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Showing posts with label brian mcloughlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brian mcloughlin. Show all posts
Disgraced Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin is expected to finally face sentencing for pleading guilty to corruption charges on Thursday. The former labor boss and seven-term democratic Assemblyman faces up to 10 years in prison. But as is common in this political circus, the day approaches with a sideshow.
A group of union leaders, family members and friends submitted letters to Judge Richard Sullivan for consideration during sentencing. The submissions come from people as wide-ranging as McLaughlin’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor to State Senator Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose).
The Senate Republican’s letter in particular sparked a brouhaha, as the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee pounced at the opportunity to lambaste Padavan’s submission.
The letter itself is rather innocuous, simply stating Padavan’s relationship to McLaughlin as a former coworker and calls him “a dedicated community servant, an active member of his parish and a loving father.”
Padavan said he rarely writes such letters, and was prompted to do so when members of McLaughlin’s family contacted his district office.
He called the DSCC’s work a “political hatchet job” and “low level politics.”
“[The DSCC are] a bunch of lying bastards. And I’ll tell the Majority Leader when I see him. And this guy, what’s his name, Shams [Tarek, DNCC Spokesman]? He’s going to rue the day he runs into me.”
Before taking his position with the DSCC, Tarek was the communications director for Councilman Jim Gennaro, who challenged Padavan in a hotly contested race for Senate last year that was not resolved until after this year’s session began.
Tarek responded to Padavan’s criticism. “As vague as the language may appear to be, the fact that he wrote the letter means that he’s looking for leniency [for McLaughlin],” Tarek said. “This letter is a favor to Brian McLaughlin. It’s seeking favor from the judge. Long time Democratic party allies didn’t write a letter.
“The facts speak for themselves and I hope for his sake that Senator Padavan is not threatening me.”
Political circus aside, the 56-year-old McLaughlin pleaded guilty to a slew of charges, including stealing $2.2 million in cash, getting free cars and taking money from a Little League Baseball organization that had been funded by his own legislative member item funds.
The judge may also have to factor in McLaughlin’s cooperation with investigators into Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio’s (D-Richmond Hill) own corruption charges as well as McLaughlin’s cooperation in a case pending against Petrocelli Electric Company in Long Island City.
A Queens electrical contractor who did big business with the city was indicted for bribery Thursday - and sources say the union boss he paid off is helping prosecutors.
Santo (Sandy) Petrocelli Sr. is accused of handing disgraced labor boss Brian McLaughlin the keys to a brand-new Crown Victoria in February 2004, an indictment unsealed yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court charged.
Two months later, McLaughlin gave the car back and took cash instead, the indictment claims.
McLaughlin is identified in the indictment as a business representative for the J Division of Local 3, the streetlight and traffic signal workers union.
Sources say the labor boss and one-time Democratic assemblyman has been cooperating with the feds since his 2006 arrest on charges he took $2.2 million in payoffs to bankroll a Long Island mansion, fancy cars and country club fees.
His sentencing repeatedly has been postponed while the feds continue to rack up indictments in what is turning into the biggest corruption probe to hit Queens since the mid-1980s. That's when Borough President Donald Manes committed suicide amid a far-reaching investigation.
Sources say McLaughlin also has been cooperating in the feds' probe of Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio. The tough-on-crime Democrat is accused of taking $1 million in payouts from businesses seeking his help in Albany.
Petrocelli has been CEO of his family's Long Island City-based Petrocelli Electric since 1993.
His name has been linked before to the McLaughlin probe because of his long ties to the Democratic powerbroker.
Petrocelli organized a 2003 fund-raiser for McLaughlin attended by several firms that did business with the electrical workers union. From 1999 to 2004, McLaughlin raised $143,000 from such businesses.
Petrocelli's company was one of two contractors hired to work on what was then known as the Freedom Tower project at Ground Zero. The other is Welsbach Electric. The feds have seized records from both companies.
Petrocelli's workload has dipped since McLaughlin was nabbed. The company has not been hired by the city since November 2007.
Early last year, after Petrocelli's work on the Freedom Tower ended, the Port Authority barred Petrocelli from future contracts.
"They haven't been allowed back on the site since because we were aware of the ongoing investigation," said Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman.
Why call for piece meal sunshine, City Councilman Bill deBlasio? Why is your legislation limited to calling for an online data base to keep track of stimulus dollars in New York? Have we not had enough corruption by elected officials to call for transparency in the entire budget and contracting process? Just this week Majority leader Smith has to threaten to withhold his support for tolls on the East River Bridges to get the MTA to turn over budget information to the senate. How much money as Assembly Brosky says, is wasted by the unregulated state authorities? Do you think convicted former Assemblyman McLaughlin would've been able to rip off government money if the public had been able to follow its money in his crime spree? How about a crime wave closer to home councilman? Do you think any councilmember would have the guts to hide secret slush funds in the city budget if their actions were clear to all online? Do you think your fellow councilmembers would put their families on non profit payrolls if they knew that it was easy for anyone and everyone to look online and discover their corrupt acts?
Last year former Assemblyman McLaughlin who most believe is in witness protection, pleaded guilty in federal court to fixing street light contracts. Street lighting contracts have been fixed in this city since the days of Tammany Hall. Do you think putting the bidding process online might give that mob second thoughts? Do you think former Senator Velella could have delivered public works contracts for bribes if the state’s contracting process had been open and online? Two hospitals were closed this week in Queens at the same time one of its lawmakers stands accused of ripping off hospital funds.
300,000 more New Yorkers will be out of work this year. When will anyone step up in New York and say elected officials and their fat cat friends have to stop the rip-offs of our city and state budgets. Let's follow the example of the Obama administration which has promised transparency, in New York. It's time for candidates running for office to step on toes and stop doing safe press hits. The people are hurting and they need their money now.
Reporters Should Use Google To the trough! Lulu is the nickname for the stipend City Council members get for heading committees and subcommittees or holding leadership positions. It comes from payment en lieu of expenses. This week's "LuLu" reports have managed to omit the fact that the council had promised to reform this practice once it had enacted pay raises for itself. Pay raises: Enacted. LuLus: Ongoing.
From True News January 26, 2009 Christine Quinn's Con Game City Council speaker and her cohorts took your money and ran - Council took the pay raise recommended by a special mayoral commission but ignored the part of the report that urged lawmakers to enact reforms aimed at reducing self-dealing and favoritism. Key among the proposed reforms was a call to abolish so-called lulus - extra cash stipends doled out by the speaker to well-behaving sheep - and to rule out raises in the middle of a term.
An indicted Queens lawmaker was so chatty, investigators said they intercepted more than 15,000 calls on his office phone.
'Are you saying 15,000 calls on one phone?' an incredulous Manhattan Federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald asked prosecutors, who revealed Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio's gabfest during a court hearing Monday.
'But he doesn't look like a teenager.'
Seminerio chuckled nervously at the defense table.
Over the next few weeks, prosecutors will turn over copies of the recorded calls as well as other evidence they've gathered in their case against the law-and-order Democrat and former city correction officer.
Seminerio, 73, is accused of using his clout in Albany to rake in $1 million by setting up a a bogus consulting firm to collect cash from several businesses.
Seminerio was snagged by disgraced labor leader Brian McLaughlin, also a veteran Queens assemblyman, the Daily News has previously reported.
Following his own arrest, McLaughlin introduced Seminerio to an FBI agent posing as a businessman looking for inside access to Albany pols. The undercover fed paid Seminerio $25,000 to introduce him to several lawmakers, prosecutor say.
Seminerio faces up to 20 years in prison if he's convicted. Last week, he reintroduced a bill that would allow "paddling" of juveniles 13 or older convicted on graffiti charges to add "a sense of humiliation to the punishment."
Long-serving Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio was indicted Wednesday on charges he sold his clout in Albany for a cool $1 million.
Photo caption: Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio - Hermann for News
The 73-year-old lawmaker faces 20 years in prison for taking payoffs from businesses trying to buy his influence.
The indictment doubles the amount Seminerio was accused of pocketing when he was busted on Sept. 10.
The feds say the veteran Democrat - who has spent three decades in the state Legislature - set up a bogus consulting firm called Marc Consultants to collect cash from businesses.
In return, Seminerio used his inside access to state lawmakers to try to win them favorable treatment in an eight-year scheme.
"That kind of relationship you can't buy for $1 million," Seminerio told a hospital official with business before the state, according to Manhattan federal prosecutors.
The unnamed businesses are described as a hospital, a consulting firm associated with an educational institution and a firm that markets supplemental insurance packages to public institutions.
The feds were alerted to Seminerio's scheme by disgraced labor leader and Queens pol Brian McLaughlin, who has already pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges involving $2.2 million in cash, luxury cars and other perks, the Daily News reported in September.
McLaughlin introduced Seminerio to an undercover FBI agent posing as a businessman, sources say. The agent paid Seminerio $25,000 to introduce him to several Albany lawmakers, prosecutors say.
Seminerio, a former correction officer, has represented southern Queens since 1978. He's accused of defrauding the public of his honest services.
His lawyer has said he was trying to work out a plea deal.
Veteran Richmond Hill Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio, who was arrested in September on federal charges of corruption, is allegedly trying to negotiate a plea deal with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The Daily News reported on Saturday that Seminerio’s lawyer, Ira Cooper, confirmed the negotiations, but when a Queens Chronicle reporter spoke with Cooper in a telephone interview on Monday, he refused to comment on the case.
Cooper would not even verify whether he is holding discussions with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “There’s no comment at all,” he said. “It’s too early in the proceedings to discuss this further.”
He went on to say he will no longer speak with reporters on the subject. “With all due respect to the media ... I won’t be interviewed any further.”
But, Cooper told the Daily News last week that is seeking a plea deal to keep his 73-year-old client out of jail. “An imprisonment for him would be much harder than for a healthy young man,” Cooper was quoted as saying. He indicated that Seminerio is in poor health and has heart problems.
The 16-term legislator was charged in September with taking $500,000 in bribes through a fake consulting firm that offered favors to companies and individuals doing business with the state.
Although charges were brought, a federal indictment has not yet been unsealed and might not be until after Cooper and prosecutors settle a deal: without one Seminerio faces up to 20 years in prison.
It could be difficult to reach an agreement that will keep Seminerio from lockup because of harsh sentencing guidelines set up for elected officials.
Cooper told the newspaper that in order to accept a plea deal — which could open Seminerio up to a harsh sentence — he needs more information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Federal prosecutors cannot make sentencing commitments and judges do not get involved until after a guilty plea is entered, Cooper had noted.
According to a 17-page criminal complaint filed against Seminerio in September, the former city corrections officer used the firm Marc Consultants, based out of his Ozone Park home, to accept bribes from people who wanted him to represent their interests in the state Legislature.
Investigators used an FBI agent to pose as a prospective new client and set up a witness — an acquaintance of Seminerio’s for 15 years — to record conversations with the assemblyman.
After Seminerio’s arrest, it was reported that the secret witness was former Assemblyman and union boss Brian McLaughlin who pleaded guilty to bribery charges earlier this year and faces up to 10 years in prison.
Facing federal corruption charges, Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio has used $35,000 in campaign funds to help pay his legal fees, the Daily News has learned.
Seminerio's campaign cut the check to Rosedale lawyer Ira Cooper on Sept. 19, Board of Elections filings show.
Seminerio's campaign treasurer, Lisa Loughlin, confirmed the payment was for legal work connected to his arrest.
"According to a state Board of Elections ethics opinion, the expenditure is permissible," Loughlin said.
While not commenting specifically on Seminerio, state Board of Elections spokesman Robert Brehm said the board issued a formal opinion in 1989 allowing the use of campaign cash for legal fees if the charges are related to the holding of office or running of a campaign.
"This should be illegal," Horner said. "These are campaign funds, not legal defense funds."
Federal prosecutors filed corruption charges against Seminerio in September after an undercover investigation.
Seminerio is accused of pocketing $500,000 in payoffs through a sham consulting company that offered favors to entities with business before the state.
A preliminary hearing in the case is set for Dec. 10, by which time he could be indicted by a federal grand jury or make some type of plea.
Despite his lingering legal troubles, Seminerio, 73, this month ran unopposed for a 16th term.
Seminerio is not the first criminally charged state legislator to dip into his campaign account for legal fees.
- Former state Controller Alan Hevesi, who pleaded guilty to using state employees to chauffeur his wife, used at least $750,000 in campaign cash to pay his lawyers.
- Former Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $2 million, paid his lawyers $500,000 from his campaign coffers, but later refunded the money.
- Former state Sen. Guy Velella, who pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit bribery in 2004, used $400,0000 from his campaign on legal fees.
Albany's Political "Crime Wave" - A Glossary of Corruption in New York's Capital
Senator Darrel Aubertine – ADMITTED he illegally hired his sister in violation of state Ethics law he sponsored. Penalty: $40,000 fine; ADMITTED writing letter to influence a town vote on wind power, while holding secret contracts to build turbines on land he owns.
Assemblywoman Gloria Davis (Bronx) – CONVICTED 2003, for taking bribes.
Senator Efrain Gonzalez (Bronx) – CHARGED with diverting tax dollars to buy homes, vacations and Yankees tickets.
Assemblywoman Diane Gordon (Brooklyn) – CONVICTED April 2008, for accepting bribes in exchange for votes. Penalty: Up to 10 years in prison.
Assemblyman Roger Green (Brooklyn) – CONVICTED 2004, for billing the state for transportation he received for free.
Comptroller Alan Hevesi (Queens) – CONVICTED January 2007, for stealing taxpayer funds by using state employees as a personal chauffeur for his family.
Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (Queens) – CONVICTED March 2008, for stealing $2.2 million from Little Leagues and labor unions.
Assemblyman Clarence Norman (Brooklyn) – CONVICTED 2005, for selling judgeships in Brooklyn, stealing campaign funds and accepting illegal campaign contributions.
Secretary to the Governor Charles O'Byrne – ADMITTED he didn't pay taxes for five years.
Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (Queens) – CHARGED with taking $500,000 in bribes from contractors doing business with the state.
Senator Guy Velella (Bronx) – CONVICTED 2004, for steering state contracts to favored
Ex-Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, prior to his arrest and guilty plea to racketeering and perjury charges.
A federal judge has delayed the sentencing of Brian McLaughlin, the former union heavyweight and Queens assemblyman who pled guilty in March to racketeering and perjury charges.
McLaughlin was scheduled for sentencing before U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in courtroom 21 C in Manhattan last Friday, but after the government moved to delay the sentencing, the judge adjourned the case. A new date has not yet been set.
According to published reports, 56-year-old McLaughlin acted as a cooperating witness with the FBI in the recent investigation and arrest of Richmond Hill Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio. McLaughlin, at the direction of the FBI, reportedly recorded numerous conversations with Seminerio between September and November of 2007 in which the assemblyman made statements regarding Marc Consultants. The government alleges Seminerio set up the firm to essentially take payoffs in return for legislative favors.
Earlier this year, McLaughlin admitted under oath that he illegally took over $2 million in funds from a variety of resources: political campaign funds, union funds, and funds from employers around the electrical industry, whose workers he represented through his union responsibilities.
The plea agreement reduced McLaughlin’s sentence to eight to 10 years in federal prison. The maximum penalties for the two counts to which he pleaded — racketeering and falsification of a loan application to a federally-backed institution — are 20 and 30 years, respectively, and can command fines of over $1 million.
The plea agreement does not determine how much McLaughlin has to pay in fines, or how much restitution is owed from the estimated $2.2 million he has confessed to having stolen.
In addition to the 50-year sentence he could have faced if convicted at trial, McLaughlin could also have been punished for 42 separate counts not conceded in the plea bargain.
The one racketeering count comprised 23 separate acts, of which McLaughlin pleaded guilty to 21. Those included siphoning at least $97,000 from union accounts to a country club and to make payments for his car, to a female friend and to service his boat in New Jersey; defrauding the Electchester Athletic Association, which primarily ran a Little League baseball program in Flushing, of over $95,000 to give money to his wife and pay rent on an Albany apartment; and redirecting tens of thousands of dollars of campaign finance donations to pay for renovation work on a second home on Long Island.
Based in Flushing, McLaughlin served the 25th Assembly District, which includes Richmond Hill, Whitestone, Fresh Meadows and parts of Briarwood, from 1993 to 2006.
He announced he would not run for re-election in January of 2006, prior to the revelations of his illegal activities, citing a desire to concentrate his efforts with the New York City Central Labor Council, the local office of the AFL-CIO. He had served as president of the council for 10 years. Less than two months later, a team of FBI agents raided McLauglin’s office.
Voters and residents in Richmond Hill were shocked last week when long-serving Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio was arrested on charges of fraud after a federal investigation.
The biggest question now is what is likely to happen to Seminerio’s 38th Assembly District, which is now being represented by a man suspected of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
His legislative power is now reduced to essentially nothing, but he remains in the seat. The registration period to get a candidate on the ballot for either party has passed, so Seminerio is likely to hang on to his position for the rest of the year, barring a remarkable write-in campaign.
Vincent Tabone, vice-chairman of the Queens County Republicans, said that at no time was there a plan to run anyone against Seminerio, because his own politics, while liberal, were still considered conservative enough not to be a huge threat to the party.
“If and when Tony Seminerio decided to step down, we would be ready with a talented candidate from the community, but we’re putting the cart before the horse in discussing that.”
Seminerio, for his part, had a reputation in his district and in the Statehouse for being a fairly conservative Democrat. He had gained the endorsement of — and ran as — a member of the Queens Conservatives, while still caucusing with the Assembly’s Democratic Party.
In many instances, he’s stood against Democrats who have voted to raise taxes, voted against the Same-Sex Marriage Act, and against drug law reform legislation that geared New York states drug laws toward treatment and rehabilitation instead of incarceration.
Speculation has run rampant on the Democratic side of the aisle, as well, especially after it was revealed that the source of the investigation was disgraced former Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin.
Now that Seminerio seems to be next in line for a contentious fight for his job, the rumors have raged from censure to fielding a new Democratic candidate for an attempt at a special election.
Thus far, Democratic leaders have been mum on the subject, and have not returned calls and e-mails requesting comment.
The fallout from Seminerio’s arrest will take months, if not more than a year, to fully flower. Federal investigations often take many months to fully develop, and Seminerio is likely to try and hold onto his office to try and use his own resignation as a bargaining chip in the litigation and (most likely) sentencing process — much the way Alan Hevesi did during his own tumultuous legal troubles in 2006.
Some reports have speculated that the fall of Seminerio may have repercussions for the race between state Senator Serphin Maltese and City Councilman Joseph Addabbo Jr. for New York’s 15th Senatorial District.
Seminerio is close friends with Maltese, and has campaigned on his behalf in previous elections. Maltese said that he has spoken to Seminerio since his indictment.
Maltese categorically denies the assertion that Seminerio’s fraud charges will do anything to hurt him, and may even help by painting the Queens County Democrats with a broad brush of corruption.
“For my opponents to give me hard raps, when Seminerio is a Democrat, and they are fellow Democrats, is a little ridiculous,” he said. “I wonder just how many people are swayed by endorsements, anyway.”
Maltese was also quick to add that Seminerio had been fairly inactive on the campaign front this season, and chalked it up largely to pressure from Democrats across the board to support their candidate in the quest to regain the majority in the state Senate for the first time in decades.
On a personal level, Maltese said he was truly shocked by the charges, and alluded to the fact that Seminerio had maintained his innocence in recent conversations.
“I am amazed, I really am, I just can’t understand it,” Maltese said. “I have spoken to him, he said he feels he did nothing wrong and he feels he’ll ultimately be vindicated.”
With a stance like that, it would be hard to imagine a scenario in which the potentially disgraced assemblyman didn’t have to be forcibly dragged out of office.
Some political insiders believe that because of the extremely long period that occurs after a federal indictment but before a court case develops and prosecution occurs, Seminerio’s time in office isn’t quite over yet.
“My gut (says) he won’t relinquish the seat for a year and a half,” said one political insider who asked to remain nameless. “It’s not going to be in the spring, because these things always take time to gestate.”
Pin a star on the starched white shirt of U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia. He's the new Sheriff of Albany - and he has the bad guys shaking in their boots.
It's high time that someone with subpoena power imposed some law and order on the corruption-infested Hall of Shame also known as the state Capitol.
The politicians have been left to police themselves far too long, with the predictable result that taxpayers get fleeced.
It makes what you might call a target-rich environment for someone like Garcia, an up-and-coming federal prosecutor with a sharp eye for official corruption.
He has just bagged his fourth state politician in three years, with the hint of more to come.
At this rate, they'll have to add a Garcia wing to the Albany Hall of Shame.
His latest contribution is a plaque bearing the mug of Queens Assemblyman Tony Seminerio, caught on FBI wiretaps peddling his modest influence at the Capitol for hundreds of thousands in payoffs from a hospital in his district.
In Garcia's words, Seminerio "put his office up for sale to those willing to pay the right price."
Previously, Garcia convicted another Queens assemblyman, Brian McLaughlin, of embezzling $2 million from taxpayers and union members - including money intended for Little Leaguers in his district.
He's also going after Bronx Sen. Efrain Gonzalez for allegedly skimming $400,000 from the state treasury. Gonzalez, who is fighting the charge, lost the Democratic primary to keep his seat last week.
But the biggest notch in the prosecutor's gun belt has to be ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a failed sheriff of Albany who was forced to resign in disgrace after admitting he was the "Client No. 9" in Garcia's indictment of a high-priced hooker ring.
The Albany crime wave of the past five years has generated plenty of work for other prosecutors, too.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau put Bronx Sen. Guy Velella and Bronx Assemblywoman Gloria Davis in jail for taking bribes.
Garcia is showing signs he may top them all in bringing about a much-needed cleanup crusade.
For one thing, he and the FBI reportedly convinced McLaughlin - who hasn't been sentenced yet - to help make the case against Seminerio by wearing a wire.
Getting one pol to flip on another could be the most effective way of blowing Albany wide open.
"I've made it a priority to take a hard look for corruption," Garcia said recently. "So there are resources looking, doing the investigations, following up on leads and tips, and that's going to produce results."
He says the common thread of the cases he has pursued is Albany's "lack of transparency" - his way of saying the pols are keeping far too many secrets. With billions of tax dollars changing hands behind closed doors, people are bound to get greedy.
So, will he be exposing still more corruption in the months ahead?
"What you can expect is we'll keep looking, that we'll maintain this level of commitment," Garcia said. "If it's there, there's a significant chance we'll find it."
Disgraced ex-lawmaker and union boss Brian McLaughlin is a secret witness in an FBI probe that led to Wednesday's arrest of a Queens pol on influence-peddling charges, the Daily News has learned.
The ongoing investigation - which featured an undercover FBI agent trolling the Assembly floor for corrupt pols - has snared its first collar: Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Ozone Park).
Sources familiar with the investigation said McLaughlin, a former assemblyman who pleaded guilty to bribery charges and faces up to 10 years in prison, is cooperating in the probe.
McLaughlin, once a major labor figure and a powerful force in Queens politics, faces sentencing later this week for stealing $2.2 million in cash, cars and perks.
Word that McLaughlin has flipped could send shivers across the city's political landscape.
As a seven-term legislator and ex-head of the million-member Central Labor Council, McLaughlin knows a lot about the dark corners of city politics.
His lawyer did not return calls seeking comment.
Seminerio is the only pol charged with a crime, although the federal complaint documents him schmoozing at least four other unidentified Assembly members and two unidentified state senators for his "clients."
Seminerio, who bragged in secretly taped conversations of his connections and clout, emerged glassy-eyed from Manhattan Federal Court after posting $500,000 bond.
The gruff 73-year-old ex-correction officer faces up to 20 years in prison. Asked for a comment as the couple trudged past reporters, his wife, Catherine, said, "Drop dead."
On tape, Seminerio was captured promising clients of his bogus "consulting firm" a full menu of insider's influence in return for payoffs.
"I am at your disposal. You tell me what you want. ... I'll take care of you," Seminerio told a hospital official in March. A month later, the assemblyman called another hospital executive to boast of his political access.
"That kind of relationship you can't buy for a million dollars," said Seminerio - who then reminded the official that he was owed a check.
Seminerio - whose battle with his waistline is as legendary as any of his political wars - launched Marc Consultants in 2000, authorities said.
A 17-page complaint says Seminerio's influence-peddling became so blatant that he twice brought the FBI agent into the Assembly. "Anthony Seminerio put his office up for sale for those willing to pay the right price," said ManhattanU.S. Attorney Michael Garcia.
The assemblyman was initially exposed by an informant who shared a 15-year friendship with Seminerio - and then introduced the politician to an undercover FBI agent last January. That informant was McLaughlin, sources said.
The agent made $25,000 in cash payments to Seminerio's business, the complaint charged.
Seminerio, in a taped September 2007 conversation with an informant, explained the launch of his phony firm, the idea for which he said he got from two unnamed senators.
"I was doing favors for these sons of bitches there. You know, they were, they were making thousands. Screw you, from now on, you know, I'm a consultant," said Seminerio, a 30-year assemblyman.
In one of Seminerio's schemes, federal prosecutors said, he collected $310,000 - a huge boost from his $79,500 state salary - from an unidentified hospital that received millions in state funding with his help.
Brian McLaughlin will soon change fancy duds for prison wear.
The onetime boss of the city's largest labor union coalition pleaded guilty Friday to brazenly stealing $2.2 million in cash, cars and perks.
It took Brian McLaughlin an hour to detail his crimes - including stealing from Little Leaguers, strong-arming contractors and filing phony invoices.
Under the deal, McLaughlin will get an eight- to 10-year prison term when sentenced in September for racketeering and perjury. He was allowed to remain free on $250,000 bail.
"I take full responsibility," the towering McLaughlin told Sullivan in a strong and confident voice he used to rise through the ranks of a Queens electrician's local to command the million-member council, an umbrella group of the city's unionized trades.
A few rows back, his wife, Eva, her face deeply tanned, watched her husband with a doleful gaze, kissing him on the cheek when it was over.
McLaughlin declined to comment afterward.
"I've been advised by counsel that the process continues," he said.
The labor council has replaced McLaughlin with a Teamster, Gary LaBarbera.
In a statement Friday, the council said it has been "reinvigorated" since McLaughlin was indicted in the fall of 2006. "That being said, we wish the McLaughlin family well," the council said.
Union members served as McLaughlin's errand boys, shoveling snow at his home, cleaning a barn, installing a home security system and scouring a basement for rodents, prosecutors say.
McLaughlin told Sullivan he plundered $95,000 from a bank account for the Electchester Athletic Association by having members send out contribution letters bearing the slogan, "A Child in Sports Stays Out of the Courts."
McLaughlin also admitted:
Getting $400,000 in kickbacks and three cars from street lighting contractors who hired his union members. He gave one car to a female friend and one to his wife.
