Black Democrat State Senator Taped 7 Elected Officials in Corruption Inquiry

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/nyregion/court-to-name-officials-
recorded-in-corruption-inquiry.html?_r=0

By THOMAS KAPLAN and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
ALBANY � Over three months last year, Shirley L. Huntley, a longtime
schools advocate then serving in the State Legislature, invited several of
her fellow Senate Democrats, as well as a Democratic New York City
councilman, to visit with her at her tomato-red Cape Cod-style house on a
residential street in Jamaica, Queens.

Mr. Huntley, now 74, said she had broken her ankle, and she often held
court in a small room in the back of her house, sitting on a couch,
surrounded by campaign supplies, often chain-smoking cigarettes or sipping
Zinfandel, while her white poodle waited upstairs, one visitor that summer
recalled.

Her guests, according to court papers, included some of the most prominent
elected officials in Queens and Brooklyn, and she recorded their
conversations.

Ms. Huntley had an agenda: She was under investigation for corruption and
hoped that cooperating with federal law enforcement would help her case.
Furthermore, according to her lawyer, she believed that some of her fellow
public officials were corrupt.

On Wednesday, over the objections of prosecutors, a federal judge unsealed
a list of the officials recorded by Ms. Huntley. The list, prepared by her
lawyer and included with a request for leniency filed in federal court,
includes two former leaders of the Senate Democratic caucus, as well as
candidates to become the borough presidents in Brooklyn and Queens. Ms.
Huntley�s lawyer said the guest list had been suggested �by the
government�s attorneys and F.B.I. agents,� but did not say whether the
guests themselves were suspected of corruption.

Prosecutors would not comment on the list, and it was impossible to tell
which of Ms. Huntley�s guests were suspected of crimes, and which might be
collateral damage in Ms. Huntley�s effort to ingratiate herself with law
enforcement or avenge her grievances. Two of those recorded by Ms. Huntley
� the former Senate Democratic leaders John L. Sampson of Brooklyn and
Malcolm A. Smith of Queens � have since been charged with corruption, but
none of the others have been charged, and the councilman who was recorded,
Ruben Wills of Queens, said his lawyer had received a letter from
prosecutors saying he was not a target.

In one court document, filed on Tuesday, prosecutors indicated that at
least six of seven elected officials recorded by Ms. Huntley were the
subjects of criminal investigations, but in another document, filed last
week, they said that Ms. Huntley had not been credible in talking about
her own conduct, and as a result they had decided not to enter into a
cooperation agreement with her.

But the release of the names was a stunning turn of events in a Capitol
already reeling from a series of arrests of officials in recent weeks that
followed years of scandal that brought down multiple lawmakers, a governor
and a comptroller. According to a running tally maintained by the New York
Public Interest Research Group, 32 current or former state officeholders
have been convicted, censured or otherwise accused of wrongdoing over the
past seven years.

There are multiple reminders of corruption in Albany � there are currently
four legislators attending hearings and casting votes while awaiting trial
for corruption, and an unknown number of others under investigation.
Anticipating further unpleasantness on Wednesday, many lawmakers left
Albany just ahead of the 2 p.m. unsealing of the document that named those
who had been recorded.

�This is an extremely trying time in Albany,� Mike Murphy, a spokesman for
the Senate Democrats, said as his conference tried to digest the news that
one of its members had recorded many of the others. �If any charges are
brought, the conference will take appropriate action.�

Ms. Huntley is one of two former lawmakers who have now acknowledged
recording conversations for federal law enforcement � Assemblyman Nelson
L. Castro, a Bronx Democrat, was making recordings for the United States
attorney in Manhattan a few months before Ms. Huntley did the same for the
United States attorney in Brooklyn.

Mr. Castro had been charged with perjury; Ms. Huntley was charged with
embezzlement. She made her recordings from June to August last year after
she was approached by the F.B.I., which confronted her with evidence of
her involvement in multiple criminal schemes; in January, she pleaded
guilty to embezzling taxpayer money from a nonprofit organization she was
running, and she is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday.

The two guests recorded by Ms. Huntley who are facing charges, Mr. Smith
and Mr. Sampson, were charged in separate cases. Mr. Smith was arrested
last month, accused in a scheme to buy a place on the ballot for mayor of
New York. Mr. Sampson was accused on Monday of stealing more than $400,000
from foreclosure cases that he was handling as a court-appointed referee.
It is not clear whether Ms. Huntley�s recordings played a role in charges
against either man.

Ms. Huntley recorded four other Democratic senators, including Eric Adams
of Brooklyn, Ruth Hassell-Thompson of Mount Vernon, Jos� Peralta of Queens
and Velmanette Montgomery of Brooklyn. Mr. Adams is a candidate this year
for Brooklyn borough president, and Mr. Peralta for Queens borough
president. Ms. Montgomery is the longest-serving Democrat in the Senate �
she has been in office since 1985.

Mr. Adams, a former New York police captain, issued a statement, saying,
�I have not been contacted about any investigation.�

He added, �I am more than willing to help with any investigation.�

Mr. Peralta issued a one-sentence statement that said, �I am confident
that the authorities will find, if they have not already done so, that I
have engaged in no wrongdoing whatsoever.�

Gerald L. Shargel, a lawyer for Mr. Smith, acknowledged that his client
had spoken with Ms. Huntley, but said there was nothing untoward in their
conversation.

�I know that Malcolm Smith spoke to Shirley Huntley during the summer of
2012, but I am confident that there wasn�t a word spoken about criminal
conduct,� he said.

Ms. Hassell-Thompson and Ms. Montgomery did not respond to requests for
comment, nor did a lawyer for Mr. Sampson.

Ms. Huntley also recorded two political operatives � Curtis Taylor, a
former spokesman for the Senate Democrats, and Melvin Lowe, who has worked
as a consultant for Mr. Sampson and the Senate Democrats. Mr. Lowe also
had a long-ago association with Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat who paid him
$75,000 for consulting on his unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2002;
Mr. Cuomo, who was elected governor in 2010, included Mr. Lowe among the
people he thanked in the acknowledgments of a book he published in 2003.

In court papers, Ms. Huntley�s lawyer, Sally Butler, described Mr. Lowe as
an associate of the state�s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, who
prosecuted Ms. Huntley in a corruption case in which she pleaded guilty in
February. A spokesman for Mr. Schneiderman, Damien LaVera, said the
reference appeared �to be an attempt at retaliation against Attorney
General Schneiderman, who has never hired Melvin Lowe or used his
services.�

--
Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.

Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.

Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.

Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptness.

Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 200% and leaves millions without health care.

Obama helped bankrupt Illinois. Democrat run Chicago closes 54 public
schools.

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