State Senator Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat, at a White Plains courthouse on Tuesday. Mr. Smith is accused of trying to buy a slot on the mayoral ballot.
NY TIMES
The two men sat in the state senator’s parked car in suburban Rockland County, but New York City was at the front of their minds and the focus of their conversation.
What the senator, Malcolm A. Smith, wanted to do, the other man explained, was going to cost “a pretty penny.”
“But it’s worth it,” replied Senator Smith, a Democrat, according to a transcript of the January meeting. “Because you know how big a deal it is.”
His plan, described by federal prosecutors in a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday, was as ambitious as it was audacious. Mr. Smith was going to bribe his way onto the ballot to run for mayor of New York.
But he needed help, from a disparate cast of characters, including a Republican City Council member from Queens, Daniel J. Halloran III, and two Republican leaders from Queens and the Bronx, Vincent Tabone and Joseph J. Savino. And he needed the help of the other man in the car, who, unbeknown to Mr. Smith, was a cooperating witness for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was recording the whole conversation.
Instead of appearing on the ballot, Mr. Smith’s name has landed in a marquee spot on the criminal complaint. On Tuesday, he, Councilman Halloran and the Republican Party leaders were charged with wire fraud and bribery. The senator was also charged with extortion.
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times
Empty placard holders reflected the stripped committee posts of State Senator Malcolm A. Smith outside his Albany offices on Tuesday.
Arrests Unsettle a Coalition in Albany
Last fall, as a group of breakaway Democrats was preparing to join forces with Republicans to take control of the State Senate, they recruited Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat, to join their caucus. Senator Smith was rewarded for his defection: he was named chairman of the Social Services Committee and vice chairman of the Finance Committee, and given a larger budget to hire staff.
But on Tuesday, one of the leaders of the Senate stripped Mr. Smith of his committee posts and suggested that he consider resigning,...
The charges roiled the states’ leaders, in part because a steady stream of elected officials have been accused of wrongdoing, and in many cases convicted and imprisoned, in recent years. The charges against Mr. Smith were particularly disruptive because he was part of an unusual and fragile two-party coalition controlling the Senate and because he was the only nonwhite member of that coalition, criticized for a lack of diversity.
Within hours of Mr. Smith’s arrest, the placards denoting his committee assignments were removed from the wall outside his office in the Legislative Office Building, and lawmakers denounced Mr. Smith’s alleged conduct. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, described the charges as “very, very troubling.”
“We have zero tolerance for any violation of the public integrity and the public trust, so they’re very serious,” the governor said.
Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, a Bronx Democrat and the leader of the breakaway Democrats,...[and] Mr. Klein’s coalition partner, Senator Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, called the charges “extremely troubling”...
If Mr. Smith were to lose his seat, it would not change the balance of power in the Senate — the coalition of Republicans and Democrats could still retain control. But his arrest is a public-relations catastrophe for Mr. Klein and his conference; Mr. Klein started the breakaway group, called the Independent Democratic Conference, in 2011 because, he said, he was frustrated with the dysfunction and scandals that had shaken the Senate Democrats.
“It’s ironic that the I.D.C. was born in part to dissociate itself from the perceived corruption in the State Senate, and now one of its members is tainted by it,” said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, referring to the breakaway caucus.
Mr. Klein’s wooing of Mr. Smith raised some eyebrows in Albany, as Mr. Smith’s conduct had previously been investigated.
“Raw political ambition gave birth to the I.D.C., and raw political ambition will likely lead to its demise,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat and former assemblyman. “It’s a mind-set problem that puts politics over policy.”
The arrest of Mr. Smith seemed likely not only to unsettle the coalition of Republicans and breakaway Democrats, who just days ago were celebrating the enactment of the state budget as proof that their alliance was succeeding, but also to worsen the reputation of a legislative body that has been tarnished by a procession of scandals. From what I understand in the papers, not every state legislature has this degree of criminality that’s been exposed,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said. “So clearly there is some problem here, and something more than simply a blunt prosecutor’s tool needs to be brought to bear.”