Using union members to drive him to Albany using McLaughlin's E-ZPass so he could get reimbursed.
Taking cash to pay for his son's tuition, the mortgage on his home in the exclusive Long Island enclave of Nissequogue and rent for an Albany flat.
Last year, McLaughlin went back to work as an electrician, pulling wire at a W. 59th St. construction site while outfitted in a blue 9/11 T-shirt and a Jets cap.
Brian M. McLaughlin, 55, outside federal court in Manhattan after pleading guilty on Friday.
The former head of the nation’s biggest municipal labor council painstakingly detailed years of thievery from his own union and the state on Friday as he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in federal court in Manhattan.
But he never, even after the proceeding was over and he was asked to comment, expressed contrition.
“Do you have anything to say to the members?” a reporter asked when it was over, referring to the rank and file he stole from. To that, Mr. McLaughlin, 55, walking toward the elevator, replied, after a slight hesitation and a barely visible wince, “I don’t have any comment right now.”
Earlier, in reciting his crimes — contained in two counts encompassing 21 separate criminal acts — he sounded as if he were reciting a biblical passage about plague and destruction, so repetitive were the verses. The crimes took place from 1995 to 2006.
He said he had sent out letters asking for contributions to benefit members of Local 3, one of the 400 locals under the labor council’s umbrella, and “those contributions were at times used for personal purposes by myself and other members of the group.” Mr. McLaughlin was apparently referring to unnamed co-conspirators referred to in the indictment who were part of the racketeering enterprise.
He said he had “falsely and misleadingly” persuaded people to give personal contributions and government support to a youth athletic association in Queens that he used as a personal piggy bank.
There were two separate checking accounts for the athletic association, one that provided funds to the youth programs and another that “wasn’t necessary to fund the athletic programs,” he said. The proceeds of the second account, he said, “were used by myself and members of my group for personal use.”
He said he also stole money from his Assembly campaign committee, requiring his campaign treasurer to disguise personal expenses as legitimate political ones.
Judge Richard J. Sullivan of United States District Court asked for a “ballpark amount” that he had siphoned from his campaign committee.
“A considerable amount,” Mr. McLaughlin said.
“Tens of thousands of dollars?” the judge pressed.
“Yes, your honor,” Mr. McLaughlin replied.
He said he had created no-show jobs within the Central Labor Council and on his Assembly staff, and made it look as if “they had real responsibility and were working real hours.”
In reality, the judge asked, were they giving kickbacks from their salaries to Mr. McLaughlin?
“Yes, your honor,” he replied.
He said he had siphoned money for personal purposes from the William Jefferson Clinton Democratic Club in Queens; solicited the use of automobiles from companies that employed union members; and asked members to perform “favors, errands” and household chores for him, like hanging Christmas lights.
And he had lied on a mortgage application, saying that he was renting his house to a union officer, he said.
The assistant United States attorney on the case, Daniel A. Braun, told the judge that Mr. McLaughlin, who remained free Friday on $250,000 bail, could have to forfeit up to $2.2 million in illicit proceeds, as well as his Long Island home and a car that was paid for with $60,000 in kickbacks from a company that used union members as unpaid labor.
The Central Labor Council released a statement on Friday saying it had made changes to improve accountability within the organization since Mr. McLaughlin’s arrest in October 2006. “That being said, we wish the McLaughlin family well at this difficult time,” the statement said.
The original indictment charged Mr. McLaughlin with illegally obtaining $2.2 million from taxpayers, labor unions and contractors. He pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering and one count of making false statements to a lender.
The judge told him he could be sent to prison for a maximum of 50 years when he is sentenced in September. It is more likely, however, that given his guilty plea, he will be sentenced under federal guidelines to about 8 to 10 years, the judge said.
Ex-city labor leader and Queens assemblyman Brian McLaughlin once touted himself as a potential mayoral candidate. Instead, he'll do his public service in a federal pen.
Under a plea deal with prosecutors, McLaughlin, 55, pled guilty to racketeering in Manhattan federal court this afternoon, agreeing to serve a prison sentence of from 97 to 121 months.
In a plea allocution that took him a solid hour to recount, McLaughlin admitted to having ripped off everyone from his fellow union members to his local little league in Queens. Along the way, he also hit up five street lighting contractors for bribes, and stole from his own political club.
McLaughlin refused comment as he exited the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan, brushing aside questions from reporters. Asked if he had anything to say to the one million city union members he once led as president of the city's Central Labor Council, McLaughlin declined comment. "I've been advised by my attorney not to talk about it," he said.
The Voice told the ragged tale of McLaughlin's colossal fall in 2006 in "The Sinner Within."
As he walked down West 59th Street yesterday, a burly man in a blue hard hat, he looked like thousands of other electricians in the city.
But this electrician, on lunch break from his $46-an-hour job building a luxury residential high-rise, was in no way a typical union journeyman.
He is Brian M. McLaughlin, once the city’s top labor leader and once an assemblyman from Queens, a man courted by mayors and governors until he was indicted last October, charged with stealing money from his union, from the State Assembly, even from a local Little League.
As he worked yesterday at his new job at 59th Street and 11th Avenue, Mr. McLaughlin wore a red T-shirt and dust-covered blue jeans, having put aside the expensive wool suits and silk ties of old.
Now he has become the rarest of species — an indicted union leader who has gone back to work alongside the rank and file. He works each day next to members of his own union, Local 3, which the indictment accuses him of defrauding.
If anything, though, his fellow electricians seemed protective of him yesterday as he walked around the site, unbothered by any sort of rancor.
All told, Mr. McLaughlin, 55, is charged in a 43-count federal indictment with illegally obtaining $2.2 million through embezzlement, fraud, receiving bribes and other means. He has pleaded not guilty and is free pending trial.
He said he was back at work for a simple reason: He had a family to support and a lawyer to pay — and federal prosecutors were demanding that he disgorge any ill-gotten gains.
“Like anyone else, I’m back at work because I need to work,” he said. “I always liked being an electrician.”
Mr. McLaughlin, a brawny 6-foot-4, said there was also something comforting about returning to work he knows. “This is very serene,” he said, as he paused outside the building on his lunch break.
Mr. McLaughlin said he received unemployment insurance for six months after he was forced to take a leave last summer from his job as president of the New York City Central Labor Council. He is now on unpaid leave. The organization is the nation’s largest municipal labor council, representing more than one million workers.
In March, he said, he went to work for several weeks underground as a sandhog on the gigantic water tunnel that is now under construction beneath the city. He said he decided to take a less grueling job as an electrician as soon as his name came up on the union’s waiting list for jobs.
He said he did not jump ahead of other people on the list. “I didn’t do anything inappropriate” in getting the job, he said. “I waited my turn.”
For the past two weeks, Mr. McLaughlin has been working on the Element Condominium, a 33-story building described on its Web site as an “urbane paradise with breathtaking views.” The electrical contractor on the site is Colony Electric, of Staten Island, and yesterday Mr. McLaughlin wore a Colony decal on his hard hat.
It has been a quarter-century since Mr. McLaughlin, who served seven terms in the State Legislature, last worked with his electrician’s tools. Since then the trade has changed, with the spread of fiber optics, cable television and DSL.
“It’s surprising that he’s working with his tools now,” said Jason Ramos, an electrician in Local 3 who was working at a neighboring construction site. “He was so high-ranking up there.”
In a city with a long history of indictments against labor leaders, Joshua Freeman, a labor historian at the City University Graduate Center, said it was nonetheless rare to encounter one who returns to his rank-and-file job after being charged.
One possible reason Mr. McLaughlin is back at work is the delay he has encountered in selling a large country house he owns in Suffolk County, on the North Shore. Last fall, shortly after the indictment, he put the home, near a nature preserve in Nissequogue, on the market for $1.6 million. But real estate records indicate it has not sold — perhaps because federal officials have sought to seize the property.
The federal indictment accuses Mr. McLaughlin of taking more than $140,000 from his union’s street lights division, for which he was business representative. It also accuses him of taking $185,000 from the Central Labor Council, more than $35,000 from the State Assembly and $95,000 from Little League baseball teams in Queens.
Mr. McLaughlin, who is out on $250,000 bail, is also accused of stealing more than $330,000 from his own re-election committee, using some of that money to pay for personal expenses like a rehearsal dinner for his son’s wedding and a renovation of his Nissequogue home.
In addition, the indictment charges that he illegally received more than $1.4 million from street-lighting contractors and other companies.
Conviction on all 43 counts could send him to prison for decades.
His lawyer, Michael F. Armstrong, declined to comment yesterday, and officials for Local 3 did not return phone calls.
For more than a week, Mr. McLaughlin has eaten lunch by himself at the Olympic Flame Diner, around the block from the construction site, according to a manager there. As he left the diner yesterday, he said he had faced no hostility from the union brothers with whom he now works.
Disgraced Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin is expected to finally face sentencing for pleading guilty to corruption charges on Thursday. The former labor boss and seven-term democratic Assemblyman faces up to 10 years in prison. But as is common in this political circus, the day approaches with a sideshow.
