Hiram and Julissa

Hiram Monserrate Indicted

For Dragooning Employees

Of Nonprofit He Enriched

For His Own Political Gain



The other shoe dropped Tuesday for Hiram Monserrate. The first State Senator to be expelled from that body since 1781, Monserrate was indicted by a Federal grand jury for using employees of a non-profit group he sponsored while a City Councilmember to labor on behalf of his unsuccessful campaign for the State Senate in 2006.

The sixteen-page indictment, which you can read here, is summarized on p21 of Wednesday's New York Times by William K. Rashbaum and Fernanda Santos. The two federal charges against Monserrate stem from his relationship with the Latino Initiative for Better Resources and Empowerment Inc., known by its acronym LIBRE, a now defunct social services agency to which Monserrate was closely linked. He secured City funding for LIBRE to operate.

The indictment alleges that Monserrate used employees of the tax-exempt organization to register voters and collect signatures to get him on the ballot in his failed bid for Senate against John Sabini in 2006.

In 2008, the Queens County Democratic organization switched its support from Sabini to Monserrate in the predominantly Latino district, Sabini was accommodated with a six-year term as chairman of the State Racing and Wagering Board, and Monserrate was elected Senator.

However, he was unable to complete his term, having been expelled in February 2010, ostensibly for slashing his girlfriend with a broken glass, although the court found that allegation unproven. His greater sin was joining renegade Senator and hospitalier Pedro Espada in an attempted coup that tied up the State Senate for over a month. Although the standoff led to the appointment of Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch, it left the Senate, and the two plotters, lower in public esteem. Espada returned to the fold when rewarded by the Democrats with the position, lulu and staff of the majority leader, but all his power and influence went to Senator John Sampson of Brooklyn, the new Democratic conference leader.

LIBRE is the latest nonprofit to come under scrutiny for its subordination to the elected official who secured its funding. It joins the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, founded by Vito Lopez, and Espada's Soundview Health Center in the Bronx. Monserrate's relationship with LIBRE was intimate. Over his seven years in the Council (2002-2008), Monserrate steered more than $2.7 million in City discretionary and capital funds to LIBRE, including more than $2 million for a community center, which was never built.

Monserrate's connection with LIBRE ran deeper than money. According to the indictment, Monserrate "played an important role in selecting LIBRE's staff and the members of its board of directors", including the chair of LIBRE's board of directors from 2005 through 2007, its interim executive director in 2005, and its executive director from late 2005 through early 2007. According to a 2008 article in the Times by Russ Buettner and Serge Kovaleski "Dysfunction at a Charity That Relies on Council Largesse", Monserrate also negotiated the lease for LIBRE's former office.

The chair of LIBRE's board of directors alluded to in the indictment is current Councilmember Julissa Ferreras, Monserrate's former chief of staff and his hand-picked successor for his former Council seat which he resigned when he was elected to the Senate.

For those who have not followed Queens politics, it would be understandable to overlook the connection between Ferreras and Monserrate. Ferreras carefully distanced herself from Monserrate during her February 2009 campaign to replace him on the Council, presumably because at the time he was under investigation for slashing his girlfriend's face. Currently, Ferreras lists no mention of her association with Monserrate or LIBRE in her bio on the City Council's website, despite the fact that they were her principal qualifications for election. Leaving Monserrate off her resume, for whom she began working in 2001 as his campaign manager and then, following his election, as his chief of staff, makes for a gaping lacuna in Councilmember Ferreras's resume.

Chronologically, the most recent accomplishment she claims on her Council bio prior to her term in office is her appointment by former Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette and Congressman Joseph Crowley to serve as a New York State delegate to the 2000 Democratic National Convention, a decade ago.

Monserrate's relationship with Ferreras has soured along with his political and personal fortunes since he appeared at her 2009 victory party. Last month, Ferreras claimed that Monserrate was responsible for the slashing of her tires, several vulgar notes left on her car, and an assortment of other allegations of harassment.

It does not appear from published reports that Ferreras ever filed formal charges against Monserrate. Councilmember Ferreras failed to return several phone calls seeking comment and clarifications for this column, but she did issue a statement to the media saying that she has "been cooperating with authorities from the very beginning."

The newly unsealed indictment implicates not only Monserrate, who surrendered to authorities Tuesday morning, it alleges a conspiracy where others colluded with Monserrate to skirt the campaign finance laws by illegally using LIBRE resources and employees to fund and support his State Senate runs in 2005 and 2006. The co-conspirators are unnamed in the indictment, but presumably one of the people involved is former LIBRE executive director Javier Cardenas, who Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced yesterday had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and mail-fraud charges and is cooperating against Monserrate.

Celeste Katz reported in the Daily News that "federal prosecutors subpoenaed and questioned several former members of [Monserrate's] Senate staff, including Wayne Mahlke and Luis Castro, about Monserrate's dealings with LIBRE."

Mahlke, who is Monserrate's former chief of staff, was arrested in May of this year in an incident unrelated to the indictment for "possessing a forged police placard and for failing to obey a police officer - after hurling an insult at the officer." Castro has been identified in news reports as a former campaign consultant to Monserrate.

According to the indictment, around May 2006, Monserrate sent an email from a personal email account to an unnamed member of his Council staff requesting a database of voters LIBRE had newly registered, apparently at Monserrate's request. A month or two later, "Monserrate stamped numerous LIBRE checks that were thereafter issued to individuals who had participated in LIBRE's voter-registration and petition-gathering activities with a signature stamp of the person who was then the chair of LIBRE's board of directors." In an article on The Queens Courier's website, reporter Steve Mosco identifies the chair of LIBRE's board of directors at the time as Councilmember Ferreras.

The check stamping allegation, which is detailed in the indictment, raises the question of who really was in charge of LIBRE's finances. In an October 18, 2008 Times article by Ray Rivera about Libre's suspiciously slipshod accounting practices, entitled "Group Spent City's Money, but Has Not Shown How", Monserrate referred all questions about LIBRE's accounting practices to Ferreras, saying, "She's the person to have the conversation with," he said. "I wasn't the director. I don't know what paperwork was there, what books were there."

Contacted at the time by Rivera for comment, Ferreras said LIBRE's records were in the organization's offices. "I personally don't keep the records," Ferreras told the Times.

As Monserrate's case advances it is likely that we will learn more about LIBRE and what, if anything, Councilmember Ferreras knew about his former boss's alleged manipulation of the nonprofit. What is for certain is that no matter how hard Speaker Christine Quinn tries to leave the slush fund scandal in the Council's past, the investigation is still very much ongoing and just how many of her members were involved is still yet to be determined. Another Councilman who was elevated to chair the Civil Rights Committee, Larry Seabrook of the Bronx, is currently under a 13-count indictment for a litany of corruption charges, and former Councilmember Miguel Martinez of Manhattan is already serving time in Federal prison.

It gives us no satisfaction to watch one elected official after another done in by their greed and contempt for the law. This parade of corrupt politicians denigrates New Yorkers' faith in local government, and further degrades the reputation of the City Council and its leader, who is supposed to look out for this sort of thievery.

We continue to encourage our prosecutors, Federal, State and Local, to pursue every elected official who has abused the public trust until all of them are rooted out. Regrettably, the only way to keep some of our legislators' hands out of our pockets is with handcuffs.

Jail to the Thief

Hevesi Cops a Plea,

Cuomo to Accept It

26 Days to Election



There was little surprise in Alan Hevesi's confession that he was a corrupt Comptroller. News of the Attorney General's investigation had leaked over the years, and the guilty pleas of his co-conspirators made it clear that his office was a cesspool of favoritism obtained through bribery.

For a person in such high office to betray it so completely is shocking, even to those of us who are accustomed to reporting on political corruption. It is one thing for a Vito Lopez, Pedro Espada and Larry Seabrook to turn their anti-poverty organizations into automatic teller machines for themselves, their mistresses, their unemployed children, their campaign managers, and the friends and relatives (kith and kin) of any of the above insiders. Their conduct is highly offensive and, if convicted of the allegations against them, they should go directly to prison. Efrain Gonzalez, another state senator from the Bronx, was sentenced to 7 years in a Federal prison for similar crimes.

But for Alan Hevesi, a reasonably affluent, well-educated intelligent and articulate elected official, descendant of rabbis, state legislator for 23 years, two-term Comptroller of the City of New York, Professor of Political Science at Queens College, recipient of a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1971, after having written his thesis analyzing the leadership of the state legislature, to turn out to be have repeatedly betrayed the public trust - that is difficult to accept.

Since Hevesi has turned out to be a crook, what politician can we believe to be honest? We assume that most of them are, but we know there are some who are dishonest, even if we do not know their names. We are familiar with those who have been convicted in recent years. Former Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno heads the list, with Senators Guy Velella and Hiram Monserrate, Assemblymembers Diane Gordon, Roger Green, Brian McLaughlin, Clarence Norman, Anthony Seminerio, and Councilmembers Angel Rodriguez and Miguel Martinez. Governor Eliot Spitzer and Congressman Vito Fossella were not tried for criminal behavior, but were disgraced when their extra-curricular activities became known to the public. Councilman Dennis Gallagher was convicted of criminal harassment. Spitzer and Gallagher resigned, Fossella finished out his term, but did not seek re-election. For appointed public officials, one can start with former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, now in a Federal prison in Maryland.

If we have omitted any convicted public officials, please let us know and their names will be added to the list.

The question arises: what is an appropriate punishment for a high official who betrays his trust? He is responsible not only for the money he took for himself and his family, but the depredations of Hank Morris, who was his political manager. Morris appears to have enriched himself far more than Hevesi, but we do not really know where the money extorted from people who wanted to deal with the pension fund ended up.

In China, such a person would be executed, but that is not the American way. Hevesi was born on January 31, 1940, and is now 70 years old. A prison sentence is required, but should the length be calibrated with his life expectancy? One obvious penalty is to forfeit the pensions he now receives from the City University and the State Legislature. He certainly did not provide honest services to the public while holding high elective office. Restitution to the state for his ill-gotten gains should be part of any plea arrangement.

It is likely that when a person demonstrates such a basic character flaw as we have in this case that there are all kinds of other situations in which he behaved improperly. Without going into rumors, we will not go into rumors.

We have not so far mentioned Governors John Rowland of Connecticut or James McGreevey of New Jersey, who resigned in the face of allegations of misconduct, financial and sexual. Since Governor Spitzer was forced to resign to avoid impeachment by the state legislature which hated him, none of the three governors in the tri-state area was able to complete his term in office. That is highly unusual, and thoroughly shameful.

Back to Hevesi, whom we defended in 2006 because we felt using a state car for a sick wife was not a felony. We would send him to state prison for at least five years, forfeit his pension and require restitution of any money or benefits he received through his misconduct. He should also be asked (he cannot be compelled) to write a book about his crimes and their punishment, to be distributed to all newly-elected public officials as required reading. That is unusual, but in the circumstances it does not appear to be cruel. See the Constitution, Eighth Amendment.

This is a terribly sad case: for the former Comptroller, for his family, for the people he victimized, for his community and for those who admired him. I am reminded of the kid who met "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, a star outfielder on the 1919 White Sox who took bribes from gamblers to throw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. "Say it ain't so, Joe," the youngster said to his hero, or so the legend goes.

Sadly, it was so. The eight guilty athletes were banned from baseball for life. Jackson and pitcher Eddie Cicotte confessed their participation to a Chicago grand jury, but the players were acquitted.

The reputation of the national pastime was so scarred by what was dubbed the "Black Sox Scandal" that the owners named Federal Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to be the first Commissioner of Baseball. Kennesaw Mountain was the site of a major battle in General Sherman's march on Atlanta in 1864. Judge Landis was born in 1866 in Millville, Ohio.

Landis served from 1920 to his death in 1944. During that time, his word was considered law in baseball. Since then, there have been a series of commissioners appointed by the owners and generally serving their interests.

INFORMATIVE LINKS

In the wonderful world we live in, documents relating to legal proceedings are often available immediately.

To read Hevesi’s allocution, click here.
To read the charges against Hevesi, click here.