Showing posts with label Dan Halloran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dan Halloran. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Corruption of New York City Council slush funds leads to another guilty verdict, this time for Ex-Councilmember Dan Halloran

PUBLISHED : TUES, 29 JUL 2014, 09:36 PM
UPDATED : MON, 04 AUG 2014, 11:05 AM

Amongst the charges for which former Councilmember Halloran was found guilty was plotting to funnel $80,000 in City Council slush funds as bribes to others

Melissa Mark-Viverito photo melissa-mark-viverito-speaker600_zps9c5db6f9.jpg

Controversy over City Council slush funds continue under the new Council speaker, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito

Former New York City Councilmember Daniel Halloran was found guilty today by a jury, concluding a federal trial for corruption charges stemming from his arrest for participating in a scheme to buy the GOP ballot line for State Sen. Malcom Smith, a wannabe mayoral candidate in last year's municipal elections.

Former Councilmember Halloran's accepted money in what was described as a bribe for his role in the corruption scheme. In exchange, he had pledged, in part, to use $80,000 in City Council slush funds for further bribes in this corruption scheme. Former Councilmember Halloran had planned to funnel the $80,000 from the monies awarded to him by the City Council speaker, who, at her discretion, awards member items to Councilmembers for further payment to various nonprofit groups. The practice of distributing member items from the speaker's discretionary fund has been a historical source of corruption in the City Council. Government reform activists also see the use of these slush funds as ways to keep community groups locked up in proverbial "veal pens," preventing, for example, some community groups, such as VOCAL-New York, from pressing for a complete overhaul to end corruption at the New York Police Department.

Previously, three Councilmembers : Larry Seabrook, Hiram Monserrate, and Miguel Martinez, and two former council staffers of then Councilman Kendall Stewart : Asquith Reid and Joycinth Anderson, have been charged in connection with corruption related to the slush fund scandal.

After former Councilmember Halloran's arrest, his slice of the slush funds came under review by former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who was once the target of a federal investigation into her own, larger slush fund scandal. After the outcome of last year's municipal elections, former Speaker Quinn was succeeded by Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito as speaker. Speaker Mark-Viverito had promised to reform the politically-corrupt process of doling out the Council's slush funds. However, this year, Speaker Mark-Viverito sparked controversy when she was caught allocating millions of dollars in slush funds to a charity group founded by one of her key campaign consultants. This year's allocation of slush funds were further complicated when Councilmember Ruben Wills was arrested on unrelated corruption charges. Councilmember Wills' cut of this year's slush funds were reportedly to be divided up amongst groups in his Council district at the direction of Speaker Mark-Viverito's office and other Councilmembers of the Queens delegation, Capital New York reported.

As the U.S. Attorney for New York's southern district, Preet Bharara, continues his campaign to prosecute government corruption cases, former Councilmember Halloran's conviction shows voters that federal prosecutors know where to keep looking : at the role that the Council's slush funds plays in elected officials' machinations to "sell out their offices."

How many more Councilmembers and their staff must be ensnared in corruption cases by federal prosecutors before the Council's slush funds are either reformed with true integrity or ended entirely ?

RELATED


Former Councilmmember Dan Halloran Found Guilty in Corruption Case (The New York Observer)

Another campaign consultant tied to Council Speaker Mark-Viverito in still yet another controversy (NYC : News & Analysis)

Quinn in the Slush (New York Magazine)

Lulu heroes and zeroes : End the City Council’s legal bribery (The New York Daily News)

City Council members can’t prove they donated bonuses to charities (The New York Post)

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Schneiderman Scrambling To Arrest Corrupted Officials Before Federal Prosecutor Hands Down Embarrassing Grand Jury Indictments [UPDATED]

PUBLISHED : WED, 07 MAY 2014, 05:54 PM
UPDATED : SUN, 11 MAY 2014, 06:00 AM

Shirley Huntley Ruben Wills Christine Quinn Corruption photo Ruben-Wills-Christine-Quinn-Shirley-Huntley_zps3d97d1d8.png

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Finally Gets Around To Arresting Councilmember Ruben Wills On Investigation That Is Over Two Years Old

With federal prosecutors hot on a corruption crackdown across New York state, the state's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, today arrested New York City Councilmember Ruben Wills on a charge of misusing some of the proceeds of a $33,000 state grant to New York 4 Life, a charity the councilmember managed.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schniederman and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara photo Eric-Schneiderman-Preet-Bharara_zpsc8b4f9e3.jpg

The $33,000 grant to Councilmember Wills' charity was sponsored by former New York State Sen. Shirley Huntley in 2008. Two years ago, Councilmember Wills' charity refused to fully comply with a subpoena issued by the state's top prosecutor's office, forcing state prosecutors to file a court motion to compel the charity to comply. After that, the state's case went dormant. During this time, Gov. Andrew Cuomo formed an anti-corruption panel to great fanfare, but the governor ditched the panel as soon as it appeared that the panel would investigate the governor's own questionable political supporters. Recently, the outrage by good government groups and government reform activists reached such a fevered pitch at the government's inept prosecution of corruption that the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, took over the corruption investigations of the now-defunct anti-corruption panel, known as a Moreland Commission. In the time since the feds took over, Mr. Bharara has empaneled a grand jury, obtaining subpoenas for corruption records. As government reform activists await possible grand jury indictments, all of a sudden the state's attorney general has begun to look busy. One fruit from Mr. Schneiderman's scurrying efforts was today's arrest of Councilmember Wills.

But Councilmember Wills' corruption arrest is complicated by many factors. One of the publicly-elected officials, who State Sen. Shirley Huntley was asked to wiretap and photograph as part of an undercover FBI sting operation on political corruption, was Councilmember Wills, according to Politicker. Prior to that, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn endorsed Councilmember Wills for re-election one day after he had appeared in court to face a misdemeanor stealing charge. Councilmember Wills earned his incumbency on the City Council in a special election in southeast Queens in 2010 to succeed Thomas White, who died in August in 2010, and Councilmember Wills was re-elected in 2011 to continue to serve the remainder of White’s four-year term. Councilmember Wills later appeared in court in March 2011 on charges in connection with a 1996 incident. He was accused of damaging a wall and removing a fan and track lighting at a downtown business.

After Councilmember Wills' March 2011 court appearance, Speaker Quinn defended Councilmember Wills. "I'm extraordinarily proud of my City Council and proud of the members that I get to serve with every day on behalf of the people of the City of New York," she told The New York Daily News at the time.

In spite of Councilmember Wills' troubles, Speaker Quinn had awarded Councilmember Wills $584,000 in discretionary funding in the city's 2012 budget.

That Councilmember Wills is being singled out in the attorney general's sudden efforts to catch up with the state's long backlog of corruption investigations is troublesome. As has been noted by others, it can sometimes appear that state and federal prosecutors seem to obsess with the petty crimes of minority politicians, which conveniently allows larger corruption scandals to go uninvestigated and unprosecuted. It doesn't help when the media portrays the political corruption problem as only being isolated to Queens, for example. Corruption is a bigger problem, and the bigger corruption scandals rarely receive the kind of scrutiny as petty crimes. Councilmember Wills was arrested for allegedly misusing the proceeds of a $33,000 state grant. Former Sen. Huntley is serving a one-year prison sentence in connection with the misuse of $80,000 in tax payer money. Meanwhile, there's still no update on whatever happened to the corruption probe into how Aqueduct Entertainment Group landed a multibillion-dollar casino contract. But in that AEG probe, two more black leaders, State Sens. John Sampson and Malcolm Smith, appear to be targets. Each of Sens. Sampson and Smith are also being investigated in connection with still yet other corruption charges. Another possible corruption scandal in Queens, a questionable $20 million construction project by the Queens Public Library, will probably drag on for years before any indictments or arrests are made. State Sen. Jose Peralta, another minority leader from Queens, is the subject of a possible corruption investigation that is almost five years old involving over $500,000 in taxpayer money that was funneled to Corona-Elmhurst Center for Economic Development, a dormant non-profit organization. No arrest or indictment has yet to be made in connection with state Sen. Peralta's non-profit. Moreover, there's also been no update into an alleged investigation into the awarding in January 2010 of a $50 million voting machine contract to Election Systems & Software by New York City election officials. The new voting machines turned out to be an embarrassment to city officials, when it was revealed that the new machines would be unable to timely tally votes for the primary and general elections, even though they are "electronic" machines, forcing New York City elections officials to drag out clunky voting booths that work with levers, pulleys, and wheels in the last mayoral primary election. Even after the $2 billion fiasco that is the ECTP 911 emergency call EMS system that keeps crashing over and over -- and over again -- there's still no investigation into cost over-runs, failures, or other possible wrong-doing. Also pending is the outcome of the city's investigation into the corrupt campaign spending by Super PAC's administered by one lobbying firm, The Advance Group. And all there is, is silence about the other corrupt Super PAC's from last year's municipal elections.

While the attorney general follows up on the missing $33,000 that Councilmember Wills cannot fully explain, there are millions and billions of taxpayer dollars in outstanding corruption investigations, and allegations that may call into question the integrity of our entire election system, that appear to be going cold. This pile-up of corruption cases proves that city and state prosecutors are inept at fully investigating political corruption. Instead, state and local prosecutors just looked the other way, and the incidence of corruption just kept piling on up until nothing less than a dedicated Moreland Commission would be needed to flush all this corruption out of the system. But since Gov. Cuomo scuttled the Moreland Commission, now the task of prosecuting all this corruption lands on the laps of the U.S Attorney's Office. Indeed, federal prosecutors received the files of about two dozen possible investigations from the now-defunct Moreland Commission that city and state investigators never got around to worrying about before now. When the governor first formed the Moreland Commission, the press never asked why lazy city and state prosecutors had allowed corruption to grow to become a stage 4 cancer on our government. Once the feds excise this cancer of corruption from our body of government, will we have enough good officials left to right this ship ? After all this is over, one of the first things voters should demand is for the elected officials to determine why did the state's attorney general and all of the district attorneys let corruption become so out-of-control in New York in the first place. Prosecutors should also determine the legality of allowing government officials to subvert the conduct of the public's business by elected officials, who use private e-mail services to hide the government's official work from the reach of sunshine laws, a tactic embraced by Gov. Cuomo. The shady use of private e-mail accounts to subvert the reach of freedom of information laws or the discovery process of litigation is a practise typical on Wall Street and their big money law firms. Now, Gov. Cuomo has apparently rolled out this shadowy machination to New York state government. Gov. Cuomo's pattern of political subterfuge may have contributed to the failure of the Moreland Commission to refer any criminal case for prosecution before its disbanding, and the appearance of sabotage is said to be being the focus of federal prosecutors. Government reform activists privately hope that Gov. Cuomo's interference with the doomed Moreland Commission can meet the legal definition of obstruction of justice, opening the door to a political pressure point to force government reforms, if not at least to give federal prosecutors additional evidence to hand down indictments against more crooked politicians, who are responsible for enabling political corruption in New York state government.

Andrew Cuomo photo andrew-cuomo-smiles-jpg-alg_zps9d0cdc97.jpg

In the meantime, Speaker Quinn's successor, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito has indicated that she will not allow Councilmember Wills to decide the fate of his slice of this year's City Council slush funds. Instead, her office will decide where his allocation of the discretionary funding will go, in consultation with the chair of the Queens Councilmembers' delegation. At all costs, the Council Speaker's office is intent on keeping its councilmember slush fund. Even though many officials have been charged with fraud in connection with the misuse of the City Council's discretionary funds, the corrupted elected officials are too addicted to the power that comes from doling out these grants.

Last year, former Council Speaker Quinn approved the disbursement of $3.2 million in member items requested by Councilmember Dan Halloran, even though the councilmember had been charged in a conspiracy and bribery scheme relating to his member items. In the criminal complaint against him, Councilmember Halloran suggested to an undercover FBI agent that Councilmember Halloran could increase the size of the discretionary funds he was using as a bribe by calling in favours from other councilmembers. For all the corruption that the City Council did to hide the speaker's multimillion-dollar slush fund, former Speaker Quinn herself was never prosecuted.

With millions and billions in taxpayer dollars at stake in uninvestigated political corruption, law enforcement under the de Blasio administration continues to focus on NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton's obsession with his "broken windows theory" of policing. Instead of focusing on the "criminal networks" of political corruption and corporate corruption, law enforcement instead over-police the poor and people of color, targeting them, amongst other places, on public transportation systems of subways and buses, a regressive move that may violate the Civil Rights Act.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Quinn Approves Halloran's City Council Member Items Following His Arrest For Member Item Bribe Attempt

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn approved the disbursement of $3.2 million in member items requested by Councilmember Dan Halloran, even though the Councilmember was charged in a conspiracy and bribery scheme only three months ago relating to his member items. In the criminal complaint against him, Councilmember Halloran suggested to an undercover FBI agent that Mr. Halloran could increase the size of the discretionary funds he was using as a bribe by calling in favours from other councilmembers. ("Halloran's participatory budgeting projects will be funded" * Queens Crap)

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Sheldon Silver Ambushed On Corruption By Suzannah B. Troy

One day after New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver defended his speakership from the spectacular corruption scandal arrests of last week, the blogger and artist Suzannah B. Troy confronted the Assembly Speaker on Centre Street in Manhattan.

Ms. Troy asked Speaker Silver for comment about the corruption up in Albany. When Speaker Silver said nothing, Ms. Troy asked Speaker Silver, "Are you part of the corruption ?"

Friday, April 5, 2013

Suzannah B. Troy "Leave Britney Alone!" Christine Quinn Parody

Mayor Bloomberg-Christine Quinn-Britney Spears "Stop Picking On Me" parody!

After Mayor Michael Bloomberg begged for people to "Leave Christine Alone !", the blogger-activist-artist Suzannah B. Troy has produced a hilarious parody YouTube video based on Chris Rocker's "Leave Britney Alone !" video.

Suzannah B. Troy dressed up in drag, first as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and then as New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. In a hilarious send-up of the "Leave Britney Alone !" video, Ms. Troy weeps and whines the way that Mr. Rocker did, only the subjects of Ms. Troy's complaints have to do with serious public issues, like the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the massive fraud in connection with the doomed CityTime project.

From The New York Post :

The mayor yesterday launched an impassioned defense of his longtime ally and suggested she was getting unfairly pounded for a corruption scandal involving another member of the council.

“I’ve always said that I think Speaker Quinn, who is getting criticized for this, is a person of enormous integrity, and I think she has done an excellent job of running the city,” Bloomberg declared.

“It’s not an easy job, and I think she’d done it well.”

Mayor Bloomberg was angry at critics of Speaker Quinn, like Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who has called for the elimination of Speaker Quinn's slush fund after Queens Republican Councilmember Daniel Halloran was arrested in bribery and corruption charges in connection to Speaker Quinn's slush fund.

Related : Read Chapter 1 of ''Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn'' on Scribd.