N.Y. TIMES
One woman who worked for Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez [above]said she contracted pink eye after he pressured her to put drops in his eyes. Another woman described being repeatedly groped by him until he forced his hands up her legs. Several employees said Mr. Lopez told them to wear low-cut blouses and high heels, or stay in hotel rooms with him overnight. Two women were so repulsed that they began secretly taping their interactions with Mr. Lopez.
State ethics regulators on Wednesday released a report that offered a scathing assessment not just of Mr. Lopez but also of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, and his staff. The report said the Assembly’s leadership shielded Mr. Lopez, a Brooklyn Democrat who was one of the chamber’s most powerful members, from public scrutiny amid allegations against him by his staff of sexual harassment.
The report accuses Mr. Silver’s senior staff members of ignoring the Assembly’s own internal rules by failing to investigate and refer the initial harassment allegations to an Assembly ethics committee. Mr. Silver’s press office also appears to have made statements that were not candid, according to internal exchanges detailed in the report. And the staff went to lengths to keep the matter secret. “Money flow and our desire to keep this away from media scrutiny complicates the resolution of this matter,” Bill Collins, a senior Assembly lawyer, wrote in an e-mail.
[NY Times: Update: For Mr. Silver’s critics, the latest scandal reinforced a sense that ethics enforcement in Albany is a rigged game. The state ethics commission’s investigation into the alleged harassment by Mr. Lopez, who resigned on Monday, did not consider whether Mr. Silver or his staff violated state law in its handling of the complaints. Even with that limitation, one of Mr. Silver’s appointees to a separate legislative ethics body made a secret attempt to alter the state commission’s report, seeking unsuccessfully to excise references to Mr. Silver and his staff. ]
[NY Times: Update: For Mr. Silver’s critics, the latest scandal reinforced a sense that ethics enforcement in Albany is a rigged game. The state ethics commission’s investigation into the alleged harassment by Mr. Lopez, who resigned on Monday, did not consider whether Mr. Silver or his staff violated state law in its handling of the complaints. Even with that limitation, one of Mr. Silver’s appointees to a separate legislative ethics body made a secret attempt to alter the state commission’s report, seeking unsuccessfully to excise references to Mr. Silver and his staff. ]
N.Y. TIMES
Accusations of wrongdoing have swirled around State Senator John L. Sampson [above] for years. But when he became concerned that his actions were under scrutiny by federal prosecutors, he allegedly took a step that stands out even in the growing annals of wrongdoing by New York lawmakers.
Mr. Sampson, prosecutors said, approached a friend in the office of the United States attorney for the Eastern District for help.
Turn over the names of all of the cooperating witnesses who could make a case against him, Mr. Sampson asked, so he could arrange to “take them out.”
That is among the crimes Mr. Sampson, a powerful Democrat, is accused of as he tried to thwart an intensifying federal inquiry centered on accusations that he had stolen more than $400,000 from the sale of foreclosed homes.
Prosecutors said Mr. Sampson used the money, which he had access to as a court-appointed referee for foreclosure proceedings in Brooklyn, to help finance his unsuccessful campaign for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office in 2005. The next year, prosecutors said, he persuaded a prominent real estate developer to give him nearly $200,000 help cover up the thefts. When the developer was arrested on unrelated charges, Mr. Sampson feared his crimes would be uncovered and turned to his friend in the United States attorney’s office.
The developer was not named in court documents, but law enforcement officials with knowledge of the matter identified him as Edul Ahmad, who pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud in 2012. The employee in the United States attorney’s office also was not named. Prosecutors said the person, identified by a law enforcement official as Sam Noel, had been fired after being found with a list of the witnesses’ names that Mr. Sampson had requested
The charges come after a procession of New York legislators, including several who have held top positions, have been charged with a variety of crimes. Speculation that Mr. Sampson would be next increased after the revelation last week that another legislator facing criminal charges, Shirley L. Huntley, a former Democratic state senator, had worked with prosecutors to secretly record conversations with Mr. Sampson. In one conversation, he helped arrange a meeting between Ms. Huntley and a businessman who intended to offer bribes in exchange for help securing lucrative contracts, according to court documents and law enforcement officials.
The United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Loretta E. Lynch, called the case “one of the most extreme examples of political hubris we have yet seen.”
Mr. Sampson, 47, surrendered to federal agents on Monday morning and was arraigned in Federal District Court in Brooklyn in the afternoon.
N.Y. TIMES
The Many Faces of State Political Scandals
Over the past seven years, 32 state officeholders have been convicted of a crime, censured or otherwise accused of wrongdoing, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group. The following [in the link above] are some of them: