CAUGHT IN ANNETTE We called Assemblywoman Annette Robinson's office with a simple question: Does (or did) her son work for Correctional Services Corporation, the scandal-plagued prison services firm that provided free, unreported transportation to Albany and back for Assemblyman Roger Green and other elected officials? If Robinson's son were never a CSC employee, you'd think she'd be eager to dispel the rumor. But she didn't call back. Hmmm. We do know Robinson's campaign received $2,000 last year from CSC, which turned to the State Assembly to keep government money flowing its way after Governor Pataki turned off the spigot in response to a previous scandal, when the company was called Esmor.

Among the legislators who lobbied on CSC's behalf were State Senator John Sampson, Assemblymen Vito Lopez, Joe Lentol, Felix Ortiz, Darryl Towns, Nick Perry, Clarence Norman, and Al Vann (now a councilman), as well as State Senator Marty Markowitz (now Brooklyn's borough president). They lobbied despite a 1995 federal report detailing abusive treatment of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers at a jail run by CSC.

As The New York Times reported, "Poorly paid, ill-trained guards physically and verbally abused detainees, shackling them with leg irons, roughing them up and waking them without reason in the middle of the night. Women were sometimes denied sanitary napkins. Detainees were restricted to one pair of clean underwear a week. Esmor employees lied and misled the immigration service about conditions, the report said."

Horrible, unsafe conditions were prevalent at other Esmor facilities in the early 1990s, the newspaper added. At one of its dungeons, the company would provide 30 meals to 100 inmates, and "whoever got there first got the food," a former employee said. At least a dozen inmates were returned to prison for flunking drug tests, a result not of drug use but of sloppy work by the dirt-cheap testing lab used by Esmor. The company was founded in 1989 by the two operators of the Brooklyn Arms, a notorious welfare hotel. The owners had no experience in running prisons or halfway houses, but they knew how to grease the wheels (if not the palms) of government. That led to about $25 million in state contracts over 10 years. They began by hiring Rep. Ed Towns's campaign manager, William Banks, to help win a federal contract to open a halfway house in Bed-Stuy despite community opposition. The company also hired two other Towns aides and gave the congressman's campaign $9,000 from 1991 to 1994.

The free rides, campaign contributions that surpassed legal limits, and favor-trading have caught the eye of law enforcement. Albany's district attorney has launched an investigation of whether Assemblyman Green and others were reimbursed by taxpayers for trips to Albany that were actually provided free by CSC. In the last three years, Green has received $11,274 for travel expenses. He got $109.50 for each round-trip drive from his Fort Greene/Prospect Heights district. He denied any wrongdoing in the lone newspaper interview he granted during the scandal's first three weeks, and ducked calls since. Speaking of ducking, Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes dropped his probe of CSC and Green after just a week, strengthening the impression of many folks (fair or not) that he treats fellow members of the Brooklyn Democratic machine with kid gloves. Hynes said he has no jurisdiction in the case, and was immediately excoriated by the Daily News editorial board ("Hynes fumbles the ball again," the headline read).

Incidentally, the conduit between CSC and the politicians was a fellow named Franklin Chris Jackson, the former president of the primary school board in Green's district. Jackson, who worked on Green's 1990 campaign and was also friendly with Ed Towns, was dismissed as a CSC vice president after being arrested on pornography charges in the Dominican Republic three years ago while on vacation. He apparently returned to New York, but hasn't been seen for weeks. Investigators are also looking into whether the company gave free cellular phones to lawmakers. The feds have reportedly already determined that CSC employees were compelled to work on the political campaigns of Green and others. The scandal could cost Green his chance at chairing the Assembly Education Committee, but that might be the least of his concerns.

SPITZER GRILLED IN BROOKLYN State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer may be the star of the Democratic Party in New York, but he couldn't escape a grilling from former Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats President Susan Loeb during a January 23 public appearance in downtown Brooklyn.

Spitzer didn't call on Loeb during a question-and-answer session, so she stopped him in the aisle on his way out and asked whether his office could investigate shady activities connected to the Brooklyn Democratic organization, such as the conduct of party-connected judges, unreported lobbying of Brooklyn politicians by a Florida-based prison services company, and the $230,000 that then-mayoral candidate Mark Green's campaign reportedly donated to either the county organization or county leader Clarence Norman's campaign committee. Spitzer said it wasn't in his office's jurisdiction. When Loeb persisted, Spitzer referred her to the state Legislature's ethics panel, which has never done anything since its creation, according to recent media reports.

Loeb suspects Spitzer is ducking the matter because his own election was made possible in part by support from Norman. "The big question is, Who's watching the store?" she told us. During her conversation with Spitzer, State Senator Marty Connor was standing behind him, glaring at Loeb. Afterward Connor insisted to her that the ethics commission had taken action, in secret.

DEWASTIN' AWAY AGAIN IN… Margaritaville was an unpleasant place for Democratic county leader Clarence Norman last fall, when he opposed the reelection of Civil Court Judge Margarita Lopez Torres only to see her win both the election and the public-relations battle that it spawned. Not only was Norman criticized for trying to kick an apparently qualified Latina judge off the bench, but damaging articles about the way Norman oversees the selection of Democratic Supreme Court nominees appeared in the Village Voice, New York Law Journal, and daily newspapers after Lopez Torres's bid for a promotion was ignored by Norman.

At one point, Norman's office claimed it didn't receive Lopez Torres's letter asking to be considered for the Supreme Court, so this year the judge took no chances. She sent her letter via regular mail, certified mail (return receipt requested), Fed Ex, fax, and carrier pigeon. Copies were also sent to Brooklyn's 42 Democratic district leaders, virtually ensuring that it would fall into our hands.

In her letter, Lopez Torres reminded Norman that last year his screening committee refused to interview her without a referral from Norman because "you seem to believe I committed an act of great disloyalty to the Democratic Party by allowing my name to be" included on an insurgent slate of judicial nominees organized by the late Assemblyman Tony Genovesi, Norman's longtime nemesis. "Yet, quixotically, another member of that same 1997 slate (with no judicial experience) was nonetheless selected as a Democratic Party nominee for Supreme Court this past year, and was also the County's candidate for Civil Court in 2001," Lopez Torres wrote.

Her reference was to Mark Partnow, who was sponsored by former Genovesi allies Lew Fidler and Bernie Catcher, an indication that Norman is no longer at war with southern Brooklyn Democratic leaders. Lopez Torres concluded her letter to Norman this way: "Despite our past differences, I would hope that judicial experience and independence can be the guiding principle in the selection process. I look forward to your prompt response." The letter was sent January 10. Norman has yet to reply.

FELDMAN SURVIVES Reports of Jeff Feldman's demise have been greatly exaggerated. While insiders had been reporting that his two-paycheck existence would end when one of his bosses, State Senator Marty Connor, lost his Senate Democratic leadership, it now appears Feldman will be retained by Connor's successor, State Senator David Paterson. Feldman's other gig is as executive director of the Brooklyn Democratic organization, where he answers to Assemblyman Clarence Norman, the county leader.

There is, of course, nothing illegal about working two jobs, assuming the time sheets accurately reflect the hours worked. But critics of the machine frequently whisper misgivings about Feldman's exploits, which probably doesn't bother him since one of his duties is to be a lightning rod for Norman, absorbing any bolts headed toward the county leader.

Feldman once sought public office himself, but now seems content to wallow in the nearly limitless morass of government patronage jobs. That is not to say he doesn't work hard-so far for Paterson he's performed such critical tasks as kicking Paterson aide Bill Batson (a Park Slope resident) out of the office he'd chosen at the minority leader's quarters. Feldman hasn't returned our calls for a while now, so this time we saved our dime.

COHN STILL WITH CONNOR We reported last week that new Senate Minority Leader David Paterson did not offer Brooklyn district leader Steve Cohn a position on his staff after wresting the leadership from Marty Connor. It turns out there was a good reason for that-Cohn wasn't on Connor's minority leader staff. Rather, he was on Connor's district office staff.

Also, dismissing speculation that the point of Cohn's employment was to secure state health benefits, Connor said Cohn probably doesn't get health benefits from the job, only reduced pension benefits. Cohn is an attorney for a private Court Street law firm. Connor's district office payroll was cut by two-thirds after he lost the leadership, but he was able to retain Cohn, albeit at a reduced salary. Connor said Cohn covers meetings and provides constituent services.

O'HARA'S DAY IN COURT The day that former Sunset Park political candidate John O'Hara has awaited for years has finally arrived. U.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson was scheduled to hear arguments on January 31 as O'Hara seeks to have his illegal voting felony conviction set aside.

We have reported the gory details of this case before, notably the hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of taxpayer dollars Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes spent to punish a man who, to the annoyance of Democratic officials, pursued a bizarre obsession with running for office in Sunset Park. O'Hara persisted for several years despite his 61st Street apartment being drawn out of the Sunset Park Assembly district, leading to the felony charges for false registration and five counts of illegal voting. O'Hara-who never came close to winning an election-ended up disbarred, nearly penniless, and picking up trash on Shore Road for 1,500 hours.

But Hynes didn't exactly ride off into the sunset, as the mainstream press and two dissenting Court of Appeals judges lambasted him for a politically motivated prosecution that hardly made Brooklyn a safer place to live. The latest salvo was fired by the Albany Times Union, which in a January 13 editorial called O'Hara's crime "innocuous," his conviction "an injustice," and said Judge Gleeson should set it aside "in the name of justice and in the interest of democracy."

MYSTERY CANDIDATE EMERGES Dozens of people were mentioned as possible candidates for the City Council seat vacated by Marty Golden, but one that never was ended up on the ballot for the February 25 special election: Danniel Maio. Maio is moving to the district on February 1, though he did live there briefly when he first came to New York as a Baruch student 12 years ago. (He has the parking tickets to prove it. "That's why I don't have a car any more," he told us with a chuckle.)

His candidacy came as a shock to Republican leaders, who had wanted Rosemarie O'Keefe to be the only GOP candidate. Showing no appreciation for Maio taking the Republican line as a sacrificial lamb against State Senator Tom Duane last fall and Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields in 2001, Golden's people asked him to withdraw from the race in Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, and Dyker Heights. So did the Manhattan Republican organization. But Maio refused. Instead, he formed his own team of six people and collected over 2,000 signatures to get on the ballot. It wasn't enough. Objections to his petitions were promptly filed by O'Keefe and former State Senator Vinny Gentile, another candidate.

The Board of Elections found only 807 signatures from registered voters in the district, well short of the 1,385 needed, so Maio was knocked off the ballot. If Maio had remained, he could have been a factor because he's Chinese (and speaks the language) in a district that's 15 to 20 percent Asian, by his estimate. Turnout will be low, particularly if the weather is bad on Election Day, so if Maio got the Asians to the polls they could have been overrepresented in the vote.

It was never likely, though. As Maio himself admitted, "The Asian communities are not well united and organized." On the plus side, he said, "What surprised me…was the enthusiasm the Asians have to help me out. They were shaking my hand and were chasing me down to sign my petition." He decided to run after being asked in December by Asian community leaders. "It would at least galvanize some of the Asians (to get involved) in the political process," Maio said of his candidacy.

Gentile's people, believing Maio would take more votes from Gentile than from Steve Harrison or O'Keefe, sifted through Maio's petitions and declared that only 204 of the 2,194 signatures were legible and from registered voters in the 43rd District, as required. Even counting unregistered signatories, Maio had just 1,296, which would be 89 short of the requirement, said Gentile campaign aide Elnatan Rudolph.

Maio was so upset at being challenged that he went to the houses of all three objectors to complain. One of them, Assemblyman Peter Abbate, was not home, so Maio slid a note under his door, Rudolph said. Another was so upset by the late-night visit that she nearly called the police.

Borough Politics Archive

2002
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2002
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2001
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2000
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1999
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