How Do You Solve a Problem Like Hevesi?

Alan Hevesi, like any other citizen, is entitled to his day in court, if he in fact is charged with the commission of a crime. Thus far he has not been give his opportunity to defend himself.

Should Hevesi be impeached, he should be entitled to present evidence of similar activity by other elected state officals, in New York, in his defense.

The fact is, perks of many kinds, are endowed upon the community of senior elected officials in New York.

These perks range from chauffeured limos, catered meals, personal security services, tickets to sporting and cultural events, discounted travel rates, free and/or reduced rate housing, and free telephone and internet services, and much more.

To point fingers at Alan Hevesi, in this instance, without including other "perked" officials, in Albany, is unfair and unjust.

Also, let us not forget that Mr. Hevesi has brought some $40B in investment earningsinto state cofers since taking office as Comptroller in 2002. His track record far exceeds the performance of his predecessors, by far, in this respect.

IMO, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's expenditure of $14M in tax dollars to build a baseball field, to bring minor league baseball into his legislative district is a far worse misdeed than Mr. Hevesi's. Bruno's agreement to have the field named in his honor makes this misuse of public monies even more brazen.

And, Mr. Bruno is to oversee a trial involving Mr. Hevesi? Talk about the kettle being black!

Give me a break, please!

Some people miss the point entirely, it seems.

For starters: Hevesi was not, nor was he ever in a position to utilize anyone for driving services, and THEN reimburse the state. It doesn't work that way. Pay for it upfront, out of your own pocket. Not with the taxpayer's dollars first.

And the shots at Jen, Murray Hillster? Uncalled for and ridiculous. More likely, many voters either went with Hevesi primarily on name recognition alone.

Hevesi, as far as anyone can tell, didn't do a bad job as comptroller, and I'm not saying he did either. But regardless of how often his wife was driven around (a completely moot point), the way it was handled was incorrect, and in the eyes of New York State's legal system, it's considered wrong.

Gothamist commenters are remarkably pro-criminal. I guess that's New York for you.

I ain't voting for no guy in a bow tie.

And, how many of us took a car service voucher for a personal airport trip?

Old news. The people reelected the guy so I guess they made there decision . To remove him would be doing the public a vast disservice so why not leave him their to serve out his term . There are plenty of crooks out there in the republican party to pass the blame onto . Hevesi did something wrong, (Even if it was against the law) He had an excuse for it . I'm not saying he was right to do it but just think about all the scandals involving the current administration . Them Packy's(Republican Party) like fucking little boys on the low and there not ashamed to get caught in the act !!! All Hevesi did was allow his sickly wife to take advantage of his car service .

Simple solution: Cuomo should bring him up on criminal charges. Embezzlement, pure and simple.

And no, just because we're cynical enough to accept that "other politicians are doing it" doesn't mean that the right course of action is to ignore it. By that logic, we should have just left Republicans to run the House and Senate.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

nobody is blaming Hevesi, or calling him and "evil bastard", for wanting to take care of his wife. He just shouldn't have been doing so with taxpayer money.

"Crap, what about the voters who thought "Well, if Pataki removes him, then the State Legislature selects someone else" or "Well, if he gets elected, maybe he'll resign under more pressure.""

Yeah! What about those voters? And what do leprechauns and unicorns think? I mean c'mon! They voted in equal numbers as these alleged voters Jen Chung refers to.

I'm exaggerating. I'm sure Jen Chung and a few of her friends sit around thinking that if he's reelected (in a landslide) he'll somehow bow to political pressure to resign ... despite the fact people just said they wanted him in there!

Sure. He won't read the victory as rebutting all claims for him to step down. Not at all. ...

We need to face the fact: Hevesi kicked Jen Chung's dog at some point, and she's going to wage a one woman crusade against Hevesi, with Gothamist as her pulpit.

She'll ignore the writing on the wall that New Yorkers knew full well what Hevesi did (or at least have a notion about it), and didn't care. Despite knowing it, they elected him with nearly a 17% margin over Callaghan. She needs to get over it and move on like most New Yorkers have.

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In the OP, Jen Chung writes:

"he used a state driver to chauffeur his wife for many years. "

I think that's misleading. The chauffeuring was not consistent except for one year until she entered a nursing home.

From the Ethics report:

"Sometime after his employment commenced, Acquafredda's job duties changed to include driving Mrs. Hevesi to medical and other appointments because "there came an interest on [the Comptroller's] part . . . that [Mrs. Hevesi] be provided with assistance, driving, and security" (Hevesi: 505). ... He felt "honored" to do this..."

Initially, "Acquafredda's job duties changed to include driving Mrs. Hevesi to medical and other appointments because "there came an interest on [the Comptroller's] part . . . that [Mrs. Hevesi] be provided with assistance, driving, and security" ... Acquafredda provided transportation for Mrs. Hevesi between once or twice per week or once every other month"

"Mr. Hevesi had reimbursed the City $6,439 for Acquafredda's services on behalf of Mrs. Hevesi."

This was for services until around 2001. Later:

"Gladstone estimated that from December 2003 to October of 2004, Acquafredda spent one day per week, or 20% of his time driving Mrs. Hevesi, ... He "guess[ed]" that he spent about 10 to 15% of his time with Mrs. Hevesi (Acquafredda: 52). None of Acquafredda's supervisors challenged the appropriateness of his driving assignments for Mrs. Hevesi (Acquafredda: 88-89)."

"in July 2005, when Mrs. Hevesi underwent knee surgery, and her medical appointments "increased incredibly" (Hoffman: 419)."

"He stopped driving Mrs. Hevesi in July 2006 when she entered a nursing home (Hevesi: 627-628)."

So, once in a while for several years, once a week for a year or two, and then quite a bit for one year when she could hardly walk and just prior to entering a nursing home.

What an evil bastard.

I'm terribly embarrassed for anyone who's dumb enough to think Hevesi's the first politician to dip into public funds for personal reasons. What was it, $120,000? Please. What do you expect? Time to augment your indignant moral superiority, people.

I voted for the other guy, because I knew if Hevesi were re-elected, it would be a distraction. I say if he violated the law and deserves some criminal penalty, give it to him, but if it was just an "ethics" thing, apparently the people he represents don't care, so move on.

also, don't forget that the Albany County DA is also investigating. and his investigation will be the big one. either he'll be found to have acted criminally or not.

i still think he silently resigns when no on is looking.

the ethics commission didn't find the Hevesi violated the law. they don't have that authority. what they issued is a "Notice of Reasonable Cause." Their investigation was largely secretive and Hevesi never had a chance to formally respond. The kicker is that no one knows what to do after the NORC has been issued as it's never happened before. The next logical step is for an impeachment proceeding to be initiated by the Assembly in 2007 where Hevesi can make his case.

please note that impeachment and removal are vastly different things. and not different in the federal sense (bill clinton was impeached but never removed). unlike on the federal level where impeachment and removal are two parts of the one process in NYS impeachment and removal are two WHOLY separate processes.

if he's impeached or removed, however, the governor (spitzer) picks his replacement. if he resigns, then a joint session of the state legislature picks the replacement. so essentially shelly silver picks because he's only 2 votes shy of the magic number as is.

my bet is that he serves for the better part of 2007 and sometime in august when no one is paying attention he announces his intention to resign "to take care of his ailing wife." thus solving the problem and never admitting doing anything wrong. in his mind he never did.

the issue is that Hevesi was essentially stealing from the taxpayers to pay for the driver. The comptroller, who audits the state's books, needs to be above reproach when it comes to financial matters. So, yes, it is a big deal.

big fucking deal, i personally couldnt care less about his wife and the chauffeur.