Skelos verdict rocks Albany, renews calls for change

Joseph Spector | Journal Albany Bureau

ALBANY - Another day, another powerful New York leader is convicted.

Former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, were convicted on all eight corruption counts Friday afternoon in federal court in Manhattan, making the Long Island Republican the latest New York politician to be found guilty for ethical misdeeds.

The guilty verdict came less than two weeks after ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, was found guilty in his own corruption trial.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara scolded the state for not improving its political climate, and the Skelos conviction renewed calls for an overhaul of state ethics laws.

“The swift convictions of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos beg an important question – how many prosecutions will it take before Albany gives the people of New York the honest government they deserve?” Bharara, who brought the cases against Skelos and Silver, said in a statement.

Even by the standards in Albany — which has sustained the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer in 2008, a comptroller sent to jail and nearly 40 lawmakers in trouble since 2000 — the demise of the two former legislative leaders was unprecedented in state history. In January, they both headed the 213-seat Legislature.

The cases put added pressure on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature to toughen anti-corruption laws when they return to the Capitol for a six-month session in January.

“If this doesn’t signal to all of us that we need to fundamentally reform how Albany functions, then I’m not sure what will,” Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, said in a statement.

Skelos removed

Skelos, 67, the majority leader from 2008 through May 2015, was immediately kicked out the Senate, which is required by state law after any lawmaker is convicted of a felony. His name was stripped from his Albany office, and his official Senate website said: “This senator is no longer serving in the New York State Senate.”

Skelos is the fifth consecutive Senate leader who has faced corruption charges. Only former GOP leader Joseph Bruno got off on a second trial last year.

Skelos’ deputy, Sen. Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton, was convicted of lying to the FBI in July, and he’s serving six months of house arrest. He, too, is out of office.

“The conviction of former Senate Majority Leader Skelos adds to the Albany’s already swollen ‘Rogues Gallery’ of corrupt and unethical elected officials,” Blair Horner, the legislative director from the New York Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement.

The eight counts in the Skelos case surrounded allegations that Skelos used his influence to aid his son get jobs and contracts on Long Island. They face up to 20 years in prison when they are sentenced March 3.

Appeal planned

Skelos and his son did not speak to reporters as they left the Manhattan federal courthouse. Their lawyer, G. Robert Gage, vowed an appeal.

“We are obviously very disappointed with the verdict,” Gage told reporters. “The next step is post trial motions, and we intend to pursue them vigorously.”

The jury came back with the verdict at around 2 p.m. after starting deliberations on Wednesday.

Jury forewoman Cynthia Nehlsen told reporters after the trial that prosecutors “gave a great timeline” of events regarding the father and son’s dealings.

“We wanted to give them a fair trial, and we did,” she said.

Like the other convicted lawmakers, Skelos will be entitled to his state pension. It could up to $95,000 a year because of his 41 years in the pension system, the Empire Center, an Albany think tank, estimated.

Evidence shown

Prosecutors spent weeks playing wiretaps between the father and son that revealed remarkable exchanges as they conspired to help Adam get jobs and contracts.

“I’m going to control everything,” Dean Skelos said in one exchange last year about his power in Albany. “I’m going to control who is on what committees, what legislation comes to the floor, the budget — everything.”

The wiretaps and emails between them and their associates revealed another layer of the private deal-making in Albany between lawyers and powerful special interests.

In another call, Adam Skelos bemoaned Cuomo’s decision to reject hydraulic fracturing in New York a year ago. Adam Skelos hoped to benefit from fracking through a company that employed him.

“Ahhh! This day sucks,” Adam Skelos said on a phone call Dec. 17.

“It does,” Dean Skelos said. “Well, we’re going to totally focus on that other thing now. OK?”

Adam replied: “Yeah. Oh my god.”

Reforms vowed

Cuomo and legislative leaders have defended their efforts to reform the Capitol. But Cuomo, who just last week said New York has the strongest ethics laws in its history, said Friday he would seek additional measures after Skelos’ guilty verdict.

Cuomo offered no specifics, saying his plan would be part of his legislative agenda — which will be released Jan. 13 when he gives his State of the State address.

The Democratic governor, who himself has faced Bharara’s ire, put the onus on the state Legislature to agree to his proposals.

“The convictions of former Speaker Silver and former Majority Leader Skelos should be a wakeup call for the Legislature and it must stop standing in the way of needed reforms,” Cuomo said in a statement.

Bharara issued his first tweet Thursday during Cuomo’s regional council awards ceremony, writing: “As alleged, this is my official Twitter account. And this, allegedly, is my first tweet. Stay tuned. . .”

Bharara has led a crusade against corruption at the state Capitol, and he hasn’t said whether he’s concluded his probe of Cuomo’s decision in 2014 to hastily shutter a corruption-busting panel.

Moreland revisited

Cuomo stopped the work of the Moreland Commission because he said he was able to extract reforms from the Legislature. But Bharara has blasted the move and picked up the commission’s cases.

Now Cuomo’s opponents are again knocking him for shutting down the panel and suggesting Bharara’s work is not finished.

“I continue to wonder, as I did aloud in my campaign last year, how much of this Governor Cuomo knew when he shut down the Moreland Commission,” Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, Cuomo’s Republican opponent last year, said in a statement. “I have every confidence that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara will answer that question in time.”

For their part, lawmakers said they too would seek ethics reforms.

“I take this situation very seriously and am determined to work with my fellow legislators to swiftly and completely restore the public trust,” Skelos’ successor, Senate Leader John Flanagan, R-Suffolk County, said in a statement.

Joseph Spector: JSPECTOR@Gannett.com; Twitter: @gannettalbany

Database

For a list of all the troubled lawmakers in New York since 2000, visit: http://pokjournal.nydatabases.com/​

Coming Up

"Power in Money" has been an ongoing series this year by Gannett's Albany Bureau that investigates and explores the intersection of money and public policy in New York government. The upcoming installment looks at how New York’s campaign-finance laws are much more porous than other states.