Comaianni Supporter Calls Miller Racially Insensitive - YourNabe.com...

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Ex-Candidate Samaroo Says Assemblyman's Staff Lacks Minorities, But Miller Denies the Charge

An Indo-Guyanese supporter of a candidate hoping to oust state Assemblyman Michael Miller (D-Woodhaven) is claiming Miller is insensitive to minority communities in part because he alleged the assemblyman has no minorities working in his office.

But Miller said those assertions are outright false, saying two of his eight staffers are not white and that the claims by Farouk Samaroo were made out of bitterness that the freshman legislator won the election to replace disgraced ex-Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio in September.

Samaroo is the co-founder of the Southwest Queens Democratic Club with Nick Comaianni, who intends to challenge Miller in September’s Democratic primary.

Samaroo, a former staffer to ex-Flushing Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, was a candidate in the race to replace Seminerio until Gov. David Paterson called for a special election for the seat.

Under special election rules, only candidates supported by the borough’s political parties are guaranteed a spot on the ballot and Miller gained the support of the Democratic and Conservative parties. Others looking to get on the ballot had to amass 1,500 signatures within six days of Paterson calling the special election. Samaroo dropped his candidacy because he believed the petition process was too difficult.

“All [Samaroo is] trying to do is make an issue out of last year,” said Miller, noting he has a Latino and a black staffer in his office.

Miller said he also works with Latchman Buddhai, an Indo-Guyanese civic leader in Richmond Hill.

“I don’t exclude anybody,” the assemblyman said.

Samaroo said Miller does not have an Indian American on his staff and said it was insulting the assemblyman has a staffer with the title “envoy to the Hispanic community.”

“It shows the degree of contempt and that he’s obviously out of his element,” Samaroo said.

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But Miller spokesman Nick Roloson said there is no such title.

“They’re trying to make an issue out of things that aren’t an issue,” Roloson said.

Samaroo also criticized Miller for choosing not to retain Seminerio’s Richmond Hill office, which he said the state is still paying rent on, and moving the district space to Glendale, out of the South Asian community, but the assemblyman said that is also false.

Miller said the state has a one-month buyout of every lease it holds and that he notified the state he would not be keeping Seminerio’s Richmond Hill office as soon as he took office.

He said he then moved temporarily to Seminerio’s Glendale office, but then relocated the district office to Woodhaven.

“I wanted to make sure that my district office is in the middle of the district,” Miller said. “I knew there’d be people like Farouk making comments like that.”

The district encompasses Glendale, Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, Woodhaven and Ridgewood.

“If anyone has any questions about anything, please contact my office and we’ll tell you the truth,” Miller said.

For Seminerio, Former Assemblyman, Arranging Hospital Deals Was Costly by Jim Dwyer - NYTimes.com

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In the Atlantic Diner in Queens on an afternoon two years ago, you could hear the sounds of a man peeling open the tin can around his soul. Tony Seminerio was a member of the State Assembly from Queens. He’ll do you a favor, get you a contract, what do you need, let me make a call for you, I know that junior commissioner who can send bursts of government cash into the sky — why, he’s a dear friend. Just hire me, Tony Seminerio. Send the money to my consulting company. If you don’t, I hate you, you’re no good.

You might think this act — this burlesque of intimacy — would quickly get old. It is also risky.

To his grief, Anthony S. Seminerio discovered that the man sitting across from him in the diner, another of the dear friends, another crooked politician, was wearing a recording device that day. Mr. Seminerio talked himself into a federal conviction for taking money. Now 74, he waits to find out if he will spend his autumn years in prison.

But listen carefully. The case is about more than the coins rattling in the life of Mr. Seminerio, a former correction officer who spent 30 years in the Assembly talking tough on crime.

On the recording, he says, with truth, that he did yeoman service for the hospitals in his district. He helped Jamaica Hospital Medical Center get millions of dollars in special financing. He awoke to the realization that all he was getting for his labors in Albany were the thanks of the people he was making rich.

He went into business for himself, he said that day in the diner, speaking to Brian M. McLaughlin, a former assemblyman who was recording their conversation in hopes of saving his own hide.

When it dawned on him how well everyone else was doing from his work, Mr. Seminerio said, he decided: “From now on, I’m a consultant.”

Leaving aside laws against bribery, who could blame him?

An important client of the Seminerio consultancy was Jamaica Hospital, and its chief executive, David P. Rosen. Over a decade, Mr. Rosen arranged for payments of nearly $400,000 to the Seminerio company.

How did the years treat Mr. Rosen?

In 2007, Mr. Rosen drew two salaries, one from Jamaica Hospital and another from its parent company, MediSys, for $520,341 and $796,167. He also got a payment of $500,555 toward a retirement fund from the hospital, and $59,861 more from MediSys. This came to more than $1.8 million. The year before, his wages and benefits came to $2.2 million.

This is not to pick on Mr. Rosen, whose wages cover his services for three other hospitals managed by MediSys: Brookdale, Flushing and Peninsula.

A survey of the 200 largest nonprofit companies found that C.E.O.’s at hospitals and medical centers had the highest median pay, at $848,802, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. In New York, the hospital industry pays few executives less than $1 million, with one prominent — and instructive — exception: the city’s public hospital system, the Health and Hospitals Corporation, where the senior officials make only a fraction of the salaries paid at the private hospitals.

Hospitals like Jamaica, which is not part of the city system, still receive almost all their financing from the government. Even so, the state has no part in controlling salaries.

“We do not set compensation levels for any hospital executive,” said Claudia Hutton, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Health. “Generally, that should be what the market will bear. We do not want a role in determining executive salaries.”

In February, the I.R.S. published a study of the compensation levels at hospitals across the country and found that they were reasonable by the standards of the tax code.

Mr. Seminerio’s performance on the recording is disheartening on many levels. There are plenty of officials who fight for their communities without putting their hands out. Moreover, it is almost embarrassing to realize that in the decade or so that he ran his consultancy, he collected less than $400,000 from the hospital executives who made millions with his help. He might as well have carried around a tip jar.

He felt entitled to his cut, as he explained in the Atlantic Diner. What, Mr. Seminerio asked rhetorically, “does it mean that we are elected officials?”

He answered his own question with a profanity. Then he asked Mr. McLaughlin: “What was that guy that you replaced?” No one remembered him, Mr. Seminerio said, “and he must have done a lot of good things.”

E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com

McLaughlin Reports to Prison Housing Madoff by Stephen Stirling - Queens Campaigner

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Bernard Madoff just got some company from home.

Disgraced former state Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (D-Flushing) was admitted to federal prison in Butner, N.C., Tuesday to begin serving a 10-year sentence for bilking millions from his constituents.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed McLaughlin was admitted Tuesday morning to Butner Federal Correctional Complex, where McLaughlin is listed as prisoner 59431-054. The facility, which houses more than 4,500 inmates, is also the new home of fellow Queens native Madoff, who began serving a 150-year sentence earlier this month.

Unlike Madoff, however, the 57-year-old McLaughlin could easily see release in his lifetime. Federal guidelines require that he serve 85 percent of his 10-year sentence, which would make him eligible for release in early 2018.

Ex-Assemblyman McLaughlin Gets 10 Years for Racketeering by Benjamin Weiser - NYTimes.com

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Rejecting requests for leniency from the defense and the prosecution, a federal judge in Manhattan sentenced the former president of the nation’s largest municipal labor council to 10 years in prison on Wednesday, saying his abuse of the trust placed in him “staggers the mind.”

Photo caption: Brian M. McLaughlin, 57, on his way to his sentencing for racketeering. He was accused of taking money from taxpayers, labor unions and contractors. John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

“You had every opportunity,” said the judge, Richard J. Sullivan of Federal District Court, “and you used those opportunities and squandered them for your own benefit on a monumental scale.”

The defendant, Brian M. McLaughlin, 57, who had also been an assemblyman from Queens, pleaded guilty in March 2008 to racketeering charges that included using embezzlement, fraud and bribes to take money from taxpayers, labor unions and contractors, even from a Little League team in Queens.

A document made public on Wednesday shows that Mr. McLaughlin has agreed to forfeit more than $3 million in illegal proceeds from his crimes.

Prosecutors had asked for a lenient sentence, saying Mr. McLaughlin had helped the government in investigating others. But Judge Sullivan said Mr. McLaughlin’s betrayal of public trust outweighed any assistance he had given. He also fined the defendant $25,000.

Mr. McLaughlin’s assistance, for instance, helped lead to the arrest of Anthony S. Seminerio, another Queens assemblyman, a person involved in the case has said. Mr. Seminerio was charged last year with a fraud scheme; he has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors charged that Mr. McLaughlin had misappropriated more than $330,000 from his own re-election committee; $185,000 from the New York City Central Labor Council, which he led; and more than $35,000 from the State Assembly. They said he had created fictitious jobs within the labor council and on his own legislative staff, and took kickbacks from the jobholders.

In court on Wednesday, a federal prosecutor, Daniel A. Braun, formally asked for leniency for Mr. McLaughlin, saying he had provided “substantial assistance” to the government, though he did not offer details in open court.

Mr. McLaughlin’s lawyer, Michael F. Armstrong, told the judge, “This is someone who at core is a good person who went terribly wrong, and who realizes that, and realizes it fully.”

Mr. McLaughlin, addressing the judge, apologized for his “improper conduct and criminal activity.”

“I make no excuses for it,” he said, “but I’d like to add that over the last three, three and a half years, I’ve had the opportunity to live the way I’d like to live my life,” an apparent reference to steps he has taken toward rehabilitation like attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, as well as cooperating with the government.

Mr. McLaughlin, who was ordered to surrender on July 21, remained free on bond. He had no comment after the sentencing.

Mr. McLaughlin was a seven-term assemblyman when he was charged in 2006; he had long served simultaneously as the head of the labor council, a federation of 400 union locals with more than one million members. His dual role as legislator and union chief was unusual, and lucrative — he earned $263,600 in combined salaries and expenses annually.

Once an electrician, Mr. McLaughlin took over the labor council in 1995. He was not a particularly high-profile legislator; most of his influence was exerted as a union chief.

Judge Sullivan said he had received dozens of letters in support of Mr. McLaughlin, including one from John Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., who urged leniency, citing Mr. McLaughlin’s “long record of service to the working men and women of New York City.”

But Judge Sullivan said he found it hard to reconcile the portrait offered by Mr. McLaughlin’s supporters with the picture that emerged from the case of “a man who so abused the trust of institutions and people who depended on him that it sort of staggers the mind.”

“The sheer number of instances of this sort,” the judge said, “the brazen and perversely creative ways in which you abused that trust, paints a picture of an extremely different man.”

He said Mr. McLaughlin’s conduct confirmed “the harshest critics of organized labor who accuse the leadership of corruption, and point to you as an example of that corruption.”

The Central Labor Council said it had “moved forward as a stronger, more accountable labor organization,” and had “made the necessary reforms to protect our integrity and increase transparency and reporting measures.”

In an agreement with the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, both sides originally agreed that a reasonable sentence would be 8 to 10 years, without accounting for cooperation.

The judge said an appropriate sentence would be 15 years, but he then reduced that to 10 years because of Mr. McLaughlin’s cooperation.

“I derive no joy in imposing a sentence of this kind,” Judge Sullivan said. “This is a day of failure for everyone.”

Danny Hakim contributed reporting.

Fall From Grace: Democrats Criticize Padavan’s Support of McLaughlin by Stephen Stirling - YourNabe.com

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Sen. Frank Padavan calls state Democrats’ criticism of him for writing a letter on behalf of Brian McLaughlin “despicable.” Photo by Christina Santucci

A letter written by state Sen. Frank Padavan (R−Bellerose) on behalf of disgraced former colleague Brian McLaughlin set off a firestorm of political rhetoric last week.

State Democrats blasted Padavan for writing a letter to the judge who is set to sentence McLaughlin next week after he pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge last year.

Padavan was the only elected official among 47 people who wrote letters for McLaughlin, many of whom asked for leniency when Judge Richard Sullivan sentences the former politician May 20 in Manhattan federal court.

“While I have no direct knowledge of the legal matters involving Brian McLaughlin, I have known Brian for over two decades,” Padavan wrote on his official Senate stationery. “I worked closely with him in advancing important legislation in the Senate and Assembly. In addition, I have known Brian to be a dedicated community servant, an active member of his parish and a loving father.”

