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ALBANY----Friday is likely to be Alan Hevesi's last day at New York's state comptroller even though he won a new four year term at the polls in November.
Sources have indicated that the Queens Democrat will resign his position Friday in order to avoid being indicted by an Albany County Grand Jury for using state employees to chauffeur his ailing wife for three years.
Televised reports Thursday night indicated that Hevesi, 66, will report to the Albany Justice Center Friday morning about 11 a.m. when it is expected he will be charged with a Class E felony. After he is processed, it is expected he will appear before a judge to be arraigned. Sources say that in order to avoid jail time, Hevesi will plead guilty to the charge and resign.
An Albany County Grand Jury has been investigating the matter for several weeks and last week, the driver Nicholas Acquafredda, testified before the panel. Hevesi did not appear, apparently relinquishing his right to do so.
Hevesi and his attorney have reportedly been engaged in plea bargain negotiations this week with Albany County district attorney David Soares.
Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer had called for Hevesi to resign prior to Hevesi being elected by 57% of the vote. It's likely that had Hevesi taken the oath for a new term of office in January that Spitzer would have initiated efforts as Governor for the Legislature to remove him from office.
The state Ethics Commission found that Hevesi acted knowingly and intentionally to improperly use a state employee to chauffeur his ill wife for over three and half years. Only after allegations were made against Hevesi during the election campaign in September did Hevesi admit through a spokesman for his office, that Aquifredda, an employee of the state comptroller's office, had been a driver for Mrs. Hevesi for the last three and a half years at taxpayers' expense, from March 2003, less than three months into Hevesi's term of office, until a few months ago.
Hevesi has been state comptroller since January 2003 and earned an annual salary o $151,500. Hevesi career in public service began in 1968 as a state Assemblyman, a position he held until he was elected comptroller of New York City in 1993. He was elected to the state comptroller's post in the 2002 election.
Aquifredda had reportedly previously rendered the same chauffeur service as a New York City employee when Hevesi was city comptroller. In May 2003, Hevesi asked the state Ethics Commission for an informal opinion on this practice and the commission advised him that he shouldn't do it absent a specific security concern.
In October, Hevesi paid $82,688.82, which was his office's estimate of what he owed. In November, he placed an additional $90,000 in escrow at the direction of the Attorney General's office and last week, he paid an additional $33, 604.97 which brings the total that he has reimbursed the state to $206,293.
In the days before the election, Hevesi apologized for what he called a serious error of providing a "belated" reimbursement but insisted he had not violated any laws and said he had no intention of resigning.
The Attorney General's Office began its inquiry in late October after the state Ethics Commission found reasonable cause to believe that Hevesi violated Section 74 of the Public Officer's Law, which prohibits a public official from using his position "to secure unwarranted privileges ... for himself or others." The inquiry by the Attorney General's Office was limited to determining exactly what amount Hevesi owed the state.
Among the findings contained in the agreement is that, starting in January 2003 when Hevesi became State Comptroller, four state employees spent time on assignment to the Comptroller's wife, Carol Hevesi, a private citizen. One of those employees, who was not a member of the Comptroller's security detail, was assigned to drive Mrs. Hevesi intermittently between January and August 2003. He was replaced by Acquafredda beginnning in June 2003. Acquafredda also was not a member of the security detail.
Hevesi has maintained that there were security concerns which allowed the use of state employees to drive his wife.
By the spring of 2005, Acquafredda was assigned to Mrs. Hevesi virtually full time. During this time, Acquafredda rarely reported to work at the Comptroller's Office. Instead, he transported Mrs. Hevesi to and from medical and other personal appointments, ran errands for her, ate lunch with her, transported her to the Hevesi home in the town of Somers in Westchester County, and spent time with her there. Later, he aided her with rehabilitative knee exercises at the Somers house.
Because Hevesi failed to keep proper records of Acquafredda's and the other employees' activities as required by law, the Attorney General's Office had to reconstruct the employees' whereabouts by analyzing available data, including computer logins, emails and swipe cards. The amount owed was determined by multiplying each state employee's salary and benefit information as well as vacation and sick day accruals by the number of days on which there was no or limited data showing presence in the office and then adding interest to that amount.
The reconstruction was aided by a review of Mrs. Hevesi's appointment book, which recorded the times when Acquafredda accompanied her. The final amount, $206,293.79, is a product of that reconstruction - with all doubts resolved in favor of the state, as the law provides. The reconstruction is attached as an exhibit to the agreement. 12-21-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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