The New York Times has this story, reporting that:
The office of the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, wrote portions of a controversial sexual harassment settlement involving a prominent assemblyman, according to documents the office released on Wednesday.
The Comptroller’s Office had originally claimed that it had only minimal involvement with drafting the agreement. Now, one of the Assembly’s top lawyers flatly disputes that claim, and recently released documents back him up:
The Times Union has this piece on the person whom Cuomo would be likely to appoint to run his threatened Moreland Act investigation: Linda Lacewell, the Governor’s Special Assistant.
Lacewell is a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails former federal prosecutor who most recently served as Cuomo’s special counsel when he was Attorney General. In that position, Lacewell was the lead prosecutor in the Hevesi/Hank Morris Pension Fund scandal. And we all know how that turned out for the targets; they all went to jail.
And, not only did they all go to jail, but Lacewell (and Ellen Biben, by the way) gathered so much evidence against Hevesi and Morris that everyone pleaded out rather than go to trial.
In a way, it’s too bad that JCOPE found Jesus after Cuomo threatened a Moreland Act investigation. Unlike JCOPE, Ms. Lacewell has a proven record of putting corrupt politicians and their cronies behind bars.
The NY Post reports that “Wave Chan, who’s running against Silver for his Lower East Side Assembly seat, plans to hand-deliver a formal request for a probe to the Southern District US Attorney’s Office tomorrow.”
That now makes three possible investigations of Silver, as it appears that JCOPE and/or Dan Donovan are also probing the secret Vito Lopez settlement.
STATEN ISLAND D.A. DONOVAN ORDERED TO PROBE SECRET LOPEZ SETTLEMENT
The plot is definitely thickening now.
Lopez, Silver, Schneiderman and DiNapoli were probably feeling pretty good yesterday.
As the NY Times and many others have reported, Staten Island DA (and recent unsuccessful candidate for Attorney General) Dan Donovan was appointed as Special Prosecutor to investigate the sexual harassment allegations against Lopez and other possible wrongdoing by those who approved the secret settlement deal with some of Lopez’s accusers. Donovan’s appointment was necessitated by the fact that Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes had to recuse himself due to his close political ties to Lopez.
Then, on September 6, the New York Post reported that Donovan intended to “limit his probe of the powerful Brooklyn Democratic leader to alleged sexual harassment of young female Assembly aides,” claiming that his Office “doesn’t have ‘the resources to do a full-scale forensic investigation of all the other players” with potential involvement in the Lopez scandal.'”
“All the other players” include Silver, whose office drafted and approved the secret, taxpayer-funded $100k settlement, as well as AG Schneiderman and Comptroller DiNapoli, who both vetted and approved the deal.
Now comes word that Administrative Judge Fern A. Fisher, who appointed Donovan as Special Prosecutor, has ordered him to investigate whether the settlement agreement violated any laws.
Here is Judge Fisher’s Order.
So, Donovan has been given free rein to track any possible illegal activity with respect to the settlement agreement.
Donovan is a law and order Republican unlikely to hold back against Silver, Schneiderman or DiNapoli — three of New York’s top state-wide Democratic office-holders.
CUOMO DEMANDS JCOPE PROBE
Meanwhile, the WSJ and others are reporting that the fourth and highest Dem — Cuomo — has demanded that JCOPE investigate the whole stinking mess as well, notwithstanding the deep divisions and stalemate within JCOPE’s commissioners, many of whom are loyal to Silver, John Sampson and Cuomo. As it’s constructed, each of these blocks essentially wields a veto power over opening an investigation.
Cuomo is threatening to use his power under the Moreland Act to appoint a separate commission to investigate if JCOPE won’t. That’s basically the nuclear option. “The Moreland Act, now Section 6 of the Executive Law (formerly Section 7, 1907-1909, and Section 8, 1909-1951), authorizes the governor, “either in person or by one or more persons appointed by him for the purpose, to examine and investigate the management and affairs of any department, board, bureau or commission of the state.” Investigators were empowered to subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, hold hearings, and subpoena “any books or papers deemed relevant or material.” Moreland Act commissions derive their power from that act and from Executive Law Section 63.8.” Here’s more background on the Moreland Act Commission.
Why is Cuomo apparently so eager to investigate Lopez, Silver, Schneiderman, and DiNapoli. Just because they’re fellow “Democrats” in name, doen’t mean Cuomo likes them.
Make no mistake, Cuomo is no friend to any of these guys by anything more than pure political necessity. And, to the extent that Cuomo still has higher political ambitions, merely being associated with them only tarnishes his national image. He now has a golden opportunity to depose or seriously weaken three or four of his chief political rivals within the NY Democratic Party.
Over at the New York Times and Crain’s Insider, they’ve profiled Frank Seddio, “an attorney who served just four months as a surrogate court judge before stepping down amid an ethics investigation in 2007” — and apparently now “the front-runner to replace Vito Lopez as chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party . . . poised to assume control over the judicial nomination process for a borough of 2.6 million people.”
Needless to say, Seddio is no reformer. Let’s look at his resume, shall we? According to the NYT profile, he was best buds with Carl Kruger and was Lopez’s protege. Wow. Back in 2007, Seddio resigned as the King’s County Surrogate Judge following an investigation that determined he, “in apparent violation of rules governing candidates for the bench, gave more than $31,000 in campaign funds to political cronies and to his home base, the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club.” Whoops.
The best part of Seddio is his law firm bio, which whitewashes his little indiscretion with the revisionist claim that he “recently retired as the Judge of the Surrogate Court of Kings County.” Even better is his boast that “[d]uring his [four month] tenure he has been responsible for making a myriad of changes in the policies and procedures in the Court to better adapt it to the needs of modern society.” Um, ok. Oh yeah, he also likes to be called “Judge”.