Shams Tarek, a spokesman for the state Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, criticized the letter.

“It seems that Sen. Padavan’s campaign slogan that ‘Nobody cares like Frank’ is especially true if you’re a corrupt politician who steals money from little kids,” Tarek said. “Not only does this bring disgrace to Sen. Padavan and his office, but it shows a gross lack of judgment and raises serious questions about what kind of relationship he had and continues to have with Brian McLaughlin. It’s an unholy alliance to say the least.”

Padavan called Tarek’s comments “despicable” and pointed out he never asked for sentencing leniency in his letter to Sullivan.

“They’re calling me a crook. I’ve never seen this kind of horrible rhetoric come out from someone who is clearly working for the majority leader,” Padavan said. “What [McLaughlin] did, he’ll have to pay for that. I did not ask for leniency. I did want to let the judge know that people saw him in this better light, however.”

State Democrats have been gunning for Padavan’s Senate seat as they attempt to bolster their thin majority in the state Senate.

Tarek, who recently was hired as spokesman for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, was formerly the chief of staff for City Councilman James Gennaro (D−Forest Hills), whom Padavan narrowly defeated in November to retain his post.

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McLaughlin pleaded guilty in March 2008 to federal racketeering charges for stealing millions of dollars from several groups, including his own campaign committee and a Little League.

Dems Keep Up the Pressure on Padavan by Peter C. Mastrosimone - Queens Chronicle

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The campaign finally ended when the votes were officially tallied three months after the election, but the animosity between Republican state Sen. Frank Padavan and the Democrats who came closer than ever to unseating him remains.

Padavan won his 19th term by less than 500 votes of the more than 90,000 that were cast in the race between him and Democratic City Councilman James Gennaro of Fresh Meadows.

After the state budget vote, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee sent out a mailer criticizing Padavan for voting no, as all Republican members of the Senate did. The flier cited several areas for which the budget increased funding, such as higher education and services for the elderly.

The mailer incensed Padavan enough so the senator wrote a letter to this newspaper outlining his reasons for voting against the budget. Those were mainly the tax hikes it contains, which the Democrats say will only impact the wealthy, and the secrecy in which it was crafted —the “three men in a room” system for which the state government is frequently criticized.

But now there’s a new issue on the table: a letter Padavan wrote to the judge who will sentence former Democratic Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin in his corruption and perjury case.

In full, the letter reads, “Dear Judge Sullivan: While I have no direct knowledge of the legal matters involving Brian McLaughlin, I have known Brian for over [two] decades. I worked closely with him in advancing important legislation in the Senate and Assembly. In addition, I have know[n] Brian to be a dedicated community servant, an active member of his parish and a loving father.”

Democrats such as Shams Tarek, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee spokesman who had been an aide to Gennaro, see the letter as a plea for leniency.

Padavan’s camp points out that the letter does not actually ask for leniency. But the Democrats say that even without those words, the missive is by definition a request to go easy on McLaughlin.

“The fact is ... these types of letters are done as a favor to the convicted and an attempt to get leniency in sentencing no matter how vague the language,” Tarek said.“And what makes this case most egregious is the severity of the corruption that’s being excused here, and the fact that no other elected official in the entire state chose to do what Senator Padavan did here.”

The assertion that no other politician wrote such a letter could not be confirmed.

Padavan dismissed it all as mudslinging.

“Once again the DSCC is distorting the facts for their political agenda,” an aide said on the senator’s behalf. “This is just a continuation of their lies from the fall campaign. The simple fact of the matter is that the letter doesn’t ask for leniency, and to suggest otherwise is wrong.”

Democrats said they were further angered by the fact the letter was sent using Padavan’s official Senate letterhead.

Could all this mean a rematch between Padavan and Gennaro in 2010? The councilman said he intends to run for re-election to the City Council this year and has no electoral plans beyond that. The senator said, “Absolutely,” when asked whether he’ll seek a 20th term.

The McLaughlin letter aside, much of the debate this week, during the last campaign and during the vote count comes down to basic Republican and Democratic philosophies on economics and the proper role of government — though with a particularly sharp tone. Padavan’s won race after race from the conservative side of that debate, but the Democrats have the momentum and won Senate control last fall from the liberal side. The people will make their decision again in 18 months.