New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Assisted Vito Lopez In A Coverup By Giving Victims $103G Public Funds As Hush Money
Silver hit by ‘hu$h’ probe
By ERIK KRISS in Albany and JOSH MARGOLIN in NY POST
Last Updated:3:26 AM, August 29, 2012
Posted:12:50 AM, August 29, 2012

LINK

A state ethics committee created by Gov. Cuomo has launched a potentially damning probe into the six-figure Assembly payout to two of Vito Lopez’s alleged sex-harassment victims — a deal Speaker Sheldon Silver now admits he green-lighted, sources said yesterday.
With his role in the scandal facing intense scrutiny, Silver made a stunning mea culpa last night.
“I now believe it was the wrong one from the perspective of transparency,” he said in a statement, referring to the decision to keep the settlement under wraps.

“I take full responsibility in not insisting that all cases go to the ethics committee.”
He then laid out his mistakes in authorizing the $103,080 settlement:
“The Assembly (1) should not agree to a confidential settlement, (2) should insist that the basic factual allegations of any complaint be referred to the ethics committee for a full investigation and (3) should publicly announce the existence of any settlement, while protecting the identity of the victims,” Silver said.
The rare admission by one of the state’s most powerful lawmakers comes during the opening stages of an investigation by the independent Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE), which “will focus on the process’’ that led to the taxpayer-funded settlement, a source said.
Probers are interested in what led to the deal, who did the negotiating and how the final terms were hammered out, sources said.

Cuomo — who created JCOPE last year to police the state government — yesterday said investigators should probe Lopez’s alleged sexual misconduct.
“What’s really troubling here is a person coming forward and saying they were harassed by a public official,” he said. “If there were repeated instances of it, I think he should resign everything.”
Still, the governor defended the use of public funds to settle sex-harass cases.
“This would not be the first harassment case that the state settled . . . It’s the obligation of the state to settle the claims, if you can,’’ he said.

The costly deal involved two women, The New York Times reported.
The deal also was well-known to more state officials than previously thought, The Post has learned. A lawyer in Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office reviewed the settlement and made a recommendation on it, although neither the lawyer nor Schneiderman was involved in its approval, said a top aide to the AG. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office cut the check for it.
Lopez, 71, yesterday resigned as Brooklyn’s Democratic Party leader, but vowed to hold on to his Assembly seat, despite calls for his ouster.

He was censured and stripped of his position as head of the Assembly’s Housing Committee by Silver on Friday after the Assembly’s ethics panel charged that Lopez groped at least two young female staffers.
It was then revealed that two other women claimed he had sexually harassed them — but Assembly leaders quietly dealt with them by negotiating the settlement.
The president of the National Organization for Women of New York City, Sonia Ossorio, said Silver’s feet need to be held to the fire.

“This earlier complaint was never reported to the Assembly’s ethics committee,’’ she said.
“Sheldon Silver is now in the hot seat with Lopez, and he has a lot of explaining to do.”
A Silver spokesman previously said that the only time complaints aren’t investigated by the ethics committee is when victims insist that they not be “for reasons of personal privacy.’’
Gloria Allred, lawyer for at least one of the women in the settlement, said in a statement yesterday, “We have never requested or insisted that a legislative committee or other body not proceed with an investigation.”

Lopez denied the charges in a statement yesterday, saying, “I never sexually harassed any staff, and I hope and intend to prove in the coming months the political nature of these accusations.”
Kevin Mintzer, the lawyer for the two other women whose complaints led to Lopez’s censure, demanded that the Brooklyn kingmaker be immediately forced to give up his Assembly seat.
“The notion that Mr. Lopez will continue to be in a position to sexually harass other Assembly employees is intolerable,’’ Mintzer said.

Lopez, in resigning his local party post, said he did so because of an “onslaught of character attacks.’’
They have “put enormous emotional pressures on my family and close friends. I cannot sit by and allow that to continue,” said the pol, who has a longtime girlfriend.

But a Brooklyn party source said Lopez doesn’t want to give up his Assembly seat because he is still hoping to get rid of Lincoln Restler, a fellow district leader who could challenge Lopez’s protégé, City Councilman Steve Levin.

Former Assemblyman Frank Seddio is said to be a front-runner to replace Lopez as party leader.
Additional reporting by Sally Goldenberg, Rich Calder, Fredric U. Dicker, Dan Mangan, Kate Sheehan

From Betsy Combier :
We all remember Wayne Barrett's expose of the corruption inside our Unified Court System, right? Now President Obama has appointed Shelly Silver - oops, I mean Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman - to the Board of Directors of the State Justice Institute:

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individual to a key Administration post:•

Jonathan Lippman – Member, Board of Directors of the State Justice Institute
The President also announced his intent to appoint the following individual to a key Administration post:

Judge Jonathan Lippman is currently Chief Judge of the State of New York and Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, a position he has held since 2009. Judge Lippman has spent his entire legal career in the New York State court system, serving for 40 years in a variety of roles. He was Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First Department from 2007 to 2009; an Associate Justice of the Appellate Term for the Ninth and Tenth Judicial Districts from 2006 to 2007; a Justice of the Supreme Court, Ninth Judicial District from 2006 to 2009; and Chief Administrative Judge of all New York State Courts from 1996 to 2007. Judge Lippman is a member of the Board of Directors of the Conference of Chief Justices, former President of the Conference of State Court Administrators, and former Vice Chair of the Board of the National Center for State Courts. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, which the National Center for State Courts awarded to him in 2008. He holds a B.A. from New York University in Government and International Relations and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law.

Cuomo’s on the case
Last Updated:8:05 AM, August 29, 2012
Posted:10:27 PM, August 28, 2012
Gov. Cuomo yesterday took effective custody of the Sheldon Silver-Vito Lopez sexual-harassment scandal — urging his hand-tooled Joint Commission on Public Ethics to work its way to the bottom of Albany’s latest bubbling cesspool.

JCOPE was Cuomo’s idea, and six of the agency's 14 members — including Executive Director Ellen Biben — are Cuomo retainers of some standing.
Ellen Biben

As is Letizia Tagliaferro, named by Biben yesterday as JCOPE’s director of investigations and enforcement.
These are people of considerable talent, as well. They’re well-equipped to make quick work of the Silver-Lopez scandal — should they choose to do so.
And if they don’t — well, it’s on Cuomo.

Late yesterday, the governor publicly called on JCOPE to investigate the sexual-harassment allegations against Lopez.

Good for the governor.

But any investigation that doesn’t include a thorough public airing of just how the Assembly came to make a surreptitious $103,000, taxpayer-funded payment to make the Lopez claim go away will be no investigation at all.

Silver, of course, had to be right in the middle of it all; no payment of any sort would have been made without the Assembly speaker’s imprimatur.
So a serious probe by definition means that Cuomo and Silver are hell-bent for a major collision.
Fine by us.
Cuomo came to office promising “a new day in Albany” and a vow to “restore honor and integrity to government.”
Not that he’s in any way responsible for Lopez’s misdeeds, of course. Nor for those of Albany’s legion of legislative malfeasors.
Silver, on the other hand, has been an enabler of misconduct for years — going back at least to when he used tax dollars to bail one of his own key aides out of a sexual-misconduct mess.
Authorizing Lopez’s payout, in other words, was just another day at the office for the speaker.
And, in that respect, getting to the bottom of Silver’s behavior is — institutionally speaking — of far more importance than determining who Lopez groped and when he groped them.
Lopez, it appears, is just a pig.

Silver is one of the most powerful elected officials in Albany — not someone who should be rolling around in the muck with all the other oinkers.
Silver said yesterday that he believes the secret payout was “wrong . . . from the perspective of transparency.”
Said Cuomo: “I think JCOPE should do an investigation of the allegations that have been made and let’s have the facts.”

From his lips to Biben’s ear.
We don’t doubt that she’s listening.

From Betsy Combier:
You cant make this stuff up. Let's see how Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Governor Andrew Cuomo get out of this one. We, the public dont need any of these cheats, including Cuomo.

Silver Lopez New York's Joe Paterno Sandusky
Pay to Play Sexual Abuse Cover Up
Albany's Blue Wall of Silence: No Outrage By Members
LINK

Lopez, as sketchy a pol as they come, now turns out to be a serial molester. And Silver has been an enabler — and, effectively, his paymaster. Vito Lopez needs to go. Shelly Silver needs to come clean. Now. .@nypostopinion calls Vito Lopez a "serial molester" & NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon SIlver his "enabler" * Daily News: Speaker Sheldon Silver’s handling of case against Vito Lopez needs full probe"A hushed up settlement with tax dollars is not in the public interest * Albany’s enforcement mechanisms — supposedly bolstered by Cuomo — broke down badly when it came to Lopez." * Rumors of an Albany housecleaning have been greatly exaggerated * The Times urges Lopