Schenectady Cop's wife suspended from practicing law
Not
She admits insurance fraud, cites pressure from husband Barnett
By WILLIAM F. HAMMOND Jr.
Gazette Reporter
ALBANY - The wife of a former Schenectady police officer at the center
of
the department's corruption scandal has been suspended from practicing
law
for one year after admitting to insurance fraud, officials announced
on
Monday.
Lara Andrew, a former Schenectady County prosecutor who is married to
Richard Barnett, faced possible disbarment for lying to the couple's
insurance company about a boating accident on the Mohawk River in the
summer
of 2000.
The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court imposed the lesser
penalty of
a one-year suspension after Andrew explained that she had acted under
pressure from her husband, and described how his legal troubles had
already
damaged her career and her health.
"I do not offer this background information as an excuse to the
conduct in
question, but rather to show that this conduct was an aberration on my
part
that I truly and deeply regret," Andrew wrote in an affidavit to the
court.
Attempts to contact Andrew and her lawyer, William Dreyer, were
unsuccessful
Monday.
The fraud attempt was unrelated to Barnett's job with the Schenectady
Police
Department, but played an important role in the corruption
investigation:
Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office used the incident as
leverage
against Barnett, threatening to press criminal fraud charges against
Andrew
unless he cooperated with them, according to people acquainted with
the
couple.
On Sept. 18, 2000 - less than two months after the original boating
accident - Barnett pleaded guilty to extortion and drug distribution
charges.
He was the first Schenectady officer to publicly admit wrongdoing in
the
scandal.
Ironically, the couple had purchased the 20-foot motor boat a few
months
earlier "to help us get away from pressure," Andrew said her
affidavit.
Andrew, a 32-year-old graduate of Union College and Albany Law School,
said
she met and became engaged to Barnett while she was an assistant
district
attorney - before he learned he was the subject of an FBI
investigation.
When news of the probe broke in August 1999, Andrew said she felt
pressure
to leave the district attorney's office, but struggled to find a job
because
of the negative publicity. She said she had trouble sleeping, lost 27
pounds
and went on medication for depression.
She was hired by Gov. George Pataki's appointments office in February
2000,
but said she understood she would have to leave if her husband were
indicted.
According to court papers:
The two were motoring on the Mohawk River near Freeman's Bridge on
Sunday,
July 23, when they hit something in the water. The boat sustained
about
$2,400 worth of damage, and the couple's insurance did not include
collision
coverage.
Andrew called her agent to buy the additional coverage the next day,
then
waited another week to report the accident, claiming it had happened
after
she had upgraded the policy.
A claims adjuster with Progressive Insurance Co. became suspicious
when he
inspected the boat at a marina shortly after the accident supposedly
took
place, and noticed that the grass under the trailer was 1½ feet tall.
A
marina employee told him the boat had been sitting there more than a
week.
Andrew initially stuck by her story in a tape-recorded interview with
an
insurance company investigator, but then contacted the company to
withdraw
the claim three days later - Aug. 4, 2000.
Progressive reported the incident to state officials, and Andrew was
put on
administrative leave Aug. 14 - four days after her husband was
indicted. She
resigned from the governor's office Sept. 7, and her husband pleaded
guilty
to felony charges Sept. 18.
In her affidavit, Andrew said she reluctantly agreed to the fraud
scheme
under "persistent" pressure from her husband.
"I am fully aware that I should have been able to resist my husband's
requests concerning the false claim and that it is not acceptable to
make a
false claim for any purpose, even at the behest of a close family
member,"
she wrote in her affidavit. "I represent to this court that such
conduct
will never reoccur and that I have learned a great lesson from this
entire
matter."
Andrew said in the affidavit that her practice of law has been "very
limited" since leaving the governor's office, and that her "major
livelihood" comes from a Rotterdam Junction restaurant she purchased
in
January.