By all accounts, Governor Paterson is very bright, hard working individual who is well liked by folks on both sides of the aisle in the legislature. Although liberal to the core, he seemed like a welcome change of pace from the sanctimonious and brash Client 9. Unfortunately, he may not be governor for long. Bear with me on this long post, but there’s a significant amount of potential wrongdoing to cover. Moreover, much of it involves potentially felonious misuse of campaign funds.
As you recall, just hours after his inauguration, Governor Paterson and his wife held a press conference where they both admitted to marital infidelities during a “rough patch” in their marriage a few years ago. Maybe politics makes me cynical, but when I heard that they had happily fessed up to marital infidelities, I wondered what sort of bad deeds were being covered up. I have to give credit to the reporters covering the Albany scene - they refused to give the governor a free pass (like the national reporters give to Obama) and went digging on their own.
In just a few days, they’ve uncovered quite a bit about our governor and it does not look good. First, the press reported that the Governor had an ongoing relationship with a woman named Lila Kirton, a state employee who now works for him (she worked in Client 9’s office, and with his resignation, now works for Governor Paterson). That looks pretty seedy, but the Governor apologized, so let’s move on. Except that we can’t move on because it turns out that Paterson’s campaign wrote Kirton a check for $500 in 2002 for “professional services.” I am not an expert at campaign finance rules, but I’m pretty sure you are not permitted to use campaign contributions to pay your girlfriend for “professional services.”
Next, the New York Post reported that former Olympic medalist Diane Dixon had a ”close personal relationship” with the governor earlier this year, and that he had helped get her a job with the city Department of Education just last month. That sounds inappropriate, but at least there was nothing reported about campaign funds.
I spoke too soon. On Thursday, the Governor admitted that he used a campaign credit card to pay for a hotel room where he met another woman who he could not recall. He also could not recall if he paid the campaign back. He must not have, because today, he reimbursed his campaign for hotel stays in December of 2002 and September of 2003.
I wish I could wrap this up, but the story will not die. Today, the New York Post reported that “Gov. Paterson’s campaign-finance reports show he paid $1,000 to a woman who says she barely knows him, didn’t work for him and never received any money.” Nevertheless, “Luisa Vizcarrondo, 49, was listed as ’staff’ on Paterson’s campaign for re-election when he was in the state Senate, and a payment of $1,000 was made to her on June 25, 2002, according the records.”
Even worse, the New York Sun reported today that “Paterson officials [are seeking] to provide details about more than $11,000 in payments that his campaign committee made between 2002 and 2007 to a 45-year-old woman, April Robbins-Bobyn, whose connection to Mr. Paterson is not clear.” What is clear is that she received more than a dozen payments over a five year period totaling over $11,000.
The underlying problem here is that politicians are prohibited from taking campaign contributions for personal use. And most everyone would agree that covering expenses for a politician’s girlfriend is a most personal use of campaign funds.
I am not happy about this story. It is not good for the state of New York that its second governor in as many weeks could be indicted for misusing campaign funds. We will have to wait and see if the governor can provide satisfactory explanations for these irregularities. And I hope no new stories break in the coming days.
Tags: Articles, David Paterson, Occam by Occam
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