Albany

A Saratoga Springs judge is among nine defendants in a federal lawsuit filed by a New York City lawyer who contends he was maliciously prosecuted in the 1990s because opposed Brooklyn’s powerful Democratic machine.

Saratoga Springs Judge Jeffrey Wait was a state Board of Elections deputy counsel when he made several trips at the time from Albany to Brooklyn as part of an investigation into whether activist John O’Hara used a fake address when he registered to vote.

In 1997, O’Hara was convicted of false voter registration and illegal voting after then-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes found he registered to vote at a girlfriend’s address that was 12 blocks from his official residence. He was also stripped of his law license. The charges followed several years of investigations by Hynes and his staff.

But this past January, O’Hara was cleared of the charges and his conviction was vacated.

The court system in 2009 had already restored O’Hara’s law license. A special hearing commission concluded in court papers that the Brooklyn Democratic party machine “went gunning for him,” because of his long opposition to the party’s hand-picked candidates.

“It was a real Irish grudge match,” O’Hara said with a chuckle, referring to the years of conflict between Hynes and himself.

Nor is it over.

O’Hara's federal claim alleges malicious prosecution and denial of due process among other charges. He’s seeking $25 million in damages.

O’Hara had long tangled with Hynes although they initially were allies. According to the complaint, Hynes, in the late 1980s, told O’Hara he would back him in a Democratic primary for state Assembly. But he ended up supporting James Brennan instead.

Brennan, who was well-known for his work in mental health and housing issues, was in the Assembly from 1985 until his retirement in 2016.

As for Wait’s role in the affair, O’Hara said he made trips to Brooklyn in an effort to find out where he was actually living.

While memories of the case have faded over the decades, Wait said he was acting in his position as deputy counsel for the BOE.

“I was an employee of the state Board of Elections. I was doing my job,” Wait said.

The attorney general’s office will defend Wait in the civil suit since he was working for the state government at the time.

Generally, the BOE investigates complaints and, if the state election commissioners agree, can pursue a case and refer it to a local district attorney, which is what happened in O’Hara’s case.

The effort to show that O’Hara had two residences was extensive, with surveillance and investigators even getting his tax records, O'Hara's complaint states, adding that Brennan had a role in that.

Neither Brennan nor Hynes could be reached for comment.

O’Hara noted that the episode cost him thousands of dollars and he spent 15 years without his law license.

“I was cleaning garbage in the park,” he said, explaining that he was sentenced to 1,500 hours of community service, which included picking up trash in Brooklyn’s parks.

He claims the politically motivated investigation consumed countless man-hours and involved the deployment of investigators who would normally probe more serious crimes, including drug cases and homicides.

In addition to Hynes, Wait and Brennan, six others are named in the lawsuit: Brooklyn Assistant District Attorneys John O’Mara, Angelo Morelli, Dino Amoroso, Investigator Allen Presser and Brennan staffers John Carroll and John Keefe.

O’Hara said his 1997 conviction was just the second time that someone was convicted of illegal voting in New York. The other was in 1873 when suffragette Susan B. Anthony was arrested – before women had the right to vote.

O’Hara hasn’t given up his political activities. He made an unsuccessful primary bid earlier in 2017 for a civil court judgeship in Brooklyn.

He compared the borough’s politics as something akin to a Third World dictatorship or an old Soviet satellite.

“The winners take office, the losers go to jail,” he said.

rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTU