HARPER'S HITS HYNES A magazine article more than a year in the making has finally been published by Harper's Magazine, bringing the sordid prosecution of Brooklyn's felonious voter John O'Hara to a nationwide audience. What was the writer's take? Well, let's just say that Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, Assemblyman Jim Brennan, and his chief of staff John Keefe probably won't be giving Harper's subscriptions this holiday season.

Many of the details of O'Hara's case had been published before in local newspapers and the New York dailies. But the author of the Harper's piece, former Park Slope resident Christopher Ketcham, did uncover one odd piece of information that somehow never came out during the eight years O'Hara's case trudged through the legal system: In a narrow, technical sense at least, Hynes was inadvertently committing the very crime for which he prosecuted O'Hara.

O'Hara was convicted of voting from an address other than his primary residence. Yes, that's a crime, even though it's done routinely by thousands of New Yorkers. He was also convicted of registering at a false address, which Harper's suggested Hynes had done as well. It happened when Hynes was in between residences. He was moving from 317 East 17th Street in Flatbush to a co-op in Bay Ridge. A buff card on file at the Board of Elections reveals that on May 7, 1996, Hynes's registration changed to 210 Joralemon Street. That's the Brooklyn Municipal Building, Hynes's office at the time. It is not a legal residence.

One month later, Hynes launched his investigation of O'Hara, who'd registered to vote from his girlfriend's address in Sunset Park, 14 blocks away from his longtime apartment. On October 21, 1996, O'Hara was indicted. Eight days later, Hynes's voting address was changed to his new Bay Ridge co-op.

So during the entire period Hynes was investigating and indicting O'Hara, he was allegedly not in compliance with the same law. Hynes's spokesman told us that Hynes's registration was changed without his knowledge. The D.A., while waiting to close on his Bay Ridge property, filed a change of address form with the Postal Service so that his Flatbush-bound mail would go to his office. By law, the Postal Service notified the Board of Elections, who changed Hynes's voter registration by photocopying his signature from a previous buff card. Our guess is the same thing happened when Hynes filed another change of address form upon moving into his new apartment.

We should note that unlike O'Hara, who was convicted both for registering and for voting from the wrong address, Hynes did not actually vote while registered at the Brooklyn Municipal Building, even though there was a Democratic primary during that time. The bigger question is, Why did he spend eight years and probably over $1 million to nail O'Hara? Why did he assign a highly paid top prosecutor, who usually handles murders and other serious crimes, to O'Hara's case from beginning to end?

O'Hara is convinced he was prosecuted on Assemblyman Brennan's request. Brennan had come to despise O'Hara, who ran frequently for elected office in Sunset Park, annoying the political establishment in the process. By the mid 1990s, though, O'Hara's vote totals had shriveled and he had long ceased to be a viable candidate. He was an Irish guy running in heavily Latino Sunset Park. We can think of only one reason Brennan would have asked that O'Hara be punished: because he could.

The Harper's article suggests that Brennan was corrupted by machine politics, even though he's long portrayed himself as an opponent of it. "As so often happens, Brennan's reform soon became a machine of its own," Ketcham wrote.

The animosity between Brennan and O'Hara came to a head on September 10, 1996, the date of the Democratic primary. O'Hara was once again a hopeless candidate for the Assembly and his girlfriend was handing out campaign fliers when she had a run-in with Keefe, Brennan's top aide. "According to O'Hara's girlfriend, it was Brennan himself who piloted the car in which Keefe fled after tearing up her posters and knocking her to the ground," the article said.

Harper's reported that Keefe was charged with assault and sex abuse in the third degree but was a no-show at court hearings. While the case was adjourned for a year, the primary witness moved to Florida. Keefe then pleaded to a minor harassment charge, according to the magazine.

Keefe told us a very different story, which wasn't reported by Ketcham because Keefe and Brennan refused to speak with him. "I tore an O'Hara poster on election day in 1996. I did not assault O'Hara's girlfriend, never knocked her to the ground and never missed any court hearings," Keefe wrote in a faxed statement. "This matter was extensively litigated in a civil suit that contained eyewitness testimony, depositions by police officers, and an admission by [O'Hara's girlfriend] that her initial, sworn police complaint contained false information. When the arbitrator ruled against [her], she declined to continue further legal action." One thing is certain: O'Hara's fate was far worse than Keefe's. O'Hara refused to plead down to a misdemeanor and mocked prosecutors in court. A game of chicken between two proud and stubborn Irishmen ensued, and after three trials, O'Hara was convicted of seven crimes for filing a false registration form and voting five times thereafter.

As a felon, O'Hara was stripped of the law license he'd earned by driving a taxi at night to pay for law school and by passing the bar exam on his sixth try. He was also fined $20,000 and sentenced to 1,500 hours of community service, which he's been serving by cleaning garbage and public toilets along Shore Road.

O'Hara achieved a measure of revenge by appealing the case 10 times and attracting media attention, resulting in bad press for Hynes in a host of newspapers and now a national magazine. "It's hard to believe that a local story spun out into what it did," O'Hara said.

But does it matter? "I think it does. This is Harper's. A quarter of a million people read Harper's. They basically portray Hynes to be the epitome of corruption," O'Hara said. "I think this will have a tremendous impact," he added. "But it's not the type of thing that happens overnight." Brennan's spokeswoman had not seen the article and could not respond to it. Hynes's spokesman, when asked for further comment, said he hadn't yet read the entire article.

MISTRIAL FOR HYNES FOE A mistrial was declared November 8 in the case against former Brooklyn district attorney candidate Sandra Roper when the jury deadlocked. According to a Roper supporter, eight jurors judged Roper not guilty, three had her guilty, and one was undecided. Roper is due back in court on December 1 and will likely be tried again by the special prosecutor, since the prosecutor is being paid by the hour. Er, we mean, she'll be tried again in the interests of justice.

Mary Lee Ward, a client of Roper, accused the attorney of ripping her off. Roper claims Ward accused three other attorneys of ripping her off as well, but that Roper alone was prosecuted as retribution for running against D.A. Joe Hynes in 2001. Hynes has said he turned all four cases over to the same special prosecutor, Maranda Fritz. But a Roper supporter told us only the prosecution of Roper was authorized, and that the other three cases were included for informational purposes only. The bar association's grievance committee investigated Ward's complaint against Roper and found it without merit, according to Roper.

Even though Hynes is not handling the prosecution, Roper supporters still blame him for referring the case (which they say has no merit) to a special prosecutor. They note that Hynes has a history of using his position to punish his political enemies, such as John O'Hara, the only person prosecuted for illegal voting since Susan B. Anthony, and John Phillips, a former judge whose assets were frozen after he announced he would run against Hynes.

Hynes has said Phillips was suffering from dementia when Hynes's office investigated whether Phillips might have been victimized by a con game. Hynes's office did participate in Phillips's mental competency hearing, but it was not his office that put Phillips's assets in the control of a guardian, Hynes told the New York Post in February.

GENTILE PRAISED BY GAY LEADER One of the more complimentary commentaries on Councilman Vinny Gentile after a male staffer complained of sexual harassment by Gentile came from Democratic district leader Alan Fleishman, former president of the gay political club Lambda Independent Democrats. Fleishman's kind words (quoted below) were a surprise, because in December 2002, Fleishman had harshly criticized Gentile for voting in the State Senate against SONDA, a bill prohibiting discrimination against gays. It was widely assumed that Gentile cast the vote to help him win the City Council seat he now holds in a conservative Bay Ridge-based district, but he was nonetheless condemned by gays. (Gentile won by a scant 31 votes over Republican Rosemarie O'Keefe.)

Yet after the latest controversy, Fleishman, of Park Slope, told Gay City News, "I feel for him. I really do. A lot of folks in the media are trying to get gay activists to knock him today over the SONDA vote. I think he did a pretty good job of redeeming himself on the Equal Benefits Bill. He did it without a lot of fanfare and without looking for credit."

May we be cynical for a moment? We may? Thanks. Is it possible Gentile didn't publicize his support for the Equal Benefits Bill, which forces city contractors to offer the same benefits to their employees' domestic partners as to their employees' spouses, because the bill wasn't popular in his district? It seems likely that political pragmatism, not modesty, kept Gentile from marching through Bay Ridge with a banner proclaiming, "I support gay rights!"

Fleishman also told Gay City News, "[Gentile's] victory [in the City Council race] bears him out on the politics-because he got a good vote in the Orthodox community, and he would not have if he had voted for SONDA. And he would not have come in first without the Orthodox support."

That wasn't how Fleishman felt in December 2002. We looked back through our archives to see how Fleishman reacted after Gentile voted against SONDA. Referring to Gentile and State Senator Seymour Lachman, Fleishman said angrily, "Seymour and Vinny have had a long dance on this issue and have come down on the wrong side of it."

He then likened Gentile to Senator Trent Lott, who at the time was in hot water for implying he favored racial segregation. "The whole thing with Gentile really pains me because I was out there for him in Bay Ridge when he first ran there and won," Fleishman went on to say. "I really feel betrayed by him. You don't take an endorsement from a club and have people work for you and accept all kinds of help and then flip your position on them because you want to think about your own future and run for City Council. It's not right."

But now Fleishman's position seems to be that it is right, so long as you defeat a Republican in your next race and then support gay-rights bills that the Republican wouldn't have.

TIDBITS Borough President Marty Markowitz's disgruntled former driver trashed the beep in the press, telling the New York Post that Markowitz is a frequent wine drinker, uses lights and sirens to get through traffic faster, and in 18 months never called to see how his ex-driver was doing after the chauffeur tore up his knee while on the job. Mario Nicholas added that Markowitz's wife would visit him at lunch and ask to be driven back to her job three block away. What the Post didn't report was that some folks at Borough Hall are suspicious about Nicholas's history of "work-related" injuries…

The New York Post reported that Rep. Anthony Weiner attended a November 4 fundraiser for Assemblyman Clarence Norman's legal defense fund…

Former City Council candidate Geoffrey Davis was scheduled to speak on November 15 in the very City Hall chambers in which his brother, Councilman James Davis, was assassinated on July 23, 2003. The younger Davis, who runs the Stop the Violence Foundation started by his brother, is supporting the Gun Industry Responsibility Act introduced by Councilman David Yassky. Davis acknowledged that his first run for office was "disastrous" (he had the Democratic nomination but lost to Working Families Party candidate Tish James), but said he's keeping his promise to the 3,000 who voted for him by doing community work. His foundation has launched GED, job development, homework help, and family support programs, Davis reported…

Independence Party candidate Larry Littlefield, who handed out 18,200 flyers in a bid to get more than the usual number of votes cast on the Independence line, reflects on his loss to Assemblyman Jim Brennan: "It appears that the skeptics were right-I received about the 1,000 votes I was told I would get. So, I'm disappointed. This indicates that most people didn't really read the flyer, let alone the website, and voted the party line. The people who know me or know of me personally and who I spoke to at length alone could add up to my vote total." On the bright side, he got as many votes, 956, as Conservative Party candidate Susan Cleary. Two years ago, 360 votes were cast on the Conservative line and just 202 on the Independence line.

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

Borough Politics Archive

2004
November 15 column.
November 8 column.
November 1 column.
October 25 column.
October 18 column.
October 11 column.
October 4 column.
September 27 column.
September 20 column.
September 13 column.
September 6 column.
August 30 column.
August 23 column.
August 16 column.
August 9 column.
August 2 column.
July 26 column.
July 19 column.
July 12 column.
July 5 column.
June 28 column.
June 21 column.
June 14 column.
June 7 column.
May 31 column.
May 24 column.
May 17 column.
May 10 column.
May 3 column.
April 26 column.
April 19 column.
April 12 column.
April 5 column.
March 29 column.
March 22 column.
March 15 column.
March 8 column.
March 1 column.
February 23 column.
February 16 column.
February 9 column.
February 2 column.
January 26 column.
January 19 column.
January 12 column.
January 5 column.

2003
December 29 column.
December 22 column.
December 15 column.
December 8 column.
December 1 column.
November 24 column.
November 17 column.
November 10 column.
November 3 column.
October 27 column.
October 20 column.
October 13 column.
October 6 column.
September 29 column.
September 22 column.
September 15 column.
September 8 column.
September 1 column.
August 25 column.
August 18 column.
August 18 column.
August 11 column.
August 4 column.
July 21 column.
July 14 column.
July 7 column.
June 30 column.
June 23 column.
June 16 column.
June 9 column.
June 2 column.
May 26 column.
May 19 column.
May 12 column.
May 5 column.
April 28 column.
April 21 column.
April 14 column.
April 7 column.
March 31 column.
March 24 column.
March 10 column.
March 3 column.
February 24 column.
February 17 column.
February 10 column.
February 3 column.
January 27 column.
January 20 column.
January 13 column.
January 6 column.

2002
December 30 column.
December 23 column.
December 16 column.
December 9 column.
December 2 column.
Novemer 25 column.
Novemer 18 column.
November 11 column.
November 4 column.
October 28 column.
October 21 column.
October 14 column.
October 7 column.
September 30 column.
September 23 column.
September 16 column.
September 9 column.
September 2 column.
August 26 column.
August 19 column.
August 12 column.
August 5 column.
July 29 column.
July 22 column.
July 8 column.
July 1 column.
June 17 column.
June 10 column.
June 3 column.
May 27 column.
May 20 column.
May 13 column.
May 6 column.
April 29 column.
April 22 column.
April 15 column.
April 8 column.
April 1 column.
March 25 column.
March 18 column.
March 11 column.
March 4 column.
February 25 column.
February 18 column.
February 11 column.
February 4 column.
January 28 column.
January 21 column.
January 7 column.

2001
December 10 column.
December 3 column.
November 19 column.
November 12 column.
November 5 column.
October 22 column.
October 1 column.
September 6 column.
September 4 column.
August 30 column.
July 23 column.
July 2 column.
June 25 column.
June 11 column.
May 28 column.
May 21 column.
May 14 column.
May 7 column.
April 30 column.
April 23 column.
April 9 column.
April 2 column.
March 26 column.
March 19 column.
March 12 column.
March 5 column.
February 26 column.
February 19 column.
February 12 column.
February 5 column.
January 29 column.
January 22 column.
January 15 column.
January 8 column.
January 1 column.

2000
December 25 column.
December 18 column.
December 11 column.
December 4 column.
November 27 column.
November 20 column.
November 13 column.
November 6 column.
October 30 column.
October 23 column.
October 16 column.
October 9 column.
October 2 column.
September 25 column.
September 18 column.
September 11 column.
September 4 column.
August 28 column.
August 21 column.
August 7 column.
July 31 column.
July 24 column.
July 17 column.
July 10 column.
June 26 column.
June 19 column.
June 12 column.
May 15 column.
May 8 column.
April 24 column.
April 10 column.
March 13 column.
March 7 column.
February 21 column.
February 14 column.
February 7 column.
January 31 column.
January 24 column.
January 17 column.

1999
December 16 column.
December 9 column.
December 2 column.
November 25 column.
November 18 column.
November 11 column.
November 4 column.