Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Dean Skelos, the legislator responsible for doubling registration time for NY's level 1 registrants, gets 5 Years in Prison for Corruption

This is the guy who first championed the doubling of the registration of Level 1 registrants in NY state from 10 years to 20 years. He's not alone in the corruption scandal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/nyregion/dean-skelos-is-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-in-corruption-case.html

Dean Skelos Is Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison in Corruption Case
By BENJAMIN WEISER and VIVIAN YEEMAY 12, 2016

Dean G. Skelos, the once powerful Republican majority leader of the New York State Senate who was convicted with his son in December on federal corruption charges, was sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison.

The sentencing of Mr. Skelos was the second instance in 10 days in which a former senior New York lawmaker was sent to prison for abusing his office. It concluded an extraordinary chapter during which two trials, held a block apart at almost the same time last year, exposed a culture of kickbacks, secret deals and nepotism in the State Capitol in Albany.

But while the crimes and the 12-year prison term of Sheldon Silver, the former Democratic speaker of the State Assembly, exceeded those of Mr. Skelos and his son, Adam B. Skelos, the Skeloses’ trial stood out for the gritty, unvarnished look it offered of the personal and political dealings of a family immersed in Albany’s back channels.

The evidence against the Skeloses, who were convicted of bribery, extortion and conspiracy, laid bare schemes that were remarkable for both their brazenness and their familial motivation: The father seemed willing to do anything for his son.

Before he was sentenced, Dean Skelos asked the judge in the case, Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court in Manhattan, to show mercy to his son. “Somehow I let things go off the rails, and for that I apologize to Adam,” Mr. Skelos said. “I love Adam and pray that we have better days together.” Adam Skelos was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

The former senator also expressed remorse for his actions. “Somewhere along the way,” he said, “my judgment became clouded.”

The sentencings of Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver made them the latest in an almost unending parade of disgraced New York lawmakers — elected officials tempted by greed and brought down by prosecutors, most notably Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.

Mr. Bharara, whose office is one of several agencies investigating possible wrongdoing connected to the administrations of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, released a statement on Thursday that took a barely veiled swipe at Mr. Cuomo’s decision in 2014 to disband an anticorruption panel, the Moreland Commission, less than a year after he impaneled it.

The cases involving Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver, Mr. Bharara said, “show — and history teaches — that the most effective corruption investigations are those that are truly independent and not in danger of either interference or premature shutdown.” He added that while the men deserved their sentences, “the people of New York deserve better.”

Before sentencing the Skeloses, Judge Wood scolded the former senator for violating his “unique position of power and trust.”

The judge seemed to acknowledge the spate of graft scandals, saying she wanted “other politicians to learn from this sentence that public corruption will be punished.” The prison term, however, was less than half of what prosecutors had asked for.

Judge Wood also imposed a $500,000 fine — the amount sought by the government — on the former senator, as well as a $334,120 forfeiture to be paid jointly by him and his son. Prosecutors had noted that Dean Skelos had built a net worth of more than $2 million during his nearly three decades in the Senate, and had also applied for a state pension of almost $96,000 a year.

While the judge cited some of Dean Skelos’s accomplishments and service to his constituents, it was clear that she found few redemptive qualities in his son. She seemed appalled by wiretapped conversations that she said exposed his “bullying,” “cynicism” and “extreme” physical threats — tactics, she said, “more usually associated with professional criminals.”

“You appeared to have no moral compass,” Judge Wood told Adam Skelos, 33. “I think you did everything you could to monetize your father’s position for your personal benefit.”

At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that the elder Mr. Skelos, 68, used his position as majority leader to pressure a real estate developer, an environmental technology company and a medical malpractice insurer — firms that depended on his support as senator for legislation that benefited their interests — to provide Adam Skelos with consulting work, a direct payment of $20,000 and a job that required him to do virtually no work.

Lawyers for the Skeloses had asked Judge Wood to spare them from prison and sentence them to probation and community service. But on Thursday, G. Robert Gage Jr., one of the former senator’s lawyers, suggested instead that his client receive a short prison sentence.

Mr. Gage suggested that the underlying theme of the case was “this father-son emotional relationship.”

“To his great credit as a person as well as a parent, Dean always stuck by Adam,” Mr. Gage said, “perhaps to a fault.”

Indeed, during the trial, witnesses told the jury that Adam Skelos essentially held a no-show job. On the rare occasions when he did go to work, his behavior was troublesome. When a supervisor confronted him, Mr. Skelos threatened to “smash” his head, and said that men like him “couldn’t shine” Mr. Skelos’s shoes.

Secretly recorded conversations played for the jury exposed other unsavory aspects of Adam Skelos’s behavior. He could be heard on one recording speaking about how he concealed an extramarital affair from his wife. He said he planned to get a puppy for his wife because “she’ll find it easier to say O.K.” on the occasions when he stayed in a hotel after work, rather than returning home.

“The things I do to stay out,” Adam Skelos could be heard saying. He also said that he used the FaceTime app to talk with his mistress because “FaceTime doesn’t show up on a phone bill.”

In court on Thursday, Christopher P. Conniff, a lawyer for Adam Skelos, cited his client’s alcohol and drug dependency and noted that his wife, with whom he has two young sons with autism, had left him.

“The devastation that has been caused in part by his immaturity and at times arrogance,” Mr. Conniff said, “is probably going to be a greater harm to him than frankly any sentence.”

Adam Skelos was impassive until he rose to address the court. Then, his voice breaking at times, he did what his father had done minutes before: ask for leniency, but not for himself.

“It was hard for me to sit through this case and come face to face with the person I was a few years ago,” Adam Skelos said, adding, “I’ve had my struggles in life, but now realize that I can’t use them as an excuse for my conduct.”

He closed, in part, by asking Judge Wood to “show leniency to my dad and not to me.”

When Adam Skelos returned to his seat, his father threw an arm around him and squeezed him; he kissed his father on the cheek.

Both men left the courthouse without comment.

Mr. Bharara’s office had sought much stiffer sentences, suggesting that an appropriate prison term for Dean Skelos would be about 12 to 15 years, and for Adam Skelos, about 10 to 12 years.

“You can’t argue that you rob a bank repeatedly over the course of years and you did it for your family,” a prosecutor, Jason A. Masimore, said on Thursday, adding that the evidence demonstrated that “Dean Skelos was strong-arming these victims and forcing them to pay.”

Dean Skelos, who stepped down from his leadership position after his arrest last May, automatically lost his seat in the Legislature upon being convicted.

Mr. Cuomo, in a brief statement, said the sentences “show there is zero tolerance for those who use public service for private gain.”

Judge Wood did not set a date for the two men to surrender to prison authorities, saying she would rule first on their lawyers’ request that they be allowed to remain free pending their appeals.

New York Lawmakers and Their Sentences
A list of the longest prison terms given to convicted former state officeholders in New York in recent years.

Defendant Sentence Year

William F. Boyland Jr., Assemblyman 168 months 2015
Sheldon Silver, Assembly speaker 144 months 2016
Daniel J. Halloran III, N.Y. City Councilman 120 months 2015
Brian M. McLaughlin, State Assemblyman 120 months* 2009
Carl Kruger, State Senator 84 months 2012
Malcolm A. Smith, State Senator 84 months 2015
Efraín González Jr., State Senator 84 months 2010
Anthony S. Seminerio, State Assemblyman 72 months 2010
Dean G. Skelos, State Senate majority leader 60 months 2016
Miguel Martinez, N.Y. City Councilman 60 months 2009
Pedro Espada Jr., State Senator 60 months 2013

Larry B. Seabrook, N.Y. City Councilman 60 months 2013


Here is Laura Ahole giving an award to her fellow criminal Dean Skelos. 

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Newsday OpEd: What a spectacle of a day on Long Island

In order to better understand PFML's unique status in Long Island, you have to examine the cesspool of corruption that is Suffolk County politics. Besides, this features Phoney Belloney.

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/dean-skelos-sentenced-steve-bellone-tells-thomas-spota-to-resign-what-a-day-1.11793040

Opinion
What a spectacle of a day on Long Island
May 12, 2016 3:46 PM
By Michael Dobie

Even by the standards of Long Islanders inured to the steady drumbeat of public corruption, Thursday provided a spectacle the likes of which the region has not seen.

Shortly after noon — high noon, indeed, with no appearance yet by anyone remotely resembling Gary Cooper — two dramas played out on stages about 50 miles apart.

In a courtroom in Manhattan, former State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre was sentenced to 5 years in prison for using his power and his position to land a series of jobs for his son, Adam, who received a 6 1/2 year term.

About the same time, outside and inside the Suffolk County district attorney’s office in Hauppauge, the county’s top two elected officials launched furious broadsides at one another centered on allegations of corruption.

County Executive Steve Bellone demanded that District Attorney Thomas Spota resign, citing Newsday stories that disclosed that Spota’s office had uncovered possible crimes via wiretaps but then did not prosecute those activities. Bellone decried what he called the “culture of corruption” in Spota’s office.

Spota responded almost immediately, saying that Bellone’s attacks were personally motivated and that Bellone has a “vendetta” against him because Spota had successfully prosecuted people close to Bellone. Spota sought to dismiss Newsday’s detailed and well-sourced report, calling it “fundamentally flawed.”

Then Spota dropped his own bombshell — that Bellone had other motives for wanting him out, intimating it had to do with “documents” Spota has sent to the state Board of Elections for investigation.

In the midst of the charges and counter-charges, five Suffolk Republican legislators publicly called for the resignations of Spota AND Bellone, both of whom are Democrats. Call it politics, if you like, but it was not an ennobling moment.

And shortly after, Bellone held another news conference to condemn Spota’s defense and attack anew. And on and on it undoubtedly will go.

Long Islanders have grown cynical about corruption. Can you blame us? We’ve seen it at all levels of government — state, county, town and village. We don’t like it and we want it punished, the polls clearly indicate that. But based on our collective years of experience, culminating in Thursday’s extraordinary high-noon crescendo, we also have come to expect corruption, even extraordinary instances of it.

That perhaps is the saddest legacy of politics on Long Island.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Retired NY Supreme Court Justice SLAMS Laura Ahearn, PFML, and Steve Bellone

This brought a HUGE smile to my face. I'd like to see PFML's reaction to THIS letter from a retired state supreme court justice.

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/letters/letter-why-a-new-deal-for-megan-s-law-group-1.11769142

Letter: Why a new deal for Megan’s Law group?
Updated May 6, 2016 11:52 AM
By Newsday Readers

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Laura
In this Thursday, March 3, 2016 photo, Laura Ahearn, center, executive director of Parents for Megan's Law, poses with retired New York City police detectives who work for her organization verifying the accuracy of the state's sex offender registry, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. Ahearn's organization is completing a three-year, $2.7 million contract with Suffolk County, N.Y., to verify the registry. In the front row from left are Joe Grimm, Paul Alonzo, and Edwin Rivera. In the back row are from left are Harry Zakian, Robert Carboine and Alex Ramos. (AP Photo/Frank Eltman) Photo Credit: AP
The story “Group sues sex offender” [News, April 24] refers to a private organization, Parents for Megan’s Law, founded by Laura Ahearn. The group has brought a defamation lawsuit against a registered sex offender, Derek W. Logue, who runs a civil rights organization for sex offenders, on account of his public and critical comments about Parents for Megan’s Law. Several revelations in the article are deeply disturbing.

First is the fact that Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone is about to renew the contract with Ahearn’s organization. And for what? To carry out an exclusively public, governmental legal responsibility, which is seeing that New York’s Sex Offender Registration Act is obeyed.

Parents for Megan’s Law is not the Suffolk County Police Department. As Newsday’s article points out, the group is already a defendant in a federal civil rights lawsuit for a home interrogation of another man, and now you report that it is hauling into court yet another of its critics.

Is anybody minding the store?

William M. Erlbaum, Forest Hills

Editor’s note: The writer is a retired justice of the New York State Supreme Court and an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School.