Casualties Mounting, Troopergate Shakeup Continues
Posted on Saturday, 14 of June , 2008 at 8:41 pm
By June Maxam
The casualties are mounting in Troopergate as the scandal passes its first anniversary.
As Attorney General Andrew Cuomo continues his investigation of the New York State Police as ordered by Gov. David Paterson, two more individuals in the agencies at the center of the probe—the State Police and the New York Power Authority—were ousted this past week by Paterson.
“Troopergate” aka “Dirty Tricks Scandal”, is the name given for the attempt by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and some of his staff members to use the State Police to discredit Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick), using the Albany Times-Union as a conduit to do so.
As The North Country Gazette first reported on Friday, Major Roderick Covington, 44, was replaced as the head of the State Police’s executive services detail on Thursday although the official announcement is that Covington is retiring.
The announcement came the day after it was announced that the Governor’s security detail was being reorganized following a review of the policies and procedures by new State Police Supt. Harry Corbitt.
Corbitt replaced Preston Felton who Paterson fired in late March.
Corbitt said that Covington had elected to “voluntarily retire” but would serve in his present position until June 26. “There are no allegations of any wrongdoing on his part”, Corbitt said. “We are very proud and appreciative of his service”.
Covington had headed the executive services detail since February 2007, a month after Spitzer took office.
Covington is a close friend of retired State Police Col. Daniel Wiese, another casualty of the Troopergate scandal and former head of the Governor’s Executive Services detail during the administration of former Gov. George Pataki. Wiese retired from the State Police in 2003 and was named by Pataki as inspector general and director of corporate security at the New York Power Authority, a position he was fired on May 26 by NYPA president and CEO Roger B. Kelley.
Kelley was terminated from his position of Friday.
Covington is being replaced by Lt. Charles Day who has been assigned to the Governor’s security detail since June 2006. Day has been promoted to major.
Knowledgeable sources said that Covington was among the officers that were expected to be questioned by the Attorney General’s office as it continues to delve into allegations by Paterson, some legislators and New York Post columnist Frederick U. Dicker that members of the State Police, a “rogue unit”, were used for political interference.
According to sources, Covington had been promoted to major last year without having taking the promotional exams for either sergeant or lieutenant and that it had been Covington who Felton had assigned to gather information regarding the use of state aircraft by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
Covington was reportedly not among the members of the Executive Services Detail who were assigned to guard former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, aka “Client Number 9”, in February when he engaged in a tryst with Ashley Alexandra Dupré, aka Kristen, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.
At his Senate confirmation hearing in mid-April, Corbitt told senators that his first objective would be to restore confidence in the State Police. He said his first order of business would be to order the Internal Affairs Division to conduct an audit of the Executive Services detail which provides security for the governor in addition to other services.
Questions have lingered where the State Police security detail assigned for Spitzer was on Valentine Day’s eve while Spitzer was patronizing Kristen.
Spitzer resigned on March 12 after being implicated in the scandal when caught on a federal wiretap involving the Emperors Club and its prostitution and money laundering ring.
Corbitt has said that he would wait for the Attorney General’s report before taking any action within the agency.
Corbitt, 60, is the former deputy superintendent of internal affairs. He had been retired from the agency since 2004 prior to Paterson’s appointment.
Spitzer had the state police create records concerning the use of state aircraft by Bruno under the guise of a Freedom of Information law request submitted by the Albany Times-Union. Bruno accused Spitzer of having the State Police spy on him.
A volatile report was issued last July by the state Attorney General’s office which concluded that the Governor’s office and Spitzer, a Democrat, had tried to smear Republican Bruno utilizing the Albany Times-Union and the New York State Police over Bruno’s use of state aircraft.
Spitzer Aide’s Troopergate Testimony Under Review
AG: Times-Union Troopergate Article “Factually Incorrect”
The AG’s report of last July revealed the alleged misuse of the State Police and government resources by the Governor’s office and what was deemed unprecedented action taken by Felton in an attempt to discredit Bruno and his use of state aircraft for political fundraising purposes.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2007/jul/FINAL%20REPORT_1.pdf
The 57-page AG report culminated two investigations, one surrounding the alleged misuse of state aircraft by Sen. Bruno and Bruno’s request that the AG’s office investigated the Governor’s alleged misuse of state resources in connection with what he deemed state police surveillance of his activities.
The Attorney General’s office found no evidence that the State Police conducted actual surveillance of Bruno but determined that the investigation had raised serious issues about the State Police’s handling of documents and information concerning Bruno’s travel, at the direction of the Governor’s liaison to the State Police.
In his first “investigation”, Albany County district attorney David Soares concluded that there had been no wrongdoing by Spitzer and his staff.
“This office has concluded its inquiry in relation to the collection and distribution of information regarding Senator Bruno’s use of state aircraft…….“This office has found no illegal conduct. To the contrary, we found that the Governor, his staff, and the New York State Police were acting within their authority in compiling and releasing documents to the media concerning the use of state aircraft.
“The Governors Office and the New York State Police have cooperated fully with our review, including a voluntary appearance by the Governor. In addition, they provided all documents and testimony we requested and needed to complete our review”.
But less than a year later, in late March, after Spitzer had resigned, in a report which spurred Paterson to order Cuomo to investigate the State Police, Soares said that Spitzer had lied during the investigation and should have been impeached. He called on Paterson to waive Spitzer’s executive privilege so the documents in question could be publicly released.
Soares’ latest report, based on a newer interview conducted with Spitzer’s aide Darren Dopp whom he granted immunity from prosecution, contradicts the first one and says that Spitzer was deeply involved in the plan to discredit Bruno although Spitzer had repeatedly publicly stated he was only tangentially aware of what his aides were doing.
In Soares’ March report, Dopp implicated Spitzer and said the former governor had tried to cover up his role in Troopergate. Dopp related Spitzer’s now virtually infamous remark directed at Bruno which launched the current AG’s investigation of Troopergate, “F— him, he’s a piece of s—-“ and that the State Police reports on Bruno’s use of state aircraft should be shoved “up his ass like a red hot poker” to which Dopp said he replied, “Sideways, boss?”
After Soares’ second report was released, Cuomo issued a statement saying “Our report last July found that members of Governor Spitzer’s senior administration staff had used the state police in a political plot to discredit an adversary. The Albany district attorney’s report demonstrates this same improper conduct. Indeed, the district attorney’s report also reveals that the scheme involved the former governor himself.
“I believe our statements and findings of eight months ago have been proven correct. Those who sought to minimize this incident, or isolate the conduct to one or two mid-level staff, were wrong. A political plot involving state police by senior state officials is a toxic brew. In government, even a legitimate goal does not justify unscrupulous means.
“This situation also proves the old adage: ‘The cover-up is worse than the crime”, Cuomo said.
But is there really an “explosive state police scandal” as Fred Dicker and the New York Post label it or is simply a fabrication?
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/05/19/corruption_or_vendetta/
“There’s just nothing there”, informed sources tell The North Country Gazette. “This is an increasingly destructive process”, one State Police retiree said One source who asked for anonymity, fearing retaliation, said that the attacks on Wiese are “groundless and personally motivated”.
Sources close to the situation tell The North Country Gazette that Cuomo may be focusing on the wrong people and may be on a “wild goose chase”, looking for a scapegoat, based on unjustified innuendo and hype at the expense of the New York taxpayers.
Gov. Pataki has said that “there was no rogue State Police unit; there was no political spying or keeping of records at all during the years that I was Governor” and sources close to the Governor’s security detail say they know too for fact, there was no “rogue element”.
Soares had initially denied a request by several media organizations made under the Freedom of Information Law for copies of documents relating to his probe and March report but under threat of a lawsuit and after both Robert Freeman, director of the state Committee on Open Government and the public records officer for Albany County said Soares had no grounds on which to deny the information requested, he has agreed to release some, but not all documents. He says he won’t release privileged information which he says includes anything that his office obtained by grand jury subpoena.
Soares is also arguing that he had granted some of Spitzer’s aides “limited waivers” in exchange for their testimony in which he assured them that the information they provided would not be made public.
The day before Covington was fired, Paterson had said that he supports having the State Police superintendent appoint the trooper in charge of the governor’s security detail rather than the Governor making the appointment to insure that the Governor doesn’t exert undue political influence over the detail or his operations.
The security detail is comprised of about 200 officers and also provides security at the state Capitol, the Governor’s mansion in Albany and the chief executive’s private residence. Corbitt has said that his audit does not specifically address the actions of the detail in regard to it’s coverage of Spitzer but rather addresses only the policies and procedures of the security operations.
The day after he was sworn into office, Paterson publicly admitted his past marital infidelities because he said he was worried that an “out-of-control” element in the State Police would leak inaccurate information to the public and press about him.
Paterson said that “there was obviously an element in the police force, and it wasn’t Republican or Democrat, it was just out-of-control people who had power that were clearly monitoring a lot of the elected officials”. He said that “I was kind of afraid of leaks of inaccurate information about myself”.
“Part of my concern was the fear I had that I had been approached by several lawmakers about improper conduct on the part of the police, that I had heard a number of wild rumors about myself that weren’t true, and was wondering if the police had anything to do with it”, Paterson said. 6-14-08
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Category: Crime, Government, Media, New York State, Police, Politics
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