions arose about the possible involvement of Richard Baum, secretary to the governor, because Hamann reports to Baum.

She expects Soares' investigation to fully resolve any remaining issues in that case.

Winner has introduced legislation to transfer the case and scheduled another hearing for Sept. 5.

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

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

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

S 190.85 Grand jury; grand jury reports.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so …

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

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

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

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

S 190.05 Grand jury; definition and general functions.

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

end quotes

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

Whether criminal ..

OR …

Otherwise …

And so …

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

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

And so …

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

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

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

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

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

end quotes

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

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

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

end quotes

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

BUT …

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

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

ESPECIALLY NOT ITS OUTCOME …

He is merely an advisor to it in NYS …

And so …

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

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

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

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

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

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

end quotes

INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE RECORDED IN THE MINUTES …

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

And so …

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

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

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

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

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

end quotes

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

EACH GRAND JUROR …

Not just one …

For a citizen GRAND JURY is not some political circus …

It is a very serious undertaking …

BY WE COMMON FOLKS OUT HERE …

In accordance with OUR written laws …

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

For himself …

And so …

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

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

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

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

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

end quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

end quotes

So …

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

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

And so …

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

And so …

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

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

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

And as far as I am concerned, Mike, this TROOPERGATE FIASCO now belongs before a non-partisan citizen GRAND JURY, where common citizens like us are the exclusive judges of the facts ...

And to me, the TRIGGER for having this TROOPERGATE FIASCO brought before a citizen GRAND JURY right now is easily found in the news item "Prosecutor says travel scandal report still incomplete" by MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press, last updated 1:32 p.m., Tuesday, August 21, 2007, wherein is stated:

In Tuesday's editions, the Times Union of Albany cited "a person familiar with the investigation" in reporting that Soares "has found no criminality" in his review of the scandal.

State Inspector General Kristine Hamann, a Spitzer appointee, also investigated and reached a similar conclusion without issuing a report.

Spokesman Steven DelGiacco said it would have been "redundant" and they also concluded "that two officials of the governor's office had engaged in serious misconduct."

end quotes

TWO OFFICIALS OF THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE HAD ENGAGED IN SERIOUS MISCONDUCT ...

If I were a member of a GRAND JURY right now, Mike, I would be moving for subpoenas of Dopp and the Howard dude based upon this statement by the DelGiacco dude right above here about serious misconduct ....

And that is not a process that a DA like P. David Soares can short-stop, Mike ..

If the GRAND JURY wants subpoenas issued for Dopp and Howard to make an inquiry into misconduct in office by public servants, David Soares as DA would have to comply as a matter of law spelled out in ARTICLE 190 of the NYS CPL .....

And so ...

When I read THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS article "Spitz scandal prober 'close' - Albany DA vows to uncover truth in Troopergate" by JOE MAHONEY, ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF, Tuesday, August 21st 2007, 4:00 AM wherein is stated:

ALBANY - Investigators are "getting closer" to determining whether any laws were broken in the scheme by Gov. Spitzer's aides to discredit his top Republican rival, Albany County District Attorney David Soares told the Daily News yesterday.

Soares, interviewed outside his office, said he had not decided yet whether to place the matter before a grand jury, suggesting he would first have to determine whether a crime was committed.

end quotes

I have to wonder what game DA David Soares is playing at here, since the matter does not have to be criminal for the GRAND JURY to make inquiry into it, now that a finding of MISCONDUCT has been made by the SPITZER-ITE Inspector General ...

And so ....

Posted by: John Galt | August 22, 2007 5:23 PM

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

"Unchecked Spitzer arrogance could mean 4 long, lonely years"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

It's quiet in political Albany, too quiet, and we have Eliot to thank for that.

Midway through his first year in office, the new governor we elected last November has become a rumor, seldom seen, seldom heard.

Nobody wants to ride on his band wagon these days.

That kick-butt, sharp-tempered, smart-as-hell lawyer from Manhattan who was going to clean up this town and get government working again has had his wings clipped, that's for sure.

So how long is he going to sulk over it?

So now what?

Give up?

That's not an option, governor.

Plan A known as "On Day One ..." turned out to be a bust because Eliot Spitzer's monumental arrogance coming in as chief executive permeated his staff and their attitudes.

That arrogance is the direct link between Eliot Spitzer and those accused of going unethically too far to undo Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, the scandal that hangs in the air.

Overzealous, cocky, nasty, disrespectful, our way or the highway.

Those are the words I've heard most often from both sides of the aisle and from those regulated or doing business one way or another with government about the first seven months of the Spitzer administration.

This is an administration with no friends, even among like-minded reform Democrats.

That's why nothing of any great substance is getting done.

Eliot Spitzer elicits a negative reaction from nearly everyone who has to deal with him and that is simply an ineffective way to govern.

But does he recognize it?

There is no hard evidence yet that he really does.

He says he's sorry about what's come to be called Troopergate, and takes responsibility for the actions of his staff.

But sorry for what?

For getting caught?

For the profiteering going on by his opponents over it?

It's hard to say because he has gone quiet on us, and has not given the public the painful long form explanation it deserves for his involvement, and any sense that his personality fault is the root cause of it all.

Right along, Spitzer has claimed his hot temper and attorney-general-for-life attitude have been a plus for him by shaking up people.

He is mistaken.

Thus far, they have been his undoing, the reasons he has fallen so dramatically from grace.

Even the people who voted for him have got the message.

That mandate of last November?

Gone.

If he were running for office today, John Faso would be governor.

So now what?

First and foremost, Eliot Spitzer has to admit the error of his approach and start over as governor, as difficult as this may be.

Otherwise we are in for a very long four years, and oblivion at the other end for the man many expected just months ago to be the first Jewish president.

Talk to the people, governor.

Show your vulnerabilities.

The court of public opinion can be far more forgiving than any court of law if mistakes are admitted and personal faults are thoroughly aired and genuinely recanted.

But that same court can condemn the unrepentant arrogant to the dust heap of history without any remorse, or appeal.

Your choice, governor.

State government at the moment is in paralysis.

The Spitzer governing team appears in shambles.

We're being treated to the inevitable side show of partisan hearings by the Senate Investigations Committee.

Democrats have launched a public relations counter offensive poo-pooing those hearings, and saying let's just all hug, get back to the people's business and let the various investigations conclude whatever it is they conclude.

The trouble is, the people's business at the moment is Troopergate and establishing the integrity of the governing administration.

As annoying and partisan as it is, Republican senators have every right, and even obligation, to raise as many questions as they can.

That's what checks and balances in government are all about.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno is trying desperately to keep this issue well fanned, and that's politics.

But who gave Joe Bruno that opportunity?

Eliot Spitzer.

Who will be responsible for the Senate remaining Republican because of the checks and balances lesson that will come out of Troopergate?

Eliot Spitzer.

But far more important, who is responsible for state government being at a standstill?

Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer partisans can dismiss Bruno's circus as much as they want, but there's only one governor to set the agenda for all of government and at the moment he's making like Rip Van Winkle.

So wake up, governor, and get on with why we elected you in the first place.

Not for your arrogance, but for your drive, brilliance, new ideas and better solutions.

Absolutely nothing stops you from regaining momentum out of the current stagnation by putting on the table, for the public inspection, a great big package of upstate development plans, for example.

The best way to deal with a crisis like this is to work through it, very publicly and openly.

But not before a chastened governor acknowledges with genuine contrition that he needs to be a different Eliot Spitzer, and will be.

Otherwise, as I said, a very long four years.

LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK POST

"GOV'S DIRTY-TRICKS COLONEL DANIEL WIESE"

August 20, 2007 -- INVESTIGATORS say a controversial state official with strong ties to Gov. Spitzer and former Gov. George Pataki is a key figure in the ongoing dirty-tricks scandal, The Post has learned.

Daniel Wiese, a one-time State Police colonel and now the state Power Authority's $175,000-a- year inspector general, is suspected of guiding his protégé, acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton, through his deep involvement in the Spitzer administration's plot to destroy the career of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer), State Police and investigative sources said.

Wiese once headed Pataki's personal-security detail, which Attorney General Andrew Cuomo found had - at the direction of Felton and top Spitzer aides -covertly created special records aimed at proving Bruno was improperly using a state helicopter for political purposes.

One of the State Police officers who chauffeured Bruno and helped prepare the records had unusually close ties to Wiese, the sources said.

Wiese - who, as a police officer, pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying in a federal corruption probe - was a close, personal friend and neighbor of Pataki's in the tony Putnam County hamlet of Garrison and, a source said, shared the former governor's well-known hostility toward Bruno.

Wiese was also a close, personal friend of Zenia Mucha, Pataki's former communications director and a bitter Bruno enemy.

"Wiese made it clear to members of the [security] detail that they weren't to do anything extra for Bruno the way they would do for other VIPs," said a State Police source who has been interviewed by investigators probing the dirty-tricks plot.

Wiese has told friends in the State Police that he is also a "close" friend of Spitzer's, dating to the 1980s, when both worked in Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office.

Two sources said Wiese has also claimed to be the godfather of one of Spitzer's daughters.

A spokeswoman for the governor denied the claim.

Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson refused to say whether the governor wanted the Power Authority to continue to employ Wiese.

Four years ago, the Pataki administration granted Wiese a special waiver allowing him to collect a $60,000 State Police retirement pension while working full-time as the Power Authority's inspector general.

A few months later, Pataki repeatedly refused to answer questions about why Wiese was still working for the state after the Village Voice's disclosure that he refused to answer questions under oath before a federal grand jury probing his alleged interference in an investigation of state corruption.

Wiese did not return a call to his office seeking comment.

Felton refused to comment "on advice of counsel."

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08202007/news/...c_u__dicker.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Elizabeth Benjamin

"'No idea' on Bruno - Ex-state police big denies GOP claims he planned Troopergate"

Monday, August 20th 2007, 4:00 AM

In a highly unusual move, former Gov. George Pataki's one-time top bodyguard is defending himself against rumors that he was the key player behind the Troopergate scandal.

In an exclusive interview, Daniel Wiese, a former state police lieutenant colonel who headed the Republican governor's security detail and has a longstanding relationship with Democratic Gov. Spitzer, called any suggestion that he was involved in the scandal "a fantasy."

"I had no idea what was going on," Wiese said, adding that his decision to talk was to "get the truth out there."

Citing anonymous tips from inside the state police, Senate Republicans say Wiese has had influence over the agency in absentia for several years from his dual post as head of security and inspector general at the New York Power Authority.

The GOP suspects Wiese was behind the Spitzer administration's dirty-tricks scheme to use the state police to collect potentially damaging information on Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

One high-ranking Senate official called Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton "a puppet" who wouldn't do anything without running it past Wiese first.

While admitting he is an adviser and close friend of Felton's - the top cop even attended the wedding of Wiese's daughter last month - Wiese repeatedly insisted the two never discussed Bruno.

"I have always had the utmost respect for Sen. Bruno," Wiese said.

"[Felton] never talked to me about this at all."

Spitzer and Wiese worked together in the Manhattan district attorney's office in the late 1980s and early '90s and have been friendly ever since.

Technically, Wiese left the state police in 2003.

But he remained an unpaid adviser to the law enforcement agency and the governor.

Wiese said he dropped that role in April - a month before Spitzer aides hatched their plan to use the agency to keep tabs on Bruno, according to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's July report.

This isn't the first time Wiese's name has been linked to controversy.

Wiese invoked his Fifth Amendment rights in the late 1990s before a federal grand jury probing the alleged sale of parole in exchange for campaign contributions during Pataki's first gubernatorial bid.

A Pataki fund-raiser and three state parole officials were ultimately convicted, but Wiese was never charged.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is poised to announce today his three appointments to the 17-member commission that will consider the fate of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, according to a source.

The appointments will all be lawmakers.

However, despite his own opposition to the mayor's plan, Silver is unlikely to tap the plan's most outspoken critics, the source said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/20...on_bruno-5.html

"Top state cop list narrows further"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, August 20, 2007

Members of the state's law enforcement community say they believe Field Commander Bart Johnson's name is rising to the top of the list of candidates rumored to become the next State Police superintendent.

That suggests the odds of acting Superintendent Preston Felton getting the post are slim.

Felton's chances for the job diminished, observers say, when his name surfaced in the Troopergate scandal surrounding Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration.

Felton, according to an investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, violated the chain of command and had State Police create reports recounting Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno's travels to Manhattan on days of political fundraisers using state aircraft and State Police as chauffeurs.

Felton, according to Cuomo, was acting at the behest of William Howard, Spitzer's homeland security deputy, who was working with the governor's communications director, Darren Dopp, on a plan to embarrass Bruno with the information.

Dopp and Howard were disciplined; Felton was not.

He said he was worried about his job if he refused the request.

Even though some members of the Long Gray Line hope Felton will survive Troopergate, Senate legislative insiders and some troopers are pessimistic.

Currently the agency's third in command, Johnson, 52, has a solid reputation, has positioned himself as a homeland security leader and is well known.

If he wins approval, he would leapfrog acting First Deputy Superintendent James Harney, 55, the No. 2 in command of the State Police, and considered a trooper's trooper, one insider said.

Mandatory retirement age for most sworn members of the State Police was 57 until a bill signed last week raised it to 60.

There is no mandatory retirement age for the superintendent.

Anti-Spitzer mystery

There's a new anti-Spitzer e-mail campaign going on, and a bit of a mystery behind it.

Reporters received several missives criticizing Spitzer on economic development last week from something purporting to be the Walter J. Mahoney Republican Club in Buffalo -- which doesn't appear to exist.

(Mahoney was a real person, a lawyer who served in the state Senate from 1937 to 1964.)

A check of the group's Web site shows it was registered Aug. 14, two days before the first e-mail, using Domains by Proxy, a service that shields the identify of people who create Web sites.

A similar anti-Spitzer e-mail effort in the Troopergate affair also started through Domains by Proxy, but the creator, Michael Caputo, a longtime Republican operative, says he has nothing to do with the Mahoney campaign.

Caputo, who's also from Buffalo (and Florida), maintains he's working on his own and not with the GOP, Senate Republicans, Bruno or his consultant in the scandal, Roger Stone, who's based in Florida.

The Mahoney sender hasn't answered a request for more information.

Contributors: State editor Jay Jochnowitz and Capitol bureau reporter James M. Odato. Got a tip? Call 454-5424 or e-mail jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

THE NEW YORK POST

"DOUBTS ON PROBERS GETTING JOB DONE"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER

August 20, 2007 -- ALBANY - The state Ethics Commission investigative team probing the Spitzer administration's dirty-tricks scandal is made up of a former food inspector, a retired Navy officer and a just-transferred employee of the scandal-linked Inspector General's Office, The Post has found.

Official hiring and payroll records show the Spitzer-controlled commission has only three investigators on its 20-person staff, leaving some close to the probe convinced it won't be able to do a thorough job.

Commission spokesman Walter Ayres provided The Post with the investigators' names but he refused requests for their résumés, claiming that a special Freedom of Information Law exemption prevents such a disclosure.

However, state Committee on Open Government Executive Director Robert Freeman, the foremost authority on the FOI law, said the information could, and should, be provided.

Ayres identified the three investigators as Robert Shea, Horace Campbell and Lawrence Maurello.

Records show Shea worked for nearly 20 years as a food inspector with the Department of Agriculture and Markets before joining the Ethics Commission in 1991.

Campbell, said a source close to the commission, retired from the Navy.

He joined the commission the same year as Shea did.

Maurello began working at the commission on July 12, after leaving an investigative post at Spitzer's Inspector General's Office.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08202007/news/...c_u__dicker.htm

THE NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL

"Free Breaking News: Top Spitzer Aide Retains Lawyer for Albany Probes"

By Joel Stashenko

August 20, 2007

ALBANY - Richard Baum, secretary to Governor Eliot Spitzer, has retained an attorney with experience in the impeachment proceedings involving former President Bill Clinton and former Connecticut Governor John Rowland to represent him during investigations of Mr. Baum's role in a plot to tarnish Mr. Spitzer's chief political opponent.

Steven F. Reich is a partner at Manatt and director of the firm's Government Litigation Unit whose specialties are in white-collar criminal and civil litigation matters.

Mr. Reich led the team of Manatt attorneys that served as special counsel to a select committee of the Connecticut General Assembly in 2004 to consider whether to recommend that Mr. Rowland be impeached.

After eight days of evidentiary hearings led by Mr. Reich, Mr. Rowland resigned.

Mr. Reich said he did not know Mr. Baum before being hired by him.

"Rich retained me simply to help guide him through an unfamiliar process," Mr. Reich said in an interview Friday.

"Because I have handled these types of matters in the past, I'm able to give him insight into what to expect as we move forward."

Mr. Reich declined to discuss other aspects of his representation of Mr. Baum, who is the second most powerful figure in the governor's office behind Mr. Spitzer himself.

He would not say when Mr. Baum retained him.

Mr. Reich said he will represent Mr. Baum before the state Ethics Commission and the Albany County district attorney's office, two entities with active investigations into the scheme to use State Police to track Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and generate incriminating evidence of his use of state aircraft for an Albany newspaper.

Mr. Reich said he would also represent Mr. Baum if other entities look into the matter as well.

The investigations and government operations committee in the Senate, which has subpoena power like the ethics commission and Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares, has not ruled out conducting its own investigation.

From 1999-2001, Mr. Reich was senior associate counsel to Mr. Clinton, supervising a legal team that defended the president in investigations by independent counsels, federal prosecutors and congressional committees.

In 1998, he was deputy chief investigative counsel to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of Mr. Clinton.

He also served as impeachment counsel to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

An investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo into the scheme to discredit Mr. Bruno indicated that Mr. Baum received electronic mails from Mr. Spitzer's communications director, Darren Dopp, and assistant secretary for homeland security, William Howard, in which Mr. Dopp and Mr. Howard discussed efforts to compile travel records on Mr. Bruno.

Mr. Cuomo's report recommended that Mr. Dopp, Mr. Howard and Acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton should be considered for disciplinary actions.

It did not do so for Mr. Baum.

Mr. Dopp has been suspended without pay since July 23, the day Mr. Cuomo's report came out.

Mr. Howard has been reassigned to another agency.

Mr. Felton was not punished.

Mr. Cuomo's investigators sought to question Mr. Baum and Mr. Dopp but do not have subpoena power in cases of possible official corruption.

Both men signed statements that were not included in the July 23 report.

Also Friday, the general counsel for the Hearst Corporation called on the state ethics commission to withdraw a subpoena for the reporter whose story initiated inquiries into a plot against Mr. Bruno.

Eve Burton said she would go to state Supreme Court to quash the subpoena if commission Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum denies her request to voluntarily drop efforts to seek testimony from Albany Times Union reporter James M. Odato.

The information on Mr. Bruno's use of aircraft was given to the Albany Times Union under a Freedom of Information Request and published July 1 in a story by Mr. Odato under the headline "State flies Bruno to fundraisers: Taxpayers finance trips of Senate majority leader to New York City political events."

Mr. Cuomo's report concluded that Mr. Bruno did not violate any guidelines on the use of planes.

The ethics commission on Thursday issued new, more restrictive rules.

Ms. Burton said in an interview that the state Shield Law, Civil Rights Law §79-h and other provisions in the law and the state Constitution, protect Mr. Odato from testifying about his news gathering work on the Bruno flight story or other articles.

"I have explained to the [ethics commission] the working and mechanisms of the Shield Law and the privilege of confidentiality and the strong protections under the rest of the law," Ms. Burton said.

"I have voluntarily asked Teitelbaum to withdraw the subpoena in the spirit of doing an independent investigation and not making us an arm of the investigation."

There was no immediate response from the ethics commission Friday.

The Hearst Corporation is the parent company of the Times Union.

Ms. Burton denied that the paper was used by the Spitzer administration to stain Mr. Bruno at a time when the senator and Mr. Spitzer were wrangling over campaign finance reform and other issues.

"The idea that there is some sort of single-source manipulation conspiracy is beyond the pale," she said.

Inspector General's Role

[sizxe=3]Also Friday, Senate Investigation and Government Operations Committee Chairman George Winner said he will ask the state Inspector General Kristine Hamann to appear at a planned meeting of the committee for early September to discuss the office's role in investigating the attempt to tarnish Mr. Bruno.

Ms. Hamann's counsel, Nelson Sheingold, told the committee last week that the inspector general pulled out of a parallel investigation she conducted at the same time Mr. Cuomo was probing the affair when she realized Mr. Baum was involved.[/size]

The inspector general reports to the secretary to the governor.

Ms. Hamann has the power to transfer her office's subpoena powers to the attorney general, and she should have done so when her office realized it would be conflicted because Mr. Baum had at least some knowledge of the activities of Mr. Dopp and Mr. Howard, Mr. Winner said.

"There still has never been a definitive explanation of why that wasn't done or envisioned by her office when they obviously are faced with that type of a conflict," Mr. Winner, R-Elmira, said.

"That seems to be the uncovered flaw in the operation of her office."

Mr. Winner said legislation is being developed to have the inspector general report to someone other than the secretary to the governor.

That provision was added in 2004 when the inspector general's office was created in statute.

It had previously been a creation of executive order and it reported directly to the governor.

Michael Boxer, first deputy inspector general, declined comment Friday.

Also Friday, a source familiar with Mr. Soares' investigation said Mr. Dopp has spent several hours being interviewed by the district attorney's investigators.

The source would not say whether Mr. Dopp has been under oath.

- Joel Stashenko can be reached at jstashenko@alm.com

http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.j...d=1187341331796

"Consultant to resign, denies threatening Gov. Spitzer's father"

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press

Last updated: 12:33 p.m., Wednesday, August 22, 2007

ALBANY -- A prominent political consultant for the state Senate Republicans has agreed to resign following reports he made a threatening phone call to the father of Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Roger Stone, who began working for the Senate Republican Campaign Committee in June, denied making the taped call and said he was "set up."

But Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said the news reports on the allegation "can only serve as a distraction from the real issues -- the abuse of government power, political espionage and a cover up of information."

Bruno said Stone "has agreed to resign and end his relationship with us at our request."

Lawyers representing Bernard Spitzer said their investigation showed the Aug. 6 call came from a phone at Stone's Manhattan apartment.

The caller -- recorded on an answering machine -- tells the 83-year-old real estate developer that he's going to be subpoenaed to testify before the state Senate investigations committee about 1994 campaign loans to his son, then threatens his arrest if he doesn't appear and uses expletives and insults referring to the governor.

Letters about the call were sent to Sen. George Winner, an Elmira Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, and to the state Ethics Commission, according to Spitzer attorney Jeffrey Moerdler.

He told the Times Union of Albany he didn't request an investigation, but the matter is now with government investigators.

Stone, 55, said the phone number cited by Bernard Spitzer's lawyers is his, but the apartment is owned by a Spitzer fundraiser and someone else could have gotten inside to make the call or used other technology to mimic his voice and that number.

Stone worked for the Committee to Re-Elect the President that helped President Nixon beat George McGovern in 1972 and for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984.

In 2000, he helped George W. Bush win the presidential vote recount in Florida.

Stone told The Associated Press he did not make the Spitzer call and it "has to be a fabrication."

"I would submit that such a message could be made, fabricated, and I will have voice experts inspect it," Stone said.

"Just as they tried to set Sen. Bruno up, they are trying to set me up, I guess because I have been effective on the Senate Republican Majority."

Winner said Wednesday he hadn't yet received the letter from Spitzer's lawyers or the tape, which has already been posted on the Internet.

He also said that Stone has nothing to do with his committee.

"As such I think that they should have referred this probably to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office rather than me," Winner said.

"The allegations would appear to be aggravated harassment."

"I'd report it to the district attorney's office if it occurred."

Walter Ayres, spokesman for the ethics commission, said the letter is being reviewed and the commission will take any appropriate action, but they "only have jurisdiction over the executive branch of state government."

Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican, and Gov. Spitzer have been at odds for months and sparring most recently over the efforts of two Spitzer aides to discredit Bruno by releasing details of his state-funded travel for both public and political business.

On July 30, Winner's committee held a reform hearing where Republican senators called for independent investigations into whether the Spitzer aides misused state police for political purposes in tracking Bruno's use of state aircraft.

Both Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Inspector General Kristine Hamann found no illegal conduct but criticized two Spitzer who had state police gather particularly detailed information on Bruno's use of state aircraft.

Bruno called it political espionage.

Spitzer has said he didn't know about it and apologized.

Winner said his committee is not investigating Spitzer's 1994 campaign loans from his father, but in a July 23 letter he asked the Senate Elections Committee "to look into the issue of loans as it relates to the ability of wealthy self-financed candidates and the level playing field issue as they compete against lesser, ordinary type of joes."

"And to the extent that what happened in 1994 and 1998 is in need of statutory revisions, then that would be appropriate for the elections committee to look at in the context of campaign finance reform," Winner said.

The loan at issue was given by Bernard Spitzer to help his son repay a $4.3 million bank loan in the 1994 Democratic primary for attorney general, which Eliot Spitzer lost.

------

Associated Press Writer Valerie Bauman in Albany contributed to this report.

"City's former GOP boss charged with forging signatures"

Associated Press

Last updated: 8:12 a.m., Thursday, August 23, 2007

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A former chairman of the Syracuse Republican Committee has been charged with felony counts of forging signatures on Independence Party nominating petitions.

Robert Gardino, 68, of Syracuse, was arraigned Wednesday in city court on one felony count of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing and three felony counts of second-degree forgery.

Gardino was accused of forging the names between July 7 and 10 and then filing the petitions with the Board of Elections on July 19.

The three people whose names were forged told authorities that they did not sign the petitions.

One of the candidates, Kevin Kuehner, provided a statement, saying Gardino admitted to him that he forged the signatures as the last three in the petition because he wanted to finish the page and the weather was too hot to go out again for more.

Gardino was released on his own recognizance.

His case was adjourned until Sept. 24.

------

Information from: The Syracuse Post-Standard, http://www.syracuse.com

"NY Army captain accused of taking bribe to steer Iraq contracts"

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:43 p.m., Thursday, August 23, 2007

NEW YORK -- A U.S. Army captain was freed Thursday after his arrest on charges that he promised to help a company secure military contracts in Iraq in return for a $50,000 bribe.

Capt. Austin Key, 27, of Watertown, N.Y., was arrested late Wednesday and charged with one count of bribery, which carries a potential penalty of up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Wong told a magistrate judge that Key "was caught red handed in Iraq accepting what he believed to be a $50,000 bribe."

Key was responsible for $500,000 bail, although he was not required to post any cash or assets to secure the sum in part because he was expected to remain under the supervision of the U.S. Army at Fort Drum, N.Y., where he is stationed with the 10th Mountain Division.

Lt. Col. Paul Swiergosz, a division spokesman, said Key was a logistics officer.

Key's defense lawyer, Raymond R. Granger, declined comment outside court.

Federal authorities said the charges arose from actions Key took this month when he was stationed in Baghdad, Iraq, as a field ordering officer responsible for overseeing the administration of service and supply contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Key was accused of demanding $125,000 in July from a U.S. citizen who owns a business that provides services and supplies in Iraq through U.S. Army contracts, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors said Key told the person, who was identified in court papers only as a confidential informant, that the money would ensure that the informant's company could continue to obtain Army contracts.

The business person reported the demands to law enforcement authorities, who arranged an Aug. 11 meeting at the U.S. military base at Camp Liberty at which Key told the informant he would help him secure future Army contracts in exchange for $50,000, the complaint said.

Key also demanded what would amount to the equivalent of 5 percent of any contracts Key steered toward the informant's business, the complaint said.

At an Aug. 15 meeting, the informant gave Key $50,000 in cash, the complaint said.

As he left the meeting, law enforcement authorities stopped Key and recovered the money.

According to the complaint, Key admitted in a written statement to federal agents that he had agreed to steer contracts to the informant in return for the bribe.

------

Associated Press writer Jessica Pasko in Albany contributed to this report.

THE NEW YORK POST

"'SCANDAL' REPORTER OFF HOOK"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER

August 21, 2007 -- ALBANY - A subpoena for an Albany Times-Union reporter used by the Spitzer administration to distribute suspect information in the dirty-tricks scandal has been put on hold, a spokesman for the state Ethics Commission said yesterday.

Commission Spokesman Walter Ayres said the panel would not require reporter James Odato to appear at a session tomorrow.

The newspaper said the subpoena was indefinitely adjourned under an agreement signed by commission Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum and a lawyer for the paper's parent company, the Hearst Corp.

No details were provided.

Ayres conceded the agreement was reached last Friday, even as he was telling journalists from other newspapers that the subpoena was still in effect.

He claimed secrecy requirements didn't let him correct the misinformation provided the press.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08212007/news/...er_off_hook.htm

THE ITHACA JOURNAL

"It's easier for Spitzer to run than hide from ‘Troopergate'"

Jay Gallagher / Commentary

This week Gov. Eliot Spitzer went to Watkins Glen to be the grand marshal at a NASCAR race, to the Harlem to unveil a plan to help poor people rise into the middle class and to Oneida County to give away $2 million to help preserve jobs.

Also this week, he publicly mourned the passing of Yankees icon Phil Rizzuto and of socialite-philanthropist Brooke Astor, announced some key appointments to his administration and signed a raft of bills, including one to help Hudson Valley municipalities protect open space.

In addition, he joined New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to announce the construction in the Bronx of the first “green” subsidized-housing project in the state and later talked about aid for victims of flooding in Delaware County.

Then he announced that Citibank will help the state to increase funding for legal service for low-income New Yorkers.

Despite all of that activity, he did nothing to deal with the most pressing matter facing him: the continuing fallout from the so-called “Troopergate” scandal.

In fact, at an appearance in Harlem, he told reporters he would no longer respond to inquiries about the matter.

“I'm not answering those questions any more,” he said.

Before then, his mantra since July 23, when a report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was released, was that he had done nothing wrong and cooperated fully with Cuomo's investigators.

Cuomo's report found Spitzer aides had used the State Police to gather potentially damaging information about Spitzer's main political rival at the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, Rensselaer County.

First he denied any knowledge of the matter and disciplined two of his aides for their roles in it.

He suspended without pay Communications Director Darren Dopp and demoted deputy Homeland Security secretary William Howard.

Then he tried apologies, first personally to Bruno, and then through reporters to everyone else.

Then he wrote an apologetic column that appeared in The New York Times and delivered an apologetic speech at the Chautauqua Institute in the southwestern corner of the state.

Then more recently, he has enlisted the aid of fellow Democrats to bash Republicans for not letting the issue die.

Yet the issue hasn't, and won't.

Instead, Bruno, himself under investigation for his business activities by the FBI, has stepped up his attacks, saying Spitzer has lost the confidence of most lawmakers and isn't temperamentally suited to be governor.

Bruno understands that the longer the issue is dragged out, the better the chances for his Republicans to hold onto their two-seat majority in the Senate next year.

The Senate Investigations Committee, which has held one hearing on the matter, will certainly hold more.

The story continues to dominate media coverage of the Capitol.

That shows no signs of letting up either, although Spitzer being out of town for the last couple of weeks has muted things somewhat.

But he can't stay away forever.

Now that disciplinings, apologies, evasions, stonewalling and counterattacks haven't worked, what can the governor do?

He can start by answering questions like:

* Why didn't he compel two of his top aides, Secretary Richard Baum and Dopp, to speak to Cuomo's investigators?

At first he said Cuomo's probers were satisfied to get sworn statements from the two men, but a Cuomo spokesman said later that the investigators did want to talk to these two key figures.

* Why did he say state Inspector General Kristine Hamann also probed the matter, when we learned last week at the GOP Investigations Committee hearing that she dropped the matter when it appeared Baum, her boss, might be involved?

And why not have her confer subpoena power onto Cuomo, so he could compel people to testify?

* Why didn't he mandate the release of all e-mails connected to the case — including ones sent or received by the private accounts of his top aides?

* Why not appoint a special prosecutor, and agree to testify himself in public?

These specific loose ends, of course, lead to the larger question, which is, if the governor has nothing to hide, as he has repeatedly insisted, why not be as forthcoming as possible?

That's the way to put the issue behind him and everyone else.

And if it turns out he does have something to hide, it will surely come out eventually, and sooner is better than later.

Contact Gallagher at Jgallagh@gannett.com.

Originally published August 21, 2007

http://www.ithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll...F1014%2FOPINION

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

"OLD BOYS DOWN TO FEEDSTORE SMELL A RAT IN STONEGATE FIASCO"

Yes sir, after putting their heads together all day today down to the feedstore up here, and studying over the recent news story “Consultant to resign, denies threatening Gov. Spitzer’s father” by MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press, last updated 12:33 p.m., Wednesday, August 22, 2007, the old boys are of the unanimous opinion that this alleged call by this Roger Stone dude to Bernard Spitzer is nothing but A LOAD OF PURE CRAP cooked up by the SPITZER-ITES to draw heat off of beleaguered Eliot Spitzer …

And the credit for that break-through belongs to none other than the DP’s own Dr. Ravi Batra, who said in connection with the STONEGATE FIASCO that the SPITZER-ITES “Doth Protest Too Much” ….

And LE VOILA, as they would say down there in New York City …

Thanks to Mr. Ravi Batra, the whole fallacy of the SPITZER-ITE position became plain as day, when the old boys stopped to consider who exactly the SPITZER-ITES were PROTESTING to ….

And that brings us back to this recent news story “Consultant to resign, denies threatening Gov. Spitzer’s father” by MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press, last updated 12:33 p.m., Wednesday, August 22, 2007, wherein is stated:

Lawyers representing Bernard Spitzer said their investigation showed the Aug. 6 call came from a phone at Stone’s Manhattan apartment.

The caller — recorded on an answering machine — tells the 83-year-old real estate developer that he’s going to be subpoenaed to testify before the state Senate investigations committee about 1994 campaign loans to his son, then threatens his arrest if he doesn’t appear and uses expletives and insults referring to the governor.

Letters about the call were sent to Sen. George Winner, an Elmira Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, and to the state Ethics Commission, according to Spitzer attorney Jeffrey Moerdler.

end quotes

HUH?

WHAT?

What’s with this, folks?

And for an answer, let’s return to that same article, wherein George Winner is quoted as follows:

Winner said Wednesday he hadn’t yet received the letter from Spitzer’s lawyers or the tape, which has already been posted on the Internet.

He also said that Stone has nothing to do with his committee.

“As such I think that they should have referred this probably to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office rather than me,” Winner said.

“The allegations would appear to be aggravated harassment.”

“I’d report it to the district attorney’s office if it occurred.”

end quotes

YES …

Why didn’t the SPITZER-ITES PROTEST to the DA?

Why did they PROTEST to Winner, who has no authority over this kind of alleged criminal matter ….

Or the Ethics Committee, either …

Whose spokesperson is quoted in that same article as follows:

Walter Ayres, spokesman for the ethics commission, said the letter is being reviewed and the commission will take any appropriate action, but they “only have jurisdiction over the executive branch of state government.”

end quote

You would think the SPITZER-ITE lawyers would know these things, and so would not have wasted the effort asking either to get involved when the lawyers would know they had no jurisdiction …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 23, 2007 @ 6:48 pm

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5274#comments

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS DAILY POLITICS BLOG:

Posted by Ravi Batra: That today’s "politics as usual" permits this type of horrible behavior where a governor's 83 year old father is made a target in a political war with his son is beyond comprehension and breeches the lowest floor of decency ....

JOHN GALT RESPONDS: What really breeches the lowest floor of decency to us countryfolks up here, Mr. Ravi Batra, is today's "politics as usual" which allows politicians like Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer to target a licensed professional engineer in the State of New York investigating public corruption in the state government and have him falsely incarcerated as an alleged dangerous mental patient in a corporate secure mental facility in Troy, New York based on nothing more than a fraudulent incarceration order provided by a politically-connected medical doctor in Troy to shut his mouth foreveraftermore as a witness against the corrupt State of New York ...

We upstate folks find that to be quite obscene, Mr. Ravi Batra ...

And we find the involvement of Eliot "STEAMROLLER" Spitzer in the cover-up of that incident to be quite troubling and disturbing, along with the "HO-HUM" attitude of people like yourself towards that cover-up ....

That's what we find obscene, Mr. Ravi Batra ...

That people in NYS can just say "SO WHAT" in the face of that ....

And so ...

Posted by: John Galt | August 23, 2007 6:17 AM

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

ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE

"Inspector general won't shift case to Cuomo's office"

JAY GALLAGHER, Albany Bureau Chief

(August 21, 2007) — ALBANY — In the latest volley between the Spitzer administration's chief watchdog and the state Senate, the inspector general Monday rebuffed a suggestion she turn over an investigation of a former Spitzer aide to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"I am writing to advise you that I am not referring this matter to the attorney general's office," Inspector General Kristine Hamann said in a letter to Senate Investigations Committee Chairman George Winner, R-Elmira.

Hamann has been investigating whether the former Spitzer aide, Stephen Mitnick, browbeat a state utilities regulator over the issue of whether Consolidated Edison Co. should be penalized for its role in a blackout in Queens last summer.

The regulator, Public Service Commission member Cheryl Buley, said Mitnick called her at least 10 times, and threatened her with political retribution if she didn't do what he wanted.

Mitnick has since resigned.

On Thursday, Winner wrote to Hamann urging her to turn over the investigation to Cuomo, since she reports to the same top Spitzer aide, Richard Baum, that Mitnick also reported to.

Winner called that "an obvious conflict..."

Not so, Hamann said Monday.

"The unique ability of the inspector general to investigate allegations without regard to politics or divisions between the branches of government is most vital when the subjects of those allegations are high ranking members of the governor's staff," she wrote in a letter to Winner.

The issue of Hamann's independence from Baum was raised earlier this month in regard to the "Troopergate" scandal.

A Hamann aide told Winner's committee that she abandoned the investigation of the misuse of State Police to try to damage a political opponent of Spitzer when it became clear that Baum's role needed to be examined.

But in her Monday letter to Winner, she called that "a unique and highly unusual set of circumstances" not relevant to the Mitnick probe.

Hamann hasn't said when her investigation of Mitnick, which has been going on for months, may be concluded.

Also Monday, Winner invited Hamann to appear before his committee on Sept. 5 to discuss a bill he's introduced that would require what she refused to do voluntarily: immediately refer investigations to the state attorney general if she runs up against a conflict of interest.

Hamann spokesman Stephen DelGiacco said she had not yet received Winner's invitation and therefore couldn't comment on it.

"It's inconceivable that she wouldn't want to provide information about changing the statute that affects her office," Winner said.

Democrats blasted Winner for calling the hearing.

"These guys just don't know when to quit," said state Democratic Party spokesman Jonathan Rosen.

"Senate Republicans should end the partisan theatrics and join the governor in getting back to work on the real issues that matter to working families."

"Let's end the show trial, leave the investigating to the investigators, and get back to work."

JGALLAGH@Gannett.com

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/p...0%2F1002%2FNEWS

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"State Inspector General Defends Spitzer Inquiry"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: August 21, 2007

ALBANY, Aug. 20 — The state’s inspector general, Kristine Hamann, defended her brief but turbulent tenure on Monday in her first detailed interview since her office became embroiled in a controversy over the Spitzer administration’s effort to use the state police to tarnish a political rival.

Senate Republicans say that Ms. Hamann, who was appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer in February, failed to conduct a thorough investigation into a scheme involving some of Mr. Spitzer’s top aides to discredit the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.

They have also criticized her for not referring her investigation to Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, which would have given Mr. Cuomo authority to subpoena those aides.

One of those aides, Richard Baum, is Ms. Hamann’s direct supervisor.

At the direction of the governor’s counsel, Mr. Baum and Darren Dopp, the governor’s communications director, declined to speak to Mr. Cuomo’s investigators, leaving lingering questions about how much Mr. Spitzer or Mr. Baum knew about the plan.

Both men have denied knowing that anything improper was being done.

Ms. Hamann asserted — both in the interview and in a letter she sent to a top Republican Senator on Monday — that she conducted her inquiry in good faith and could not have referred the matter to the attorney general because he found no evidence of illegal conduct.

Mr. Cuomo, who like Mr. Spitzer is a Democrat, conducted a parallel inquiry and issued a scathing report last month that found that the governor’s staff had misused the state police and suggested disciplinary action against three officials.

Ms. Hamann concurred in Mr. Cuomo’s findings and did not issue her own report.

“When they finished the report, they said there was no criminal conduct,” Ms. Hamann said.

“If they say there’s no criminal conduct, I cannot make a referral.”

Some lawmakers — including a top Democrat — disputed that assertion and an official in Mr. Cuomo’s office testified recently that Ms. Hamann could have referred the matter to the attorney general.

State law appears to give department and agency heads broad discretion to refer matters to the attorney general “in relation to any matters connected” with their departments.

But Ms. Hamann said her office had researched the relevant statute and concluded that it had only been used to make criminal referrals.

Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat who wrote the law that created the inspector general’s office, said on Monday that the inspector general should have been able to refer the case whether or not Mr. Cuomo had concluded there was criminal conduct.

“I’m not sure why she’s taking the position she’s taking,” he said.

“Specific authority is given to her to determine the need for further investigation by another state agency."

“If she wanted the attorney general’s help in a further investigation, she had the authority to get that done,” he added.

Ms. Hamann began her investigation at Mr. Spitzer’s request, but then quietly suspended it when she learned that Mr. Baum might have been involved.

Republicans have criticized her for not publicly acknowledging that her investigation had been suspended until one of her aides disclosed the fact during a Senate hearing this month.

But Ms. Hamann said she had taken her investigation as far as she could.

“We did what we thought was right at the time and articulated what I thought was true, which is that we were done,” she said.

Pressed on whether she should have said from the beginning that her investigation was a limited one, she said, “The attorney general took the lead, they issued this report, and they asked me to join in it, and I did, and they had completed their investigation and I knew I was done.”

Ms. Hamann said she determined that she had a conflict of interest related to Mr. Baum shortly before reading the Cuomo report, but had already determined on her own that there had been no criminal wrongdoing.

Ms. Hamann, however, did not interview key aides to the governor involved in the case, including Mr. Baum and Mr. Dopp.

The matter has raised new questions about the effectiveness of the inspector general’s office, which was created to police the executive branch and its myriad agencies.

Critics of the office say it is too beholden to the governor to conduct independent investigations, and Senate Republicans said on Monday that they planned to introduce legislation to compel the inspector general to refer investigations to the attorney general when there are conflicts.

They also threatened to issue a subpoena to compel Ms. Hamann’s testimony at a hearing early next month.

“What we need to do, once and for all, is to remove the suspicion, get concrete answers to all the questions and clear the air,” Senator George H. Winner Jr., chairman of the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, who is a sponsor of the proposed new legislation, said in a statement.

In the interview, Ms. Hamann would not commit herself to appear voluntarily before the committee and rejected a call from the Senate to refer an unrelated investigation of a former Spitzer aide to the attorney general.

“In almost every case, you can argue a conflict,” she said of her job.

“An inspector general’s office is within the organization, so normal analyses of conflict can’t really apply here because you are necessarily within the organization."

"But if you say that an organization doesn’t have the right to police itself, how can an organization really try and move forward?”

Ms. Hamann, 55, first met the governor in the 1980s, when she was a more senior prosecutor in the division of the Manhattan district attorney’s office where he then worked.

She served as co-chairwoman of one of the governor’s transition committees — one exploring criminal justice policy issues — after his election last November.

Inspectors general have been low-profile figures in Albany, charged with exposing corruption at state agencies and public authorities.

Ms. Hamann called her situation unprecedented, having presided over an investigation that led to questions about her direct supervisor.

“As far as I knew, this had never happened before,” she said.

“There was no road map.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

THE NEW YORK POST

"ELIOT AIDE LAWYERS UP - CHIEF-OF-STAFF HIRES BUBBA'S EX-LEGAL ACE"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor

August 21, 2007 -- ALBANY - A top aide to Gov. Spitzer has hired an experienced criminal lawyer - who once defended President Bill Clinton - in connection with the explosive dirty-tricks scandal.

Richard Baum, the governor's chief-of-staff, hired Steven Reich, a partner in Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, to represent him before the state Ethics Commission and the Albany County District Attorney's Office, according to the New York Law Journal.

Both agencies are investigating the plot by top Spitzer aides to use the State Police to gather damaging information against Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer.)

The plot was outlined in a bombshell July 23 report from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"Rich hired me simply to help him through an unfamiliar process," Reich told the Journal.

"Because I have handled these types of matters in the past, I'm able to give him insight into what to expect as we move forward."

From 1999 to 2001, Reich was senior associate counsel to Clinton, defending the president in investigations by independent counsels, federal prosecutors and Congress.

While Baum was not named as one of the plotters, he was identified in the Cuomo report as receiving e-mails from two other key Spitzer aides subsequently disciplined for their involvement in the anti-Bruno effort.

It was revealed last week that now-suspended Spitzer Communications Director Darren Dopp had hired prominent Albany-area criminal-defense lawyer Terrence Kindlon, while William Howard, a now-demoted homeland-security aide, hired a Manhattan-based lawyer.

Meanwhile, in other scandal developments, Senate Investigations Committee Chairman George Winner (R-Elmira) announced a special hearing would be held Sept. 5 to hear testimony from Spitzer's inspector general, Kristine Hamann, who reports to Baum and has become linked to the scandal.

Winner said he was prepared to subpoena Hamann to attend the session if she rejected an "invitation" to testify on the circumstances under which she recused herself from investigating the scandal.

She had initially claimed after the Cuomo report was issued that she had conducted a full investigation, and waited several weeks to disclose that she hadn't completed her probe.

Hamann, who first agreed and then refused to attend a committee meeting earlier this month, had no immediate comment on the threatened subpoena.

Meanwhile, she rejected a call from Winner to recuse herself from investigating another Baum-connected Spitzer administration scandal.

Winner late last week urged Hamann to step aside from her probe of allegations that former Spitzer energy adviser Steven Mitnick, a top Baum aide, threatened a member of the state Public Service Commission in order to stop that member from backing an investigation of last year's Queens blackout.

Hamann responded that "since all members of the executive branch ultimately report to Mr. Baum and the governor, this argument, if accepted, would eviscerate my statutory duties which mandate the inspector general to investigate the workings of the executive branch at every level, including members of the governor's executive staff."

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08212007/news/..._lawyers_up.htm

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Gov's dad threatened - Profanity-laced voice message traced to state GOP big's home"

BY ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST

Wednesday, August 22nd 2007, 4:00 AM

A threatening, profanity-tinged phone call to Gov. Spitzer's elderly father, Bernard, was traced by private detectives to the Manhattan home of state Senate GOP consultant Roger Stone, a lawyer for the 83-year-old real estate developer.

Stone denied making the call and portrayed himself as the victim of an elaborate conspiracy - featuring a break-in and doctored recordings - to divert attention from the Troopergate scandal that has dogged the governor.

Whoever left the voice message for Bernard Spitzer at 9:57 p.m. on Aug. 6 referred to "shady campaign loans" that the multimillionaire made for his son's attorney general bids in 1994 and 1998.

Republicans recently have revived allegations that the loans violated state election laws.

The caller threatened Bernard Spitzer would be "subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Investigations Committee," and would be "arrested and brought to Albany" if he resisted.

"And there is not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho piece-of-s--- son can do about it," the caller continued.

"Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you."

"You will be forced to tell the truth, and the fact that your son's a pathological liar will be known to all."

Bernard Spitzer's attorney, Jeffrey Moerdler, sent letters about the call to Sen. George Winner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Investigations Committee; Sen. Thomas Duane, the panel's ranking Democrat, and the state Ethics Commission.

According to the letter, investigators from Kroll Associates traced the call to Stone's apartment at 40 Central Park South.

The voice on the recording sounds like Stone, and Kroll also obtained a recording of a broadcast interview with the consultant for comparison.

Stone suggested that a "voice tape" may have been concocted by the governor's "minions" to frame him.

He did not deny the call was placed from his apartment, but offered an alternative theory: His building is owned by Democratic fund-raiser Dale Hemmerdinger, whom Spitzer has nominated to be the next MTA chairman, and Hemmerdinger's management company, ATCO, has pass keys that could have let in an intruder.

Hemmerdinger's secretary said he is on vacation in Europe and could not be reached for comment.

Bernard Spitzer, who is in the early stages of Parkinson's disease, did not return a call.

Sources close to Eliot Spitzer said both father and son were very upset by the call.

But once they determined it had been political in nature, they decided not to pursue criminal charges.

Stone has been guiding the Senate Republicans' offensive against Spitzer over Troopergate, in which the governor's aides enlisted state police to gather data they hoped would damage Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

If Stone made such a call to Spitzer's father, it would be enormously embarrassing to Senate Republicans.

Both Duane and Winner confirmed they had received Moerdler's letter via fax, but said they had not yet received the recordings.

Duane declined to comment.

Winner called the allegations "very serious," but added, "I know you can manufacture a lot of this stuff."

Asked whether Stone should be fired if he made the call, Winner replied: "Absolutely."

John McArdle, Bruno's spokesman, said Republicans "need more information" before reaching a conclusion.

ebenjamin@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/22...threatened.html

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Spitzer's top aide quizzed over Bruno"

BY JOE MAHONEY, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Wednesday, August 22nd 2007, 4:00 AM

ALBANY - A month after ducking Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probers, Gov. Spitzer's chief of staff, Richard Baum, submitted to questioning yesterday from Albany County District Attorney David Soares' staff about the dirty tricks plot against Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

Baum became the highest-ranking member of Spitzer's staff to voluntarily field questions from Soares' public integrity investigators, who are trying to determine if there was criminal wrongdoing in Spitzer aides' efforts to embarrass Republican Bruno.

Baum has said in interviews he did not direct the scheme, although e-mails sent to him from Spitzer's suspended communications chief Darren Dopp and former homeland security adviser Bill Howard suggest he had been at least partly informed.

Dopp and Howard used state police to generate a negative newspaper story on Bruno's use of state aircraft.

Baum's refusal to talk to Cuomo's investigators last month led Republicans to air suspicions of a "Nixonian" stonewalling coverup.

Baum's lawyer, Steven Reich, would not discuss his client's appearance before Assistant District Attorney Mark Harris and at least one other member of Soares' public integrity team.

Sources close to Soares' probe said they expect it will reaffirm Cuomo's finding that there was no crime.

But Soares, in a statement, said his review of evidence was "not complete."

Soares' staff has also interviewed Dopp.

Dopp, suspended almost a month ago, may soon land a new state job, although he will not return as communications director and will likely see a cut in his $175,000-a-year salary, a source said yesterday.

Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson declined to comment on Dopp's status, saying "a decision has not yet been made."

jmahoney@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/22...over_bruno.html

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Politics Seen in Nasty Call to Spitzer’s Father"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: August 22, 2007

ALBANY, Aug. 21 — Lawyers representing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s father, Bernard Spitzer, say a prominent political consultant who has been working for State Senate Republicans threatened the elder Mr. Spitzer this month in an anonymous, invective-laced phone message.

The allegations against the consultant, Roger J. Stone Jr., were laid out in a letter sent Tuesday to Senator George H. Winner Jr., an upstate Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations.

A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Stone, a seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics who worked for Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan and for George W. Bush in the 2000 recount battle, adamantly denied the allegation in an interview, calling it “the ultimate dirty trick.”

He asserted that allies of Governor Spitzer may have gained access to a phone in his Manhattan apartment to make the threatening call.

The message, left at Bernard Spitzer’s Manhattan office just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 6, says that Mr. Spitzer, 83, a wealthy real estate developer, would be “compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms” to testify about “shady campaign loans” he made to his son during Eliot Spitzer’s unsuccessful campaign for attorney general in 1994.

Mr. Winner’s committee has been holding hearings into a scheme by some of Governor Spitzer’s top aides to use the State Police to embarrass the Senate Republican leader, Joseph L. Bruno.

Senate Republicans have said they were considering reviewing Bernard Spitzer’s 1994 loans to his son.

“If you resist this subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany,” the message says, according to a transcript.

The message also calls Governor Spitzer a “phony” and a “psycho.”

Bernard Spitzer’s lawyers hired Kroll Associates, the private investigative firm, to trace the message, and their report was included with the letter to Mr. Winner.

The firm traced the number that appeared on Mr. Spitzer’s caller identification system, linking it to listings under the name of Mr. Stone’s wife, Nydia.

“The review of publicly available records,” the report says, “strongly suggests that the number is controlled by Roger Stone.”

Digital recordings were also sent to Mr. Winner, including the audio of the voice mail message and “a sample of Roger Stone’s voice from a broadcast interview” to allow for comparison.

The Times was given a copy of both recordings, but was unable to draw any conclusions about whether Mr. Stone’s voice was on Mr. Spitzer’s phone message.

In the message, the caller says, referring to a potential subpoena: “There is not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece-of-shit son can do about it."

"Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you."

"You will be forced to tell the truth and the fact that your son’s a pathological liar will be known to all.”

Mr. Stone, 55, said the number from which the call was alleged to have been made was indeed his, and that it was also shared by a Florida law firm for which he does public relations work, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler.

But he denied that he made the call or that it was his voice on the message.

He said his apartment building on Central Park South is owned by H. Dale Hemmerdinger, a fund-raiser for Mr. Spitzer who is the governor’s nominee to be chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and suggested that allies of the governor might have given access to his apartment to someone who made the threatening call.

An official at Mr. Hemmerdinger’s company said she was not prepared to comment.

Mr. Stone said: “They have unfettered access to my apartment."

"I am on television constantly."

"As Gore Vidal said, never pass up the chance to have sex or be on television."

"Putting together a voice tape that sounds like me wouldn’t be hard to do.”

Mr. Stone said he could not remember where he was on the date of the call and had no specific evidence that his apartment had been entered without authorization.

But he said he believed that things have been missing from his apartment recently.

Mr. Winner also noted that technology is available that makes it possible to mimic another person’s phone number on a caller identification machine.

Mr. Stone is known as an aggressive strategist, having once, while still a teenager, recruited a mole to infiltrate the 1972 presidential campaign of George S. McGovern.

He worked for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and went to Florida in 2000 to help George W. Bush win the recount.

On his Web site, Mr. Stone claims to know “first hand the gritty underside of American politics.”

But his work in New York has raised eyebrows among Republicans; he has worked for the Rev. Al Sharpton, a Democrat, and aided Tom Golisano, a billionaire businessman and Independence Party candidate, in his 2002 challenge to the Republican incumbent, Gov. George E. Pataki.

Mr. Stone has been working for Senate Republicans for about two months and has had a leading role in directing their recent political offensive against the governor.

He made a presentation to Senate Republicans in Mr. Bruno’s office shortly before a special session last month.

“I made a presentation about what I thought the party needed to do to get on offense,” he said.

The loan at issue was given by Bernard Spitzer to help his son repay a $4.3 million bank loan that Eliot Spitzer used to vastly outspend his rivals in the 1994 Democratic primary for attorney general, which he lost.

During that campaign, Eliot Spitzer played down the size of the loan.

But shortly before the 1998 election, which he won, he said his father had lent him millions of dollars.

One of his opponents in the 1998 campaign sued unsuccessfully over the issue and the Board of Elections decided not to investigate the matter.

Mr. Winner said that his office had received the letter from Bernard Spitzer’s lawyers but that he had not seen it yet.

He added that he did not think his panel had jurisdiction over the issue.

Jeffrey A. Moerdler, a lawyer for Bernard Spitzer, said his client would not comment.

“He was distressed, absolutely,” Mr. Moerdler said, adding that the letter was also sent to the State Ethics Commission.

The governor’s office had no immediate comment on the matter.

Senator Eric Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat who is a member of the investigations committee and who had seen the letter from Mr. Spitzer’s lawyers, called on Mr. Bruno to fire Mr. Stone.

“To call someone’s 83-year-old father with this kind of abusive message is absolutely despicable,” he said.

John McArdle, a spokesman for Mr. Bruno, said his office had only just received the letter.

“Until we get more information we are not in a position to comment,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

THE NEW YORK SUN

"The Phone Call That's Rocked the Capital"

By JACOB GERSHMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun

August 22, 2007

It may be a case of a brass-knuckled political operative losing his cool and senses.

Or it just might be a devilish ploy to keep Governor Spitzer's problems on the front pages of newspapers throughout the state.

Either way, it's the latest and strangest explosion to rock Albany.

Yesterday, a lawyer representing Mr. Spitzer's 83-year-old father, real estate developer Bernard Spitzer, accused Roger Stone, a feared Republican consultant, of calling up his apartment earlier this month and leaving a menacing phone message.

"This is a message for Bernard Spitzer," the anonymous caller says, according to a recording posted on the Daily News's Web site.

"You will be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Committee on Investigations on your shady campaign loans."

"You will be compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms."

"If you resist the subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany."

"And there is not a g-- thing your phony, psycho piece-of-s-- son can do about it."

"Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you."

"You will be forced to tell the truth, and the fact that your son's a pathological liar will be known to all," the caller says in an angry but not out-of-control tone.

The accusation by Mr. Spitzer's lawyer against Mr. Stone was outlined in a letter sent yesterday to a Republican state senator, George Winner, the chairman of the Committee on Investigations and Government Operations.

Mr. Winner last month urged the Elections Committee to investigate a $4.3 million personal bank loan Mr. Spitzer took out during his 1994 unsuccessful race for attorney general that was paid back with money he received from his father.

During the 1998 race, facing more questions about the financing of his second campaign, Mr. Spitzer acknowledged that he lied about how he paid back the 1994 loan.

The scandal almost cost him the election, but over the years it receded from public view until Republicans earlier this year sought to breathe life into the story in an effort to cast Mr. Spitzer as an unethical hypocrite.

The governor has called on lawmakers to pass stricter campaign finance laws and has questioned the ethics of Senate Republicans.

In a letter sent to Mr. Winner, Bernard Spitzer's lawyer, Jeffrey Moerdler, said investigators at the firm Kroll Associates traced the August 6 call back to Mr. Stone's Central Park South apartment.

The letter was published on the Web site of the Times Union of Albany.

Mr. Moerdler also sent a CD recording of the message, along with a sample of Mr. Stone's voice from a broadcast interview to demonstrate the similarity between the two sounds.

Mr. Stone in an interview denied having left the message, saying he was attending the Broadway play "Frost/Nixon" that evening when the call was supposedly made.

"I have been accused of a lot of things but being dumb is not one of them," Mr. Stone said.

He said "hostile" people have access to his apartment and accused the governor of perpetrating a dirty trick.

The news left Albany observers wondering whether the phone message was a mark of lunacy or a cunning dirty trick masquerading as lunacy.

It may not look good for Senate Republicans to be associated with a man caught on tape taunting the governor's aging father, a prominent New York philanthropist.

But Mr. Spitzer, who is trying to recover from the state police scandal, likely is not eager to have attention refocused on his early campaign finance schemes.

"The loan story is revived and Stone gets a black eye."

"Stone can live with a black eye but the governor doesn't need another bad story," a veteran Democratic political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, said in an interview.

"Some people say bad things about Roger Stone, but he doesn't care."

"Stone can't be hurt, but the governor can."

"It's not the wackiest theory I ever heard."

A protege of President Nixon who developed attack strategies for the campaigns of President Reagan, the first President Bush, Senator Dole, and other Republicans, Mr. Stone has been advising state Senate Republicans on how to beat back the effort Mr. Spitzer and the Democrats to oust them from power.

In July, Mr. Stone was negotiating the financial terms of his arrangement with Republicans.

Mr. Stone, whose behind the scene tactics and protest organizing are believed to have given Mr. Bush an edge over Vice President Gore in the 2000 Florida recount controversy, has also worked outside the Republican Party, advising the 2004 presidential campaign of the Reverend Al Sharpton and the unsuccessful effort to unseat Governor Pataki in 2002 by a billionaire Independence Party candidate, Thomas Golisano.

He also has lent his skills to foreign candidates and governments overseas.

A spokesman for Mr. Spitzer declined to comment.

http://www.nysun.com/article/61003?page_no=1

THE NEW YORK POST

"PSYCHO RANT AT GOV DAD"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor

August 22, 2007 -- ALBANY - A top political adviser to state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno resigned today after being accused of making a bizarre and threatening phone call to Gov. Spitzer's elderly father.

The startling allegation against nationally known Republican consultant Roger Stone was outlined in letters from a lawyer for 83-year-old Bernard Spitzer.

Roger Stone, who began working for the Senate Republican Campaign Committee in June, denied making the taped call and said he was "set up."

But Bruno said the news reports of the allegation "can only serve as a distraction from the real issues -- the abuse of government power, political espionage and a cover up of information."

Bruno said Stone " has agreed to resign and end his relationship with us at our request."

Stone is accused of raging against the governor as a "phony, psycho, piece of s- - -."

The account came in a letter to Senate Investigations Committee Chairman George Winner, who is probing the Spitzer administration's dirty tricks scandal, and to the state Ethics Commission.

The letters said the anonymous call was placed to the Manhattan office of the governor's real-estate mogul father and recorded on his voice mail on Aug. 6 at 9:57 p.m.

Spitzer lawyer Jeffrey Moerdler said a subsequent investigation traced the call to an apartment on 40 Central Park South belonging to Stone.

Since June, Stone has been working as a $20,000-a-month consultant to the state Senate Republican Campaign Committee, which is run by Bruno.

Moerdler said a comparison of the voice that left the message with a known sample of Stone's voice indicated that the two were the same.

"This is a message for Bernard Spitzer," begins the message, according to Moerdler.

"You will be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Committee on Investigations on your shady campaign loans," it continued, referring to controversial loans the elder Spitzer made to his son in the 1990s to finance an earlier campaign.

"You will be compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms."

"If you resist this subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany.

"And there is not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece of s- - - son can do about it, Bernie."

"Your phony loans are about to catch up with you.

"You will be forced to tell the truth and the fact that your son's a pathological liar will be known to all."

Stone - a onetime adviser to Presidents Nixon and Reagan - has a controversial history.

In 1996, it was reported that Stone had placed ads featuring revealing photos of him and his wife in swinger magazines looking for other couples to have sex.

Reached by The Post, Stone insisted the Spitzer call was "a total fabrication."

"I live in a building controlled by Dale Hemmerdinger, who Spitzer has nominated to head the Metropolitan Transportation Authority," Stone said.

"They have complete, unfettered, access to my apartment."

"I don't deny that the phone number is mine but fabricating my voice would be exceedingly easy.

"Give me a f- - -ing break."

"This is the ultimate dirty trick and the kind of terror tactic Spitzer used in the Attorney General's Office."

"The guy who pops off and makes threatening phone calls is Eliot Spitzer, not Roger Stone."

"I've been accused of many things but I'm not dumb," Stone continued.

Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Gov. Spitzer, declined to comment.

Bruno spokesman John McArdle called the charge against Stone "a serious allegation" but noted, "We haven't seen the information at this point."

Moerdler said there was no plan to file a complaint with city police.

Post wire services contributed to this report.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08222007/news/..._dad.htm?page=0

THE NEW YORK POST

"DA KNOCKS ALBANY PAPER OVER SPITZER PROBE"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor

August 22, 2007 -- ALBANY - Albany County District Attorney David Soares yesterday blasted as "wholly untrue" a report in an Albany newspaper that he found no criminality in his probe of Gov. Spitzer's dirty-tricks effort to destroy Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

"To date, our assessment of these materials is not complete and no findings have been made," Soares said, referring to Cuomo's blockbuster July 23 report which found that top Spitzer aides had used the State Police in a plot to harm Bruno (R-Rensselaer).

"To draw any conclusions before reviewing all evidence would directly contradict the principles of our process."

Rex Smith, editor of the Times Union, rejected Soares' denials.

"We're convinced that our story accurately reflects the findings of the Albany County district attorney's investigation, as well as the opinions of David Soares," insisted Smith.

The Times Union, which was named in the Cuomo report as the paper Spitzer's aides chose to leak supposedly damaging information on Bruno, cited an unnamed source as insisting the district attorney had already concluded no crimes occurred.

The newspaper also said the anonymous source contended that Soares was "weighing voicing his irritation that Cuomo's investigation was so poorly done that his office 'had to start from scratch.' "

Soares also denied that aspect of the newspaper report, saying his relationship with Cuomo was "good."

Cuomo, whose report also concluded no crimes occurred, has said more than a dozen investigators - six times more than the total staff of Soares' public integrity unit - spent more than 1,000 hours preparing his widely praised report, which led Spitzer to suspend one top aide and demote another.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08222007/news/...r_spitz_pro.htm

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Obscure Company Is Behind 9/11 Demolition Work"

By CHARLES V. BAGLI, DAVID W. DUNLAP and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Published: August 23, 2007

The John Galt Corporation of the Bronx, hired last year for the dangerous and complex job of demolishing the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, where two firefighters died last Saturday, has apparently never done any work like it.

Indeed, Galt does not seem to have done much of anything since it was incorporated in 1983.

Public and private records give no indication of how many employees it has, what its volume of business is or who its clients are.

There are almost no accounts of any projects it has undertaken on any scale, apart from 130 Liberty Street.

Court records are largely silent.

Some leading construction executives in the city say they have never even heard of it.

That may not be as surprising as it seems.

John Galt, it appears, is not much more than a corporate entity meant to accommodate the people and companies actually doing the demolition job at the emotionally charged and environmentally hazardous site at the edge of ground zero.

The companies and project managers who have been providing the expertise, the workers and the financing for the job are Regional Scaffolding and Hoisting Company, which is not in business to demolish skyscrapers, and former executives from Safeway Environmental Corporation, a company that was already removed from one contract at 130 Liberty because of concerns about its integrity.

Using a separate corporation to insulate the assets of a parent company from the enormous potential liabilities of demolition work is not itself unusual.

And challenging construction projects in the city often have several companies come together in a joint effort.

The arrangement involving Galt — achieved after multiple companies that had bid on the Deutsche Bank contract were eliminated for one reason or another — is nonetheless odd for such a momentous job, one that is expected ultimately to cost roughly $150 million.

The arrangement, never fully publicly disclosed, was proposed by the general contractor charged with overseeing the demolition, Bovis Lend Lease, and approved by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns 130 Liberty Street.

Yesterday, Bovis announced that it had declared Galt in default on the bank building contract, saying the outfit Bovis had selected had failed “to live up to terms of its contract with respect to site supervision, maintenance and project safety.”

One person who has spoken to Bovis executives, but who was not authorized to speak for the company, said it was likely that Galt would be formally fired within the week.

When officials at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation approved Galt’s participation, they even allowed two former senior Safeway executives to join the operation at the Deutsche Bank building on several conditions, including that they cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the city’s Department of Investigation.

In the 17 months since Galt took shape — and as problems mounted at the demolition site, including repeated safety violations — city and state officials have made announcements about the work and problems at 130 Liberty referring to John Galt as if it were a fully established corporation, and never mentioning by name the more controversial and less than perfectly qualified people and companies doing the work.

(John Galt, by the way, is a central character, an engineer, in Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.” The book begins with this line: “Who is John Galt?”)

John Galt’s stationery puts its headquarters at 3900 Webster Avenue in the Bronx, near Woodlawn Cemetery, the same address as Regional Scaffolding’s.

The two companies also share many of the same officers.

Greg Blinn, who is shown in city records as the president of the John Galt Corporation, said in a telephone interview:

“I’m not really sure how I can help."

"My contract precludes me from talking to the media."

"I have to refer all questions or inquiries to the L.M.D.C.”

Daniel L. Doctoroff, the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, who was a member of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation at the time it approved the Galt contract, said through a spokesman this week that safeguards had been put in place to make sure that the former Safeway executives did nothing inappropriate — like funnel money back to Safeway.

Those safeguards included enlisting the help of an integrity monitor who would scrutinize, among other things, Galt’s hiring, purchases and financial transactions.

The complicated nature of the arrangement on the demolition job resulted to a great extent from the difficulty Bovis and the state had in attracting any contractors interested in, or capable of, performing the novel and high-profile job.

It is not hard to understand why most contractors — particularly during a building boom, when they can pick and choose work — would balk at doing a job involving hazardous materials under microscopic regulatory scrutiny for a governmental client whipsawed by demands that demolition go faster (so that ground zero redevelopment could proceed) and slower (to ensure that contaminants were not released into the neighborhood).

Add to that the extremely high cost of obtaining insurance for the work, and the lack of any meaningful precedent for the operation, and most companies would see a recipe for delay, escalating costs and shrinking profits.

Safeway first surfaced on the scene at 130 Liberty when it, along with Regional Scaffolding, won a $13 million scaffolding contract in 2005 for the bank building.

But Safeway, its former owners, Harold Greenberg, 61, and Stephen Chasin, 56, and another company they long operated, Big Apple Wrecking and Construction Corporation, had a troubled history.

Mr. Greenberg, of Staten Island, has gone to federal prison twice for crimes related to the industry.

Identified by federal investigators as a Gambino crime family associate, he was convicted in 1988 of bribing a federal inspector to overlook asbestos-removal violations while Big Apple was demolishing Gimbels department store on East 86th Street in Manhattan.

Three years later he pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a bid-rigging scheme involving other contractors.

Safeway’s failure to disclose his criminal history and the accusations of mob ties led the authorities to bar the company from working on city schools in 2003.

School investigators contended that Mr. Greenberg and his partner in Big Apple and Safeway, Mr. Chasin, sought to disguise their roles in companies in order to obtain public contracts and other work from which his convictions would bar them.

(Safeway Environmental was one of the subcontractors used in the development of a new headquarters for The New York Times, across Eighth Avenue from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.)

Neither Mr. Greenberg nor Mr. Chasin could be reached for comment.

Calls left at their offices and homes were not returned.

The two former Safeway executives, Mitchel Alvo and Don Adler, declined to comment.

At the city’s insistence, Safeway was ultimately bounced from the scaffolding contract at the bank building.

Meanwhile, the effort to take down the building moved slowly, as litigation and fights over costs and responsibility dragged on.

By early 2006, though, Bovis, a multibillion-dollar global operation, had won the giant contract to oversee the demolition of the bank building.

Seven contractors submitted bids to Bovis to do the demolition work under Bovis’s direction.

Some, though, were deemed not qualified.

Others dropped out.

That all opened the way for what was known as the John Galt Corporation.

“There was only one contractor willing to work on taking down the building, as far as I know,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday.

Thus began the negotiations to allow Galt to go forward and tackle the contaminated building.

According to an agreement between the state and Bovis, John Galt was allowed to take on Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler, the two former Safeway executives.

“A series of conditions were included in the contract at the direction of L.M.D.C. that prevented questionable individuals from working at this job or from having any association with John Galt,” said Mr. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor.

“Once Galt and Bovis agreed to these stipulations, representatives on the L.M.D.C. board from the city joined their state counterparts and voted to approve the contract amendment to Bovis.”

According to the agreement, portions of which were shared with a reporter, neither John Galt nor Bovis could employ or use the services of any other senior executives, principals or owners of Safeway Environmental or two other companies, one of them Big Apple Wrecking.

The contractors also agreed to allow Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler to cooperate with the city’s Department of Investigation in what was described in the agreement — without elaboration — as an ongoing investigation.

The presence of Mr. Alvo and Mr. Adler on the 130 Liberty Street project was not mentioned in the development corporation’s March announcement but was highlighted in a Daily News article on April 16, 2006.

John Galt, having done little, if any, work before the 130 Liberty Street project, did actually try to win another project shortly after starting work at the bank building.

It was the winning bidder for the demolition contract at the Bronx House of Detention in the summer of 2006.

But it failed to obtain approval through the city’s contract review process and lost the job because, officials say, they learned that the city’s Department of Investigation had opened an investigation into John Galt.

“In July 2006, E.D.C. and the developer were made aware that D.O.I. had initiated an investigation of Galt that might delay a background clearance, so the developer instead used the next lowest bidder,” said Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

Galt’s work at the Deutsche Bank building, however, went on unaffected.

Deputy Mayor Doctoroff said the city’s decision to deny Galt the Bronx contract did not obligate the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to re-examine whether Galt was the right company to be working at ground zero.

Correction: August 25, 2007

A front-page article on Thursday about the John Galt Corporation, the demolition subcontractor working on the Deutsche Bank building at ground zero, gave an erroneous attribution for statements about the safeguards under which Galt was hired and about Galt’s failed bid for another city job in the Bronx. The statements — both in paraphrase and in direct quotation — were by John Gallagher, a spokesman for Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, not by Mr. Doctoroff himself. (Mr. Gallagher was speaking in his own right, not for Mr. Doctoroff.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/nyregion.../3PdvuxAu8ElIZA

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"New Search Begins for Contractor for a Difficult Job"

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Published: August 24, 2007

Demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building, across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center site, has been delayed by insurance battles, environmental concerns, forensic archaeology, political turf wars, contractual wrangling, construction accidents and, last week, a blaze that killed two firefighters.

Yesterday, after a small forklift fell 23 stories and injured two more firefighters, work came to a halt again and the demolition subcontractor, the John Galt Corporation, was removed from the job.

In some respects, the latest development returns the project to where it was a year and a half ago: in search of a subcontractor capable of abating asbestos and other contaminants in the building and then dismantling the structure.

Though the general contractor, Bovis Lend Lease, would not say so publicly yesterday, others with knowledge of the business said Bovis had already begun identifying companies that could finish the job of taking down the former bank tower at 130 Liberty Street, which was 41 stories tall when the year began and is now 26.

This would seem to be a daunting task, given how many firms withdrew or were eliminated before Galt was hired by Bovis in early 2006.

This obscure firm, based in the Bronx, turned out to be an amalgam of a scaffolding company at the same Bronx address, two former executives from a demolition company of questionable integrity and a name from the pages of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

Even after the recent history of 130 Liberty Street, and even after yesterday’s accident, at least one company that tried to get the demolition contract two years ago said that it would return to 130 Liberty Street under the right circumstances.

“We bid it before and we’d bid it again, and so would a lot of people,” said Paul Desser, the director of estimating at Bedroc Contracting in Lyndhurst, N.J.

In 2005, Bedroc was part of a joint venture with LVI Services of New York and North American Site Developers Inc. of Waltham, Mass., that hoped to get the 130 Liberty Street job.

Mr. Desser said Bedroc would not want to go into the job alone but rather with a team that was experienced and knowledgeable, “to guarantee the safety of the workers and the public.”

One of Bedroc’s recent large jobs was the demolition of the former Doctors Hospital on East End Avenue, between 87th and 88th Streets.

LVI Services said yesterday that it would not discuss a project it was not performing, as a matter of policy.

On its Web site, the company describes itself as “the nation’s largest asbestos abatement firm” and in June, it acquired Mazzocchi Wrecking, which it said was “the largest demolition/wrecking company in the New York metropolitan area.”

A telephone call to North American Site Developers yesterday was not returned.

In any case, it is premature to focus on individual subcontractors when the future scope of the demolition plan has yet to be determined, said Avi Schick, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns 130 Liberty Street and hired Bovis in 2005.

Mr. Schick said the existing plan would be revisited.

As an overarching goal, he said, the plan would be discussed “with everyone in the room at the same time,” meaning all of the government agencies overseeing the project, including the Fire Department, the Department of Buildings and environmental regulators at all levels of government.

That cannot help but add weeks to a schedule that was already on the tightest of margins.

The demolition work alone — never mind any further complications — would take about six months, going at the rate of a floor a week.

It is now apparent that 130 Liberty Street cannot be fully demolished in time to meet a deadline of Dec. 31, 2007, which the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said earlier this year was “absolutely the latest we can accept,” in the words of Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman.

The fate of 130 Liberty Street is critical to the larger trade center site because it stands over an area where the Port Authority plans to relocate a large sewer line and build a slurry wall to create a water-resistant foundation.

Within that, it is to construct an underground Vehicular Security Center, the portal for vehicles serving the future trade center towers.

It is to be usable in 2010 and completed in early 2011.

Delays will almost certainly affect other projects at the complex.

Yesterday, Mr. Sigmund said, “Obviously, there are potential impacts, the longer it takes to dismantle the building — particularly on the V.S.C. — but it would be speculative to say what those impacts might be and how they might be mitigated.”

Charles V. Bagli contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

NEWSDAY

"Prosecutor says travel scandal report still incomplete"

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN

1:28 PM EDT, August 21, 2007

ALBANY, N.Y. - A prosecutor denied a report published Tuesday that he has concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing by aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer who used state police to track Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's travels.

"To date, our assessment of these materials is not complete, and no findings have been made," Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares said.

"To draw any conclusions before reviewing all evidence would directly contradict the principles of our process."

In Tuesday's editions, the Times Union of Albany cited "a person familiar with the investigation" in reporting that Soares "has found no criminality" in his review of the scandal.

Soares also denied that he will criticize Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for conducting a poor initial investigation of the case.

"A recent press story that my office planned to negatively critique the Attorney General's report is wholly untrue," Soares said in a prepared statement.

Times Union Editor Rex Smith said the newspaper stands by its reporting.

"We are convinced the Times Union story today accurately represents the findings of the district attorney's office and the feelings of the district attorney," he said.

Cuomo's July 23 report found no illegal conduct, but concluded two Spitzer aides gathered detailed information on Bruno from state police and released it in response to a Freedom of Information Law request from the Times Union.

Bruno used state aircraft and police escorts for trips to New York City, where he says he did state business and also attended political events.

State Inspector General Kristine Hamann, a Spitzer appointee, also investigated and reached a similar conclusion without issuing a report.

Spokesman Steven DelGiacco said it would have been "redundant" and they also concluded "that two officials of the governor's office had engaged in serious misconduct."

Spitzer suspended longtime communications director Darren Dopp for 30 days without pay and reassigned public safety deputy William Howard to a state post outside the governor's office at a reduced salary.

The state Ethics Commission has also been investigating.

On Aug. 13, it tightened state travel rules, saying officials now will have to strictly account for their time on state aircraft and reimburse the state for any portion of a trip that isn't for a "bona fide" public purpose.

Dopp spent more than three hours last week "freely and fully" answering all the questions asked by Soares' assistant district attorneys, defense lawyer Terence Kindlon said Tuesday.

"He's done absolutely nothing wrong in connection with this whole fiasco," Kindlon said.

Kindlon said he has not heard from Soares' office about its conclusions.

Meanwhile, the Senate Investigations Committee held a hearing where Republican senators criticized the Inspector General's Office, saying it didn't adequately investigate the so-called "Travelgate" case and has a seeming conflict of interest since it answers to the governor's office.

Committee Chairman Sen. George Winner, an Elmira Republican, asked Inspector General Kristine Hamann to turn over to Cuomo her ongoing investigation of a former Spitzer aide - Steven Mitnick - accused of harassing a member of the State Public Service commission in an effort to make her resign.

Hamann refused.

In a letter Monday, she said state law establishes the inspector general as the state's investigative arm when allegations are made against people in the executive branch.

She said she agreed to let Cuomo take the investigative lead in the travel case in part because questions arose about the possible involvement of Richard Baum, secretary to the governor, because Hamann reports to Baum.

She expects Soares' investigation to fully resolve any remaining issues in that case.

Winner has introduced legislation to transfer the case and scheduled another hearing for Sept. 5.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/new...0,7315029.story

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Michael Goodwin

"Albany DA joins mess"

Wednesday, August 22nd 2007, 4:00 AM

Walking in Albany could be hazardous to your health.

All the BS is turning the sidewalks slippery and reputations of the high and mighty are falling like trees in a hurricane.

Be careful or you could get mushed and crushed.

Albany District Attorney David Soares is the latest contributor to the Eliot Mess.

First he discredited his investigation into how Gov. Spitzer's office used the state police for a political hit job, then compounded the offense with a howler of doublespeak.

Add him to the list of problems that includes the ethically compromised inspector general, Kristine Hamann.

Democrat Soares blundered big time with a series of interviews Monday.

Under his own name, Soares told this newspaper and others he was "getting closer" to wrapping up his work.

But either Soares or someone in his office went further and, under the cloak of anonymity, said in at least one interview that no laws were broken.

That led the Albany Times Union to begin its story with a declaration that "Soares has found no criminality in his review of the Troopergate scandal."

Traditionally, papers like the Times Union don't make important, unattributed statements of fact unless the source is rock-solid.

In this case, only a source with absolute knowledge of the case would qualify - either Soares or a designated aide.

Indeed, after the paper cited "a person familiar with the investigation" who said no laws were broken, Soares made the contradictory claim he was conducting a "dispassionate" review.

"I don't want to participate in the political theater," he told the paper.

Welcome to the sausage factory of on- and off-the-record interviews.

It's tricky stuff for both sides, especially when prosecutors are involved, and Soares goofed.

He tried to backpedal yesterday, but only made the goof worse with an unbelievable statement that claimed, "no findings have been made."

"To draw any conclusions before reviewing all evidence would directly contradict the principles of our process."

He should look in the mirror and repeat that good advice a million times a day.

Problem is, Soares can't put the genie back in the bottle, and neither can we.

He has disqualified himself from being trusted to carry out a thorough investigation.

Like Hamann, he's new to Albany - he was elected in 2004 - and the heat might be getting to him.

His patrons, especially the Working Families Party, have belittled the dirty-tricks issue.

One way to read Soares' interviews is that he was reassuring top Democrats, including Spitzer, not to worry.

That would seem unnecessary - unless Spitzer has something to hide.

Yet even with Soares punting, the governor must prove he told the truth when he said he had no knowledge of the plot.

That's because the Ethics Commission is issuing subpoenas.

One went to an Albany Times Union reporter, now on hold after the paper vowed to fight it, but there is a growing belief the commission is already taking sworn testimony.

According to one source, people the commission wants to question are told they can come voluntarily, or get a subpoena.

That scenario probably explains why at least two of Spitzer's aides have hired attorneys.

Has the governor lawyered up?

"He has not retained counsel," spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said in an e-mail response to my question.

Asked whether Spitzer or anyone in the executive office had received a subpoena, Gordon ducked.

"Given that there is an ongoing investigation, we will decline to comment at this time," he wrote.

I'll take that as a yes.

And that's on the record.

mgoodwin@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/0...joins_mess.html

THE NEW YORK POST

"DEM BIG'S 'RUSE' HID PENSION FEE-LOADING"

By KENNETH LOVETT Post Correspondent

August 22, 2007 -- ALBANY - Democratic political consultant Hank Morris had a "handshake" deal with the head of a financial services firm to collect the vast majority of state pension-fund "placement fees" steered to the company, according to a source who discussed the matter with Morris.

Morris told the person that he would keep as much as 95 percent of the fees that then-state Comptroller Alan Hevesi directed companies to pay purported middleman Searle & Co., of Greenwich, Conn.

The companies were looking to do business with the state pension fund.

Searle & Co., which investigators believe received at least $13 million in placement fees, is headed by Robert Searle, a longtime personal friend of Morris, said the source.

The source, a Democrat like Morris, said he discussed the arrangement - which is under criminal investigation - with Morris several years ago.

"This was all planned by Morris to avoid his name being reported," the source told The Post.

A "handshake agreement" facilitated the "complete ruse," the source added.

"Searle didn't set up meetings."

"They didn't help create documents."

"They didn't market, they didn't do anything these firms usually do."

"Morris did everything."

Morris, his lawyer, William Schwartz, and Searle declined comment.

Hevesi lawyer Bradley Simon said, "I can't speak for anything that Morris has done, but to suggest Alan Hevesi knew about it or had anything to do with that is outrageous."

kenneth.lovett@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08222007/news/...ension_fee_.htm

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Where Investing $154 Billion Is One Man’s Job"

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH and DANNY HAKIM

Published: August 22, 2007

Warren E. Buffett may be a multibillionaire and a legend among investors, but he cannot do everything by himself.

His holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has 13 directors on its board besides Mr. Buffett, the chairman, to watch over its $269 billion in assets.

In Albany, State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli concedes he is no Warren Buffett; he owns just a handful of telecom stocks, an I.R.A. and some mutual fund shares.

But he professes few doubts about whether he, as comptroller, can ably serve as the sole trustee of the state pension fund, with assets of $154 billion.

“As comptroller, the ultimate accountability is at the ballot box,” Mr. DiNapoli said in a recent interview, echoing a sentiment widely heard across Albany.

If the voters, including hundreds of thousands of pension participants, believe he has failed to protect their interests in the fund, they can throw him out in the next election, he said.

It would be much harder to unseat an entire board.

Many in the Legislature agree, and show no sign of wanting to use their authority to increase the oversight of the state pension fund, the nation’s second-largest.

Still, only two other states, Connecticut and North Carolina, rely on sole trustees to safeguard their workers’ retirement money.

Most have boards.

The idea of a single trustee draws the disdain of many academics, governance experts and a few pension officials in other states, who argue that sole trusteeships are a risky anachronism.

They doubt whether one person should be responsible for such a big block of other people’s money — especially an elected official, who may have party loyalties and personal or political goals that could conflict with the best interests of the pensioners.

By law, pension trustees have a duty to put the interests of the participants first.

Sole trustees “are relics of the past,” said Richard Koppes, a former general counsel of California’s big public pension fund, known as Calpers, which has a 13-member board.

Scandals in various states have raised doubts about putting so much money into one set of hands.

In Connecticut, one former sole trustee, Paul J. Silvester, was sentenced to a federal prison term of four years and three months after pleading guilty in 1999 to corruption charges involving misuse of the office for personal gain.

New Jersey added a pension oversight board after a scandal in the late 1940s.

But corruption scandals have also hit pension funds overseen by boards of directors.

Mr. Koppes said sole trusteeships may have made sense decades ago, when pension assets were smaller and invested almost entirely in simple investments like bonds.

But the officials responsible for investing the giant pension funds of today must evaluate complex derivatives and hedging strategies not dreamed of a generation ago.

Many are struggling to re-evaluate arcane mortgage-backed securities that once appeared safe.

Pension trustees must also oversee decisions on disclosures to the public, and on adequate funding levels.

They can expect to be lobbied regularly to invest in special interests of politicians, citizens or campaign contributors.

Governor Eliot Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo are questioning whether one person should wield so much financial clout, but they are unlikely to find support for change in the current Legislature.

After the previous comptroller was forced to resign, lawmakers rebuffed the governor’s choice and went with Mr. DiNapoli, who they say should now have his own chance.

“I don’t think the system is broken and requires a fix at this point,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Legislature’s top Democrat.

Mr. Cuomo and the district attorney in Albany are conducting parallel investigations into whether the last trustee, Alan G. Hevesi, traded on his position to win favors for friends and family.

Mr. Hevesi resigned in December after pleading guilty to defrauding the government by having state workers act as chauffeurs for his ailing wife, but he has denied any wrongdoing outside that case.

Keith P. Ambachtsheer, director of the International Centre for Pension Management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said the issue is not of one person’s character but of a model that is simply not workable.

He said pension trustees need a working knowledge of many disciplines: law, accounting, risk management, strategic planning, human resources and economics.

One person is unlikely to possess all those skills.

Nor can one person be reasonably expected to acquire them if he or she is also cultivating a political profile or building a campaign war chest, which happens when a pension trustee is also an elected official, like the New York State comptroller.

“If you’re a politician, you’re a politician,” said Mr. Ambachtsheer, who helped establish boards at two of Canada’s largest public pension funds.

“You can’t be a trustee."

"It’s just a contradiction.”

In Canada, he pushed for retired finance professionals on the pension boards, people with adequate time and experience.

He also advocated paying them so they would take the role more seriously.

“The statement is made that their work is valued,” Mr. Ambachtsheer said.

David B. Wescoe, chief executive of the San Diego pension fund, said he saw “an inherent conflict” when a trustee was also an elected official, between the fiduciary duty to the pension plan members on the one hand, and the separate duty to the state and its taxpayers on the other.

San Diego recently reconfigured its pension board after a scandal in which such conflicts played a role.

Its board was dominated by city officials and employees who wanted to simultaneously rein in government spending and to offer ample pensions to workers.

Unable to do both, they ended up with accounting fraud.

Elected officials who are pension trustees also tend to cite their funds’ annual investment returns to show voters that they are doing a good job.

These statistics can sound impressive, but in fact they provide little meaningful information about a trustee’s stewardship of the fund, since pension returns generally follow the broader ups and downs of the stock market.

Mr. Hevesi, for instance, recently issued a statement through a lawyer calling his record as sole trustee “impeccable,” and citing the fund’s growth to $150 billion from $95 billion during his four-year tenure.

But total market returns during this bullish period were roughly the same or a little better.

The lack of meaningful information is particularly acute in New York State because the pension fund has been using an unusual accounting method that has made it look perfectly balanced at all times, even in years like 2001, when it lost billions of dollars.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board, an independent body that sets the rules for state and local governments, recently disallowed that accounting method, after articles in The New York Times questioned it.

Mr. DiNapoli said the pension fund had already changed to an accepted method, which showed the fund had a small surplus.

But the improvement still does not reassure many economists, who say that virtually all public pension funds understate their obligations, whatever accounting method they use.

Pension trustees do not generally invest workers’ retirement money themselves, but farm it out to professional money managers.

These professionals compete aggressively for the business.

A small slice of a big pension fund can produce millions of dollars in management fees.

Any time a money manager contributes to a pension trustee’s election campaign fund, and then receives pension money to invest, it raises the question of whether the manager might have “bought” the contract when another money manager would have done a better job.

These questions, about what is called pay-to-play activity, have swirled around the New York State pension fund for years.

Investigators are looking at the campaign contributions made by various money managers to Mr. Hevesi, trying to learn whether they influenced his decisions about how to invest the fund’s assets.

They are also examining whether money managers improperly provided things of value to Mr. Hevesi’s sons and former senior aides.

Mr. Hevesi’s lawyer said that all investment decisions on Mr. Hevesi’s watch “were made strictly on the merits.”

The Stanford Institutional Investors’ Forum, which has been trying to identify the qualities of successful pension boards, issued a report in May saying that members of an effective board had to be ready to dismiss a colleague, in case any board member acted against the pensioners’ exclusive interests.

A sole trustee could not do that, because it would mean firing himself.

Mr. DiNapoli said he was well aware of the pension fund’s need for strong, independent oversight.

He said he had already created an inspector general to provide a new layer of internal control over the fund.

And because campaign contributions by money managers have been such a sore point over the years, he has recommended that the comptroller’s election campaign be at least partially financed with public money.

Still, Mr. DiNapoli said he believed a sole trustee could provide more accountability than a board, and cited cases in other states where board members had failed to act independently of the governors or unions that had appointed them.

He said there was a long bipartisan tradition in New York State of governors and legislatures trying to raid the pension fund when money got tight — and of sole trustees beating them back.

Arthur Levitt Sr., a past comptroller, withstood pressure to use the pension fund to bail New York City out of its fiscal crisis in the 1970s.

His successor, Edward V. Regan, and later H. Carl McCall, blocked efforts by governors to reduce the state’s contributions to the fund to balance the budget.

Political realities make it unlikely that New York State’s sole trusteeship will be abolished any time soon.

Doing so would take an amendment to the State Constitution, an arduous process that requires two subsequent Legislatures to enact a bill to that effect.

Senator Dale M. Volker, a Republican from the Buffalo area, sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have taken the sole trusteeship away from the comptroller but said he would not propose such a measure now.

He said he had told Mr. DiNapoli he would give him a chance “to see how you’ll do.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/nyregion...mp;ref=nyregion

NEW YORK BUSINESS.COM

"NYC foreclosures rose 55% in July"

Tom Fredrickson

August 21. 2007 3:37PM

The number of homes in foreclosure in New York City increased 55% in July compared with the same month a year ago, a national foreclosure monitoring company reported Tuesday.

The number of homes going through the foreclosure process increased to 2,561 last month, up from 1,648 in July 2006, according to RealtyTrac.com.

Nationally, the rate of foreclosure was up 93%.

The numbers include homes in several stages of foreclosure leading to an auction, a process that in New York state takes a year or more.

Foreclosures are going up faster in Brooklyn and Queens compared to the rest of the city.

In Brooklyn, the number of homes in foreclosure year-over-year in July stood at 51%, up from 25% in June.

In Queens, the year-over year increase in July was 126%, level with the June change.

http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.d...1059%2Fbreaking

THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION CAPITAL CONFIDENTIAL BLOG:

Posted by ruralgeek | August 22, 2007 7:05 PM: Did you ever notice how people who do deceitful and underhanded things (such as the spam-connection to Caputo, being hidden, for instance) always seem to come up with excuses in which others do deceitful and underhanded things?

All comes from the same twisted way of thinking, I suppose.

On this one, I’d say it is a matter of character.

Stone’s references sure don’t look like the Sheriff of Wall Street’s to me.

I know who I’d believe.

JOHN GALT: Yes, ruralgeek, you would blindly believe the “STEAMROLLER”, er, sorry, “SHERIFF OF WALL STREET”, regardless of what he told you …

Because he is your HERO …

And that is what “HERO WORSHIP” is really all about ….

Your “HERO” has to be the “GOOD GUY” ….

Because you need him to be …

Then, you can know that you are a “good person” yourself …

Because you worship a “GOOD GUY” …

And you detest who your HERO tells you is a bad guy ….

And so ….

You sound like a prime candidate to be a TOOL, ruralgeek …

An IDEOLOGUE’s plaything …

Rather than a rational, independent-thinking human being …

Which is what OUR democratic form of government here in NYS was based on …

Rational, independent-thinking citizens as opposed to ideologues …

Which group of blindly-obedient non-thinkers here in New York over the years has caused us to descend further and further into the bowels of this political morass that we are now in ….

With a self-confessed liar sitting in the governor’s office ….

When we need an honest person in there, instead …

And so …

Keep your blindfold on, ruralgeek …

And dream your dreams ….

And trust Eliot Spitzer, ruralgeek ….

Keep trusting Eliot Spitzer …

Yes, he did lie to us the once ….

But since then, he says he has “reformed” himself ….

So he’ll never lie to us again …

And so …

Comment by John Galt — August 26, 2007 @ 8:39 am

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=5281#comments

"Cops source of gun sales - Albany police arranged to illegally obtain weapons for personal use; a federal probe went nowhere when some were offered to the public"

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

First published: Sunday, August 26, 2007

ALBANY -- Federal agents were sifting through the weaponry of a troubled Colonie gun store several years ago when they spotted a banned, fully-automatic assault rifle propped on a shelf and listed for sale.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents would soon learn the dangerous weapon, a machine gun which could not legally be resold, had been obtained by the store's owners from an Albany police officer, Michael Romano, and that the gun was still registered to the department.

It was a troubling discovery a cop's machine gun in a gun store but it turned out to be only the beginning of a major ATF investigation that years later, despite unearthing a mountain of evidence, would be brushed aside by the region's U.S. Attorney's office.

A Times Union investigation has found that Romano was one of dozens of city cops, along with at least one Albany County assistant district attorney and possibly a judge, who used the department to illegally purchase an arsenal of automatic assault rifles and ammunition for personal use at tax-exempt, discount prices in the mid-1990s.

The illegal gun purchases, which were concealed from the public, did not result in any disciplinary or criminal charges, and ultimately they exposed more than just wrongdoing on the part of the police force.

To this day, it is unclear how many of the weapons were never recovered.

The purchases took place in 1993 and 1994 and were approved by Assistant Chief William Murray, a gun enthusiast who retired several years ago and has since died.

The assault weapons, which included numerous Belgian-designed assault rifles, were ordered on the Albany Police Department's official stationery, which bore the names of Mayor Jerry Jennings and then-Chief John Dale and carried Murray's signature.

One of the gun orders, dated Nov. 19, 1994, was addressed to Century International Arms in Vermont and included the false statements:

"These weapons will be used for official duties only, purchased by the department for departmental use only."

In fact, the machine guns were not part of any official purchase.

The officers and others paid with their own money -- about $200 per weapon -- and because they were being purchased through a police force were able to avoid hundreds of dollars in federal excise taxes, police sources said.

The guns were also illegal to possess under New York state law.

"It's illegal for the city to let someone else use their tax exempt status for a private purpose," city Comptroller Thomas Nitido said last year, when the Times Union began inquiring about police gun purchases.

After the ATF's discovery of an Albany Police Department machine gun for sale at the Colonie store, former Albany Police Commissioner John C. Nielsen quietly ordered an intensive audit to recover the remaining weapons.

The outcome, according to sources close to the matter, was that other guns, not part of the illegal purchase, were missing from the department's arsenal and that many of the assault weapons were gone.

City police, with the help of federal agents, recovered one of the weapons at a gun store in Texas.

Several of the assault weapons, which remain missing, are known to have been taken home by officers who retired.

In other cases, the people suspected of buying them, including an Albany-area judge, denied ever receiving one.

The judge, who is not being identified by the Times Union because there is no documentation he received a gun, told the newspaper last week that he has no idea how his name surfaced in the scandal.

"I never bought one of those," the judge said.

"I imagine they thought I did because I'm a gun guy (enthusiast)."

The judge disclosed that he had seen an assault weapon purchased by Assistant District Attorney Brian Farley, who obtained it when he was working for District Attorney Sol Greenberg.

Farley did not respond to repeated requests for comment but reported his purchase to Albany County District Attorney David Soares after being contacted by the Times Union several weeks ago.

Farley, also a gun enthusiast, returned his weapon to Albany police, sources said.

Top city officials, including Mayor Jennings and Police Chief James W. Tuffey, have taken steps to conceal the full scope of what occurred, including going to court to fight a Freedom of Information Law request by the Times Union seeking the department's records related to the gun purchases.

In early 2006, shortly after being appointed chief by Jennings, Tuffey told the newspaper he was reviewing the department's files regarding the assault weapons.

He said he intended to release documents as part of what would be his administration's efforts to be "transparent."

But about two weeks later, a police spokesman contacted the newspaper and said he'd just left a meeting at City Hall with Jennings, Tuffey and the city's corporation counsel.

The spokesman said he was instructed to tell the newspaper its FOIL request would be denied.

Two months later, in April 2006, the city denied the Times Union's appeal for the records, stating: "Disclosing the weapons that are used by the police force in fighting crime in the City of Albany could endanger the life of the officers using them against criminals."

At the time the letter was written, city officials would have known their own internal investigation determined the guns were unsuitable for urban policing, had never been deployed or used by the department in any official capacity, and that some of the weapons were missing and had been purchased by individuals other than police officers, according to interviews with people familiar with the case.

The possibility that dozens of Albany police officers had illicitly acquired assault weapons also fueled, in part, a decision by the U.S. Attorney's office to drop a criminal investigation of the former Colonie gun store, B & J Shooting Supply, and its owners, James Frampton and Louis Brian Olesen II, according to sources close to the investigation.

The men, who are both still in the gun sales business, were already under investigation for numerous firearms violations when ATF agents began inspecting their businesses in December 2002.

That investigation resulted in just one federal conviction of Michael Scarnato, a Rensselaer County restaurant owner and underground gunsmith who later went to prison.

Scarnato, who cooperated with authorities, admitted making illegal gun silencers after ATF agents and State Police raided his home and found ample evidence, including discarded gun parts and a firing range, in the basement of his Schodack home.

Scarnato told federal authorities that some of his illegal handiwork, including threading gun barrels to handle silencers and flash suppressors, had been done for Olesen and Frampton, according to court documents.

Frampton surrendered his federal firearms license in the wake of the ATF probe.

He was never arrested and opened a new gun outlet in Guilderland with a different partner, John H. Smith, who holds the federal firearms license for their store, J & J Guns.

But allegations of criminal behavior followed Frampton, who was arrested along with Smith in May by the State Police.

The new allegations against Frampton again involved undocumented gun sales and dealing in banned assault weapons.

That case is still pending.

Olesen, meanwhile, who has a smattering of minor arrests and a few convictions in his criminal history, struck out on his own and applied in Albany County in late 2002 for a state pistol dealer's license.

Without Frampton and his federal firearms license, Olesen needed the state license to sell handguns in New York state.

The state permit also is a prerequisite for obtaining a federal firearms license.

After his state application was rejected, Olesen withdrew his federal firearms request, records show.

Weeks later, his mother, Barbara Olesen, applied for and was approved for a state pistol dealer's permit and also a federal firearms license.

The permits were for the Colonie shop operated by her son.

Meanwhile, rejected once, Olesen continued to pursue state credentials to sell guns.

In 2005, he re-applied for a state pistol dealer's license in conjunction with his opening a small gun store on Columbia Turnpike in Rensselaer.

Rensselaer County Judge Patrick McGrath approved Olesen's request, although the judge last week said Olesen had checked "no" in response to a question about whether he'd ever been denied a permit.

U.S. Attorney Glenn T. Suddaby said the decision by his office not to prosecute Olesen or Frampton had nothing to do with dozens of police and at least one county prosecutor buying assault weapons.

"No, that is not something that was part of any investigation or any referral that was ever brought to our office," Suddaby said.

"That issue was never brought to us by ATF."

Suddaby said the decision to decline prosecution had more to do with the job done by the ATF.

"It was quality of evidence issues," he said.

"There are a number of issues which led us to make a decision that we were unable to go forward with the prosecution based on the investigation that was presented to us by ATF."

Another source close to the investigation disputes Suddaby's account.

That source said federal prosecutors in Albany were fully aware of the Albany police situation and had expressed concern that prosecuting Olesen and Frampton could have triggered "a mess" because of the potential scandal.

Frampton's attorney, Donald T. Kinsella, a former federal prosecutor, said the ATF investigation of his client five years ago was based on minor charges that had to do with bookkeeping issues.

On the new felony charge against his client, for selling assault rifles, Kinsella said they intend to fight the case.

"They were legally federally."

"There's a changing definition about what is legal and illegal for New York state purposes," he said.

"As far as they know anything they sold complied with both state and federal laws."

Olesen, meanwhile, contends he has done nothing wrong and was the target of a vindictive investigation headed by John Morgan, who was agent-in-charge of the ATF's Albany field office at the time the case was unfolding.

"The biggest thing I'd like to see is my name cleared," Olesen said.

Attempts to reach Morgan for comment were not successful and he is not currently assigned to the Albany field office.

Joe Green, ATF spokesman for the New York Field Division, said he could not discuss the specifics of their investigation.

"It's up to the prosecutors to determine whether they're going to accept or decline for prosecution," Green said.

"We only conduct the investigation."

Meanwhile, the assault weapon registered to the Albany police force that was seized by ATF in 2002 was returned to the department last December.

Several weeks ago, Albany's police chief said he ordered it and all the recovered guns to be destroyed.

That event, he said, was videotaped.

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

Illegal gun purchases by Albany police

In the early 1990s, police in Albany used their employer's status as a police agency to purchase fully and semi-automatic military weapons, banned from sale to the public, for their personal use.

JENNINGS: For more than a year, the administration of Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings has refused a Freedom of Information Law request regarding the guns.

MURRAY: Now-deceased Assistant Police Chief Bill Murray arranged to buy assault rifles and machine guns from a Vermont importer.

cutline: Although police officials assured a licensed arms importer their purchase was intended for official law enforcement use only, the guns were never used in the Albany department's police work, according to a number of sources.

An off-duty arsenal

Albany police sought out serious firepower when they illegally arranged to buy guns for personal sport, ordering NATO-quality, fully and semi-automatic assault rifles.

M14 Military rifle:

The M14 is a lightweight shoulder rifle designed primarily for semi-automatic fire, but fully-automatic capable.

The M14 was a standard U.S. Army infantry rifle until it was superseded by the M16 in the late 1960s.

Other characteristics:

44.14 inches long

22-inch barrel

11.0 lbs. fully loaded

7.62mm ammo in 20-round clip

Max effective range: 1,500 feet

20-30 rounds per minute semi-automatic

40-60 rounds per minute automatic

7.62mm NATO rounds:

The 7.62x51mm rifle cartridge became a standard among North American Treaty Organization nations in the 1950s.

The ammo is widely available in a number of forms, including:

Standard--Ball cartridge

Armor Piercing-- black cartridge tip

Tracer--orange cartridge tip

Grenade--grenade launching blank

Long Range/Sniping hollow point

Duplex--two-bullet round

Match--designed for competition

L1A1 military rifle:

The L1A1 is a British-licensed version of a design from the Belgian arms maker Fabrique National.

The original Belgian Fusil Automatique Legere (FAL) was created to work with a standard 7.62mm NATO cartridge.

The rifle is semi-automatic only and was later replaced with the 5.56mm SA80 for British military use.

Other characteristics:

41.47 inches long

30-inch barrel

11.2 lbs. fully loaded

7.62mm ammo in 20-round clip

Max effective range: 1,970 feet

20 rounds per minute semi-automatic

Source: City of Albany partial response to FOIL request, various firearms references.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"GOP big axed over profane phone call to gov's dad"

BY JOE MAHONEY, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Thursday, August 23rd 2007, 4:00 AM

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Acid-tongued political consultant Roger Stone was tossed overboard by state Senate Republicans yesterday over an ugly phone message to Gov. Spitzer's father.

While insisting he had no idea if Stone was the anonymous caller, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno said the allegations were "serious enough, despicable enough" to push Stone to quit his $20,000-a-month gig.

Stone insisted he didn't make the call to 83-year-old Bernard Spitzer that referred to his son as a "phony, psycho piece of s---."

Along with his theory that dirty tricksters broke into his Central Park South apartment and used doctored recordings to frame him, Stone yesterday added an alibi: At the time of the call, he was attending "Frost/Nixon" on Broadway.

One hole in his story: There was no performance of the play on the night of Monday , Aug. 6, when the message was left on the elder Spitzer's voice mail.

Stone, 55, said he was giving up his consulting job "by mutual agreement."

Bruno told reporters he wanted to put the focus back on the "real issues" - the Troopergate case that has plagued the Spitzer administration for the past month.

Meanwhile, the targets of those investigations are delighted at the turn of events.

"Roger Stone's 'swift boat' has hit an iceberg," said a laughing Terence Kindlon, lawyer for Spitzer's suspended communications director, Darren Dopp, who helped lead a scheme to discredit Bruno with leaked records on the senator's use of state-owned aircraft.

GOP insiders said Bruno's senior staff was split over Stone's hiring in late June.

Political director Edward Lurie wanted him; Bruno communications director John McCardle did not.

Stone helped Republicans craft their strategy when Troopergate erupted a month ago.

Expanding their offensive, Republican senators threatened to hold hearings on allegedly illegal loans Eliot Spitzer got from his father to bankroll his 1994 and 1998 runs for state attorney general.

Gov. Spitzer has admitted he failed to accurately report the source of the funds, but the dubious loans were never investigated by the state Board of Elections.

Republicans said Bruno made the right call in parting with Stone.

"Senator Bruno acted swiftly, which I think is appropriate under the circumstances, while the governor did not act decisively," said Sen. Serphin Maltese of Queens.

jmahoney@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/23...e_call_to_.html

THE NEW YORK POST

"GOP 'SLEAZE' AXED IN GOV-DAD THREAT"

By FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor

August 23, 2007 -- ALBANY - Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno fired Republican political consultant Roger Stone yesterday for the "despicable" comments he allegedly made in a bizarre and threatening call to Gov. Spitzer's 83-year-old father.

Bruno (R-Rensselaer), the target of a dirty tricks scandal that has enveloped the Spitzer administration, said Stone's comments were "despicable enough" to warrant his dismissal, despite Stone's claim to be the victim of what he called "Spitzer's ultimate dirty trick."

Bruno, who hired Stone in June as a $20,000-a-month consultant to the Senate GOP campaign committee, said the longtime political operative "has agreed to resign and end his relationship with us at our request."

"We are not going to allow this incident to become a distraction or to be used as an excuse to hamper people from getting at the truth," Bruno continued, referring to the dirty tricks scandal.

Stone, who has represented Donald Trump and billionaire independent gubernatorial hopeful Thomas Golisano, was accused of making the threat in an obscenity-laced Aug. 6 phone call to Bernard Spitzer's Manhattan office.

Stone, a onetime adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, has a long and controversial history with the GOP.

In 1996, it was reported that Stone had placed ads, featuring revealing photos of him and his wife, in swinger magazines looking for couples and single men to have sex with him and his wife.

Stone claimed the ads were placed by someone with a grudge against him.

Jeffrey Moerdler, a lawyer for Spitzer's father, notified the Senate Investigations Committee and the state Ethics Commission of the threat Tuesday, and included a recording in which Stone is allegedly heard warning, "You will be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Committee on Investigations on your shady campaign loans."

"You will be compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms."

"If you resist this subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany."

"And there is not a God damn thing your phony, psycho, piece-of-s--- son can do about it."

"Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you."

"You will be forced to tell the truth and the fact that your son's a pathological liar will be known to all," the message continued.

Moerdler also said a private investigation firm, aided by a caller-identification system on the elder Spitzer's phone, had traced the call to Stone's Central Park South apartment.

Stone initially called the recording "a total fabrication" and suggested he was the victim of a plot hatched by Gov. Spitzer and his Democratic allies.

He claims they want to deflect attention from the scandal in which top aides to the governor used the State Police to gather supposedly damaging information on Bruno.

Stone also claimed yesterday he was "at the theater catching the play 'Nixon and Frost' " on Aug. 6 at 9:57 p.m., when the call was allegedly placed.

However, New York magazine reported that Stone couldn't have attended the play because it wasn't staged that night.

Stone responded, "My error," and said he realized he had seen the play two days after the call allegedly was made.

Meanwhile, Democratic Party leaders sought to use the Stone scandal to deflect attention from the probe by Senate Republicans of the plot against Bruno.

"The tape says it all."

"If there's still any doubt out there that the Senate Republican 'investigation' is anything other than a blatantly partisan attempt to inflict damage on the governor and his family, this tape should clear that up," said state Democratic chairwoman June O'Neill.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08232007/news/..._thr.htm?page=0

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Political Consultant Resigns After Allegations of Threatening Spitzer’s Father"

By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: August 23, 2007

ALBANY, Aug. 22 — The Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, forced one of his top political consultants to resign on Wednesday after allegations that he left a threatening telephone message at the office of Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s father.

The consultant, Roger J. Stone Jr., continued to insist that the recorded message — which was made public by lawyers representing the governor’s 83-year-old father, Bernard Spitzer — was not authentic.

He said allies of the governor had plotted against him, though an alibi he offered in a statement on his Web site appeared to be problematic.

The episode has inflamed the already poisonous political atmosphere here, just weeks after Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo issued a report that found the Spitzer administration had misused the State Police as part of an attempt to discredit Mr. Bruno.

Mr. Bruno, a Republican, cut short questions during a news conference after vowing that the allegations against Mr. Stone would not divert attention from efforts by Senate Republicans to investigate the Spitzer administration.

Democrats called for a new investigation into the phone call and chided Mr. Bruno for not apologizing.

“I don’t know what Roger Stone did,” Mr. Bruno said.

“Roger no longer has a relationship with the Senate, based on the allegations.”

“Whether it’s true or not,” he said, “we are, until there’s clarity, severing our relationship.”

Mr. Stone, 55, has been a controversial figure in state and national political circles for decades.

He cut his political teeth as a teenager in the campaign of Richard M. Nixon, working for the Committee to Re-elect the President, and later was a partner of Lee Atwater, one of the highest-profile political consultants of the 1980s.

Aside from some notable political victories, Mr. Stone has left behind a trail of short-lived campaigns, feuds with former friends and clients, and, above all, rumors of dirty tricks.

As he once put it in an interview, “if it rains, it was Stone.”

He oversaw Ronald Reagan’s campaign operations in New York but was on the outs in some Republican circles after backing the upstate billionaire Tom Golisano’s third-party bid against Gov. George E. Pataki in 2002.

A dossier about Mr. Stone’s past exploits prepared by a former opponent and still circulating among New York Republicans runs to 74 pages.

During the Florida recount in 2000, George W. Bush’s campaign enlisted Mr. Stone and his wife, Nydia, who is of Cuban ancestry, to rally support among Cuban exiles in Miami, according to Jeffrey Toobin’s “Too Close to Call,” a book about the recount battle.

Mr. Stone was also instrumental in organizing the so-called Brooks Brothers Riot, the book said, when hundreds of Republican activists stormed a county election office in Miami and demanded that workers there cease recounting presidential ballots.

Mr. Stone had an unlikely political relationship with the Rev. Al Sharpton during his 2004 run for the presidency, and some of Mr. Sharpton’s aides said Mr. Stone played a central role in the campaign.

But Mr. Stone says his role has been greatly overstated.

Mr. Stone, who mostly does corporate consulting work now, has also been an adviser to the real estate developer Donald J. Trump, especially during Mr. Trump’s efforts in the late 1990s to prevent the expansion of gambling in New York.

In 2000, Mr. Stone and Mr. Trump were fined by state lobbying regulators after an investigation revealed that the developer had secretly financed newspaper ads opposing Mr. Pataki’s plans to approve new casinos in the Catskills.

Mr. Stone’s reputation for hard-edged political tactics appeared to be a selling point for the Senate Republicans, who after Mr. Spitzer’s election last fall were facing an aggressive Democratic governor eager to wipe out the state’s last redoubt of Republican strength.

Mr. Stone was hired near the end of the legislative session in June and was paid $20,000 a month.

In a closed-door meeting last month, Mr. Stone presented a road map for aggressively defending and rebuilding the party.

“When you’re in kind of a war posture or an under-attack posture, that’s certainly appealing,” said a senior Republican aide in the Senate.

The aide said that Mr. Stone had had little contact with rank-and-file members, aside from the July meeting, and that opinion about his presentation had been mixed.

The Senate Republicans appeared newly emboldened in the weeks after Mr. Stone’s arrival, which coincided with the emergence of more aggressive Web-based activity opposing Mr. Spitzer.

Reporters and others around the capital began receiving e-mail messages from addresses like SpitzerFile.com and NYFacts.net, most of them reprinting newspaper stories critical of Mr. Spitzer or containing political cartoons attacking him.

Those two services are run by Michael Caputo, a Buffalo-area Republican who has worked with Mr. Stone in the past but who has said he is working on his own now.

The phone message left at the office of Bernard Spitzer, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, said that Mr. Spitzer, a wealthy real estate developer, would be “compelled by the Senate sergeant-at-arms” to testify about “shady campaign loans” he made to his son during his unsuccessful campaign for attorney general in 1994. (Senate Republicans have said they might investigate those loans.)

The message, left just before 10 p.m. on Aug. 6, went on to say that the elder Spitzer would be “arrested and brought to Albany” if he resisted.

It also used profanities in referring to the governor.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Mr. Stone continued to point the finger at one of the governor’s fund-raisers, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, who owns the building on Central Park South where Mr. Stone lives.

Mr. Stone said that someone had unauthorized access to his apartment.

Mr. Hemmerdinger responded in a statement issued by his spokesman, saying, “Stone’s allegations about me are untrue.”

Mr. Stone also said in his statement that he had attended a performance of the Broadway play “Frost/Nixon” on the night of the alleged call and could “highly recommend it to Governor Spitzer.”

He added, “It shows you what hubris and lying brings you.”

But a blogger for New York magazine pointed out that the play had no Monday night performances.

“Well, then I’m mistaken,” Mr. Stone said later.

“My wife already reminded me I actually saw the play on a Wednesday."

"I still recommend the play to the governor.”

Mr. Bruno said: “Roger’s statement is that he didn’t do it and that somebody got into his apartment and that someone who owns his apartment is a big contributor to Eliot Spitzer."

"We have nothing to do with that.”

He called the investigations into the Spitzer administration’s misuse of the State Police “the main issue,” adding, “We are not going to let anything divert us.”

Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, said:

“Joe Bruno must be tone deaf."

"Instead of condemning Roger Stone and apologizing to New Yorkers for this disgraceful episode, he’s hurling more partisan attacks.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

"Too weird for words"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, August 25, 2007

The week comes to a close with a development that we'll readily acknowledge we didn't think was possible.

The scandal that began with Governor Spitzer's office trying to keep track of Senate Majority Joseph Bruno's use of the state's aircraft and other resources, and then embarrass him over it, has gotten all the more bizarre.

The latest casualty is Roger Stone, the brass knuckles political consultant, and his $20,000-a-month arrangement with the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

Mr. Stone is suspected, though he fiercely denies it, of being the one who made a threatening and obscene phone call to Bernard Spitzer, the governor's father, earlier this month.

There's no smoking gun to prove beyond all doubt that the person who sounds very much like Mr. Stone in the call, made from Mr. Stone's apartment, is Mr. Stone himself.

Mr. Bruno and the Republicans, however, are taking no chances on this one.

They would be wise, in fact, to continue to steer clear of him, rather than giving further consideration to having Mr. Stone work for some individual senators.

Mr. Stone initially said he was at the theater, seeing the Broadway play "Frost/Nixon" on Aug. 6, the evening the call was made to Bernard Spitzer.

There was no performance that night, however.

Yet the references to the theater are appropriate, nonetheless.

New York politics have become the theater of the absurd.

It's Mr. Stone's contention that someone on the opposing side of the very weird Spitzer-Bruno feud made that call, threatening the governor's father with a subpoena and possible arrest over loans he made to his son's campaign for attorney general a decade ago.

That's right, Mr. Stone says he was set up in what would be a viciously dirty trick, even by the anything-goes standards of New York politics.

It's an explanation not unlike his theory for how his credit card was used to pay for mate-swapping ads featuring Mr. Stone and his wife.

A "sick and disgruntled" person put his picture on the Internet, he said back in 1996.

We suppose that Mr. Stone's explanation for the latest in the "Troopergate" saga, odd as it is, can't be ruled out altogether -- not at this stage of a political mess that has defied credulity for weeks now.

A just-the-facts-ma'am, approach is best taken here.

Even by that standard, though, Mr. Stone might make his former Republican clients uneasy.

A state lobbying commission investigation in 2000 found that he was part of a conspiracy behind an ad campaign to smear the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe.

Mr. Stone was fined $100,000 in that incident, in which a front group placed ads portraying the tribe as criminals.

That same year had Mr. Stone working for George W. Bush's campaign in the recount of the presidential vote in Florida.

He was one of the leaders of a ruckus where supporters of Mr. Bush demanded that the recount be stopped in a Miami election office.

But then, Mr. Stone has never been remotely shy about aggressive tactics in a career as a political handler that goes back to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign in 1972.

"If it rains, it was Stone," he once said of the incidents rightly or wrongly attributed to him.

New York needs no more rain, though, not as it tries in vain to bail out from this flood.

And where might "Troopergate" lead next?

We're uneasy about even wondering.

Really, what couldn't happen -- and at the expense, alas, of something as boring yet critical as the business of government?

THE ISSUE: The scandal and distraction in state government take a strange turn.

THE STAKES: More mundane and less entertaining matters still need attention.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Suspended Spitzer Aide Is Expected Back at Work"

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: August 27, 2007

Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s communications director, who was a central figure in an attempt to use the State Police to embarrass the governor’s main rival, is expected to return to state government as early as this week, people briefed on the matter said yesterday.

The aide, Darren Dopp, was suspended without pay for at least 30 days on July 23, the same day the state attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, issued a report saying Mr. Dopp and others in the Spitzer administration had misused the State Police to discredit Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader and the state’s top Republican.

Those 30 days expired last week.

Bringing back Mr. Dopp may anger Republicans, though it is unlikely he will resume active work as the governor’s top communications official.

It is not clear what job he will have, but he may temporarily resume his old post and use vacation time so he can begin drawing a paycheck until his permanent position is chosen, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Mr. Dopp’s lawyer, Terence L. Kindlon, and the governor’s press secretary, Christine Anderson, declined to comment yesterday.

Suspending Mr. Dopp was an agonizing choice for the governor.

Mr. Dopp has been one of Mr. Spitzer’s closest aides, working for him since he took office as attorney general in 1999.

The Cuomo report said that at the urging of Mr. Dopp and other officials, the State Police deviated from their traditional procedures and went to unusual lengths to make public the details of travel services they had provided to Mr. Bruno.

Mr. Dopp has said that the information was gathered in response to news media requests, though the report indicated that Mr. Dopp and other officials were gathering information long before such requests materialized.

The information was used to show that Mr. Bruno had used state helicopters to attend political fund-raisers.

But Mr. Bruno also conducted some official business during the trips, which made the state-financed travel acceptable in accordance with existing state policies, and the Cuomo report cleared him of any wrongdoing.

The State Ethics Commission tightened its travel policy after the Cuomo report, setting strict new guidelines on using state transportation when both official and nonofficial business are involved.

This month, Mr. Kindlon said his client “hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“He hasn’t done anything criminally wrong, he hasn’t done anything unethical and he hasn’t done anything politically wrong,” he added.

Though Mr. Dopp’s conduct, as described in the Cuomo report, has enraged Republicans, the report also found no evidence that laws were broken.

Mr. Dopp, however, declined to be interviewed by Mr. Cuomo’s investigators at the direction of the governor’s counsel, leaving lingering questions about the entire matter.

Those will most likely be further addressed in continuing investigations by the Albany County district attorney, P. David Soares, and the State Ethics Commission.

Both have something Mr. Cuomo did not, subpoena power to compel testimony from the governor’s staff.

The governor apologized for his office’s actions, but said he had had no knowledge that anything improper was being done.

On Friday, during a fund-raiser in Saratoga Springs, top Republicans expressed concern that Mr. Dopp would return in any capacity.

“I think that after what he’s done, he should not be allowed back in government,” said Joseph N. Mondello, the chairman of the state Republican Party.

“You can’t do things like that and expect to have the public trust, and I’m hoping the governor realizes that.”

James N. Tedisco, the Assembly minority leader, said it would be a problem “until he answers those questions about how this whole thing developed, who knew about it besides himself and Mr. Baum, and the extensiveness of what he was trying to do.”

He was referring to Richard Baum, the governor’s top adviser, who also declined to be interviewed for the Cuomo report.

“All those questions have to be answered, and then even after they’re answered, I’m not sure he really should be working in state government after attempting to do something like that against the Legislature,” Mr. Tedisco said.

Mr. Bruno said, “I don’t care what happens, frankly, with individuals,” adding that he was far more concerned with seeing further investigations of the matter play out.

The political calculus in Albany was muddied last week when lawyers representing the governor’s father, Bernard Spitzer, accused a top Republican consultant of leaving a threatening message on his office voice mail.

Mr. Bruno fired the consultant, Roger J. Stone Jr., who has adamantly denied the allegation.

Mr. Bruno has vowed that the allegation about Mr. Stone will not distract Senate Republicans from pressing for further inquiry into the State Police affair, including their own hearings on the matter.

“We’re going to make sure nothing diverts the attention of the majority of the people in New York from getting the facts,” he said.

Mr. Kindlon said this month that Mr. Dopp, who has not spoken publicly since the Cuomo report was released, and his family were suffering financially because of the suspension.

Nicholas Confessore contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin