In New York, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is not the first elected state official who has been accused of offenses that warrant induction into a rogues’ gallery. There have been 41 accused of misdeeds in the past 12 years. Some are awaiting trial, some have been convicted, some resigned amid controversy without criminal charges. Some were rewarded with re-election or other government jobs.
2015
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
D-Manhattan
Charged Jan. 22 with accepting bribes and kickbacks totaling nearly $4 million. The FBI charged that Silver failed to disclose on state financial disclosure reports secret payments he received for years from a small law firm that specialized in seeking reductions of New York City real estate taxes. He is free on $200,000 bail and remains in office. Silver was first elected to the Assembly in 1976, and became speaker in 1994.
2014
Former Assemblyman Dennis Gabrysczak
D-Cheektowaga
Resigned from the Assembly in January 2014 shortly after being accused of sexual harassment by seven former legislative staffers. Lawsuits are pending against Gabrysczak, who was first elected to the Assembly in 2006.
Former Assemblyman William Boyland
D-Brooklyn
Convicted in March 2014 of 21 federal charges, including bribery, mail fraud and extortion. He solicited bribes from undercover agents who asked his help on development deals and pocketed $70,000 in unearned Assembly per diem payments. He is awaiting sentencing, facing up to 30 years in prison. He previously was tried and acquitted of federal corruption charges in 2011.
Assemblyman William Scarborough
D-Queens
Re-elected, unopposed, in 2014 despite being charged that year with felony counts of using $40,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses and filing false claims for $40,000 in travel reimbursements. He has pleaded not guilty.
Sen. Thomas Libous
R-Binghamton
Re-elected in 2014 despite being indicted months earlier with lying to the FBI. He is accused of repeatedly lying to FBI agents in June 2010, when he was interviewed as part of a probe into whether he used his influence to get his son a job with a prominent Westchester County law firm. The charge is pending.
Former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno
R-Brunswick
Acquitted in 2014 by a second jury of the charges of honest services fraud. He had been convicted of fraud in 2009. He was accused of using his influence to make money in his sideline consulting business, depriving taxpayers of his honest services. After he appealed, the conviction was overturned in 2011.
2013
Former Assemblyman Eric Stevenson
D-Bronx
Sentenced to three years in prison in 2014 after being convicted of bribery and other public corruption charges. He was charged in 2013 with accepting $22,000 in bribes from businessmen who built an adult day care center in return for legislation to impose a moratorium on the opening of competing centers. His seat became vacant automatically when he was convicted.
Former Assemblywoman Gabriela Rosa
D-Manhattan
Sentenced in 2014 to one year in prison after pleading guilty to lying to immigration authorities on her marital relationship in 2005 and for making false statements in a bankruptcy petition in 2009. She paid $8000 for a sham marriage to gain citizenship. She resigned from the Assembly when she pleaded guilty in June 2014.
Former Sen. Shirley Huntley
D-Brooklyn
Sentenced in 2013 to one year in prison after she pleaded guilty to embezzling $87,000 in public funds and attempting to cover it up. A senator from 2007 through 2012, she was released in 2014. She secretly recorded other politicians in a bid for leniency. Huntley lost a primary election after she was arrested.
Former Sen. Malcolm Smith
D-Queens
Former Sen. Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, the former Senate majority leader, was found guilty Feb. 5, 2014 of scheming to bribe his way onto the ballot in the 2013 New York City mayoral election. A federal jury found Smith guilty on all four charges: bribery conspiracy, wire fraud, use of interstate facilities to commit bribery and extortion. Smith lost his re-election bid in 2014 after being charged in 2013 with the felony charges.
Former Sen. Pedro Espada Jr.
D-Bronx
Sentenced in 2013 to five years in prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a health care network he ran. Espada was found guilty of four counts of theft from a group of nonprofit clinics to pay for fine meals, parties, luxury cars and spa treatments for his family. Espada was sentenced to pay $368,000 to the government, pay the same amount to victims and pay more than $100,000 to the IRS.
Assemblyman Steve Katz
R-Mohegan Lake
Charged in 2013 with unlawful possession of marijuana after he was stopped for speeding. The charge was dismissed after Katz performed community service. Katz had voted against bills that would legalize marijuana for medical uses prior to his arrest. Katz was first elected assemblyman in 2010. He was re-elected in 2014.
Former Assemblyman Nelson Castro
D-Bronx
Resigned in April 2013 as part of an agreement by prosecutors not to prosecute him on several felonies. Castro, first elected in 2008, was allowed to escape prosecution because he wore a wire for federal authorities for two years and recorded incriminating conversations with other lawmakers.
Former Assemblyman Vito Lopez
D-Brooklyn
Resigned from the Assembly in 2013 after eight female staffers accused him of sexually harassing them. He was fined $330,000 by a state ethics board. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had approved confidential settlements with some of the women. The Assembly was preparing to start the process of expelling Lopez, who was first elected in 1984, when he resigned.
Sen. John Sampson
D-Brooklyn
Easily won re-election in 2014 despite being charged in 2013 with embezzling $440,000 and with obstructing justice in a scheme to control money from the foreclosure of four Brooklyn properties. Two embezzling charges were dismissed, but he still faces trial on eight counts, including making false statements, concealing records, obstructing justice and witness tampering.
Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez
D-Harlem
Charged in 2013 with driving while intoxicated near Albany. The disposition of the charge is unknown. Rodriguez was first elected to the Assembly in 2010. He easily won re-election in 2014.
Former Assemblyman Micah Kellner
D-Manhattan
Sanctioned in 2013 by the Assembly, stripped of a committee chair and barred from having interns, after an ethics investigation found he had sexually harassed staff members. He did not seek re-election.
2012
Former Sen. Nicholas Spano
R-Westchester
Sentenced in 2012 to one year in prison after he pleaded guilty that year to a felony of obstructing the IRS by filing fraudulent tax returns. He failed to pay $45,000 in taxes on income he received from an insurance company that won state contracts. Spano lost his re-election bid in 2006.
Former Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera
D-Bronx
Lost her re-election bid in 2012 while under investigation for allegations that she provided boyfriends with no-show public jobs. No charges were filed. Rivera was first elected to the Assembly in 2004. Her father is an Assembly member.
2011
Former Sen. Carl Kruger
D-Brooklyn
Sentenced in 2012 to seven years in prison after he was convicted of accepting nearly a half-million dollars in bribes from business owners with business before the state. He was indicted in 2011. He resigned from the Senate right before he pleaded guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud, and bribery in 2011.
Former state Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi
A Democrat from New York City, was sentenced in 2011 to one to four years in prison for his leading role in an influence-peddling scandal at the state’s massive pension fund. Hevesi pleaded guilty to official misconduct, a felony, in 2010, admitting he had approved a $250 million pension investment in exchange for nearly $1 million in benefits from a California businessman. Hevesi, first elected comptroller in 2002, was re-elected in 2006, but a month later he was forced to resign when he pleaded guilty to a felony of defrauding the government, admitting he assigned state employees to care for his ailing wife. Hevesi was sentenced in 2007 to a $5,000 fine and permanently banned from holding elective office again for that offense. He was released on parole from prison in 2014.
Sen. Vincent Leibell
R-Yorktown Heights
Sentenced in 2011 to 21 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and tax evasion. The scheme involved shaking down lawyers and then conspiring to cover up the crime. After he was arrested in 2010, Leibell resigned from the Senate and was elected Putnam County executive, but never took that office. He served 28 years in the Assembly and Senate.
2010
Former Gov. David Paterson
A Democrat from New York City, was fined $62,125 in 2010 by a state ethics commission for soliciting and accepting free Yankees tickets, and then lying under oath to cover up his actions. He was fined 11 days before his term ended. A state senator before he was elected lieutenant governor, Paterson became governor in 2008 when Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal.
Former Sen. Hiram Monserrate
D-Queens
Expelled from the Senate in February 2010 due to misdemeanor assault conviction in 2009 involving his girlfriend. Monserrate was sentenced to three years probation and community service. He had been charged with three felonies and three misdemeanors following a 2008 injury to his girlfriend.
Sen. Kevin Parker
D-Brooklyn
Re-elected twice since he was sentenced, in 2010, to three years on probation and fined $1,672 for criminal mischief. That stemmed from a 2009 altercation with a photographer for the New York Post. In 2005, Parker was charged with misdemeanor assault after he was accused of punching a traffic agent in the face. The charges were dropped after he agreed to take anger management classes.
2009
Former Sen. Efrain Gonzalez Jr.
D-Bronx
Sentenced in 2009 to seven years in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $700,000 after being convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy. He was indicted in 2006 on charges that he had routed state grants known as “member items” to nonprofit groups and then used some of the money for personal expenses. He pleaded guilty to using the money to pay for personal expenses, including credit card bills, rent and Yankees tickets. Gonzalez lost his bid for re-election in 2008.
Former Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin
D-Queens
Sentenced in 2009 to 10 years in prison for racketeering involving embezzlement of more than $2 million from the state Assembly, his campaign funds and from the nation’s largest municipal labor council, which he served as president. He was arrested in 2006 and announced he would not run for re-election that year. He pleaded guilty in 2008.
2008
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer
A Democrat from New York City, resigned in 2008 days after it emerged that he had been caught on a federal wiretap discussing plans to meet a prostitute in Washington. Spitzer was known as Client-9 by Emporers Club VIP, the business that supplied prostitutes. Investigators believe Spitzer paid up to $80,000 for prostitutes while he was attorney general and governor. Spitzer was elected governor in 2006.
Former Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV
D-Harlem
Found guilty of driving while his ability was impaired by alcohol in 2010. He was arrested on a DWI charge in 2008. He served in the Assembly from 2001-2010 and lost a Democratic primary for Congress in 2010.
Former Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio
D-Queens
Died in prison in 2011. He was arrested in 2008 on influence peddling charges. He won re-election that year, but in 2009, he resigned from the Assembly, where he’d served for 31 years, and pleaded guilty to fraud. He was accused of accepting $1 million in payments to promote the interests of businesses, including Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, in their dealings with state government.
Former Assemblywoman Diane Gordon
D-Brooklyn
Sentenced in 2008 to two to six years in prison after being convicted of receiving a bribe for offering to help a developer buy city-owned land in her district if he would build her a free $500,000 house. She was paroled from prison in 2010. Her seat automatically was vacated due to the felony conviction.
Former Assemblyman Sam Hoyt
D-Buffalo
Prohibited in 2008 from participating in the Assembly’s internship program after the chamber’s ethics committee found he had an “inappropriate personal relationship” with a 23-year-old intern. He resigned from the Assembly in 2011 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed him as a regional president at Empire State Development Corp.
Assemblyman Karim Camara
D-Brooklyn
Convicted in 2008 of driving while ability impaired. He had been arrested on a driving while intoxicated charge in Albany. He was first elected to the Assembly in 2005. An ordained minister, Camara was easily re-elected in 2014, facing only opposition from a third-party candidate.
2007
Former Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr.
D-Brooklyn
Sentenced to 3 to 9 years in prison in 2007 for falsifying business records and grand larceny and paroled from prison in 2011. He was accused of shaking down a judicial candidate and accepting illegal campaign contributions during re-election campaigns. First elected in 1984, he resigned from the Assembly in 2005.
Former Sen. John Sabini
D-Queens
Fined after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to driving while ability impaired. Sabini was arrested in 2007 on a driving while intoxicated charge. Months after he was convicted, facing a tough primary challenge, Sabini was hired by Gov. David Paterson to be chairman of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board.
Former Assemblyman Mike Cole
R-Alden
Censured by the Assembly in 2007 after he slept at the home of a young female intern following a night of drinking. Cole had served as the ranking member of the Assembly’s Ethics and Guidance Committee. He lost a primary election in the following year. Cole was first elected to the Assembly in 2006.
2006
Former Sen. Ada Smith
D-Queens
Fined $250 after she was convicted in 2006 of harassment. She was found guilty of throwing coffee in the face of a staff member who made a comment about her weight. She lost a primary election later that year. Prior to that, she had had other run-ins with police, including an incident in which she was accused of biting a New York City police officer.
Former Assemblyman Ryan Karben
D-Monsey
Resigned in 2006 from the Assembly amid charges of improper fraternization with interns. He was accused of watching pornography with three interns. No charges were filed against Karben. Karben subsequently served as a fundraiser for Eliot Spitzer’s campaign for governor.
2004
Former Assemblyman Roger Green
D-Brooklyn
Pleaded guilty in 2004 to two counts of petty larceny and one count of filing a false instrument (Assembly travel expenses). He resigned after he was sentenced to probation for three years, fined $2,000, and required to pay back $3,000 to New York. But he was re-elected to the Assembly later that year. In 2006 he left the Assembly to unsuccessfully run for Congress.
Former Sen. Guy Velella
R-Bronx
Sentenced to one year in jail in 2004 after he was accused of accepting $137,000 in bribes for steering public-works contracts. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped charges against Velella’s 90-year-old father. Velella died in 2011.
2003
Former Assemblywoman Gloria Davis
D-Bronx
Pleaded guilty in 2003 to accepting a bribe to steer a $1 million construction project in her district to a contractor. She was sentenced to three months in jail and to pay $20,000. She resigned after pleading guilty.
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The assault occurred near the intersection of 150th Street and Beaver Road, which locals say is poorly lit at night. (DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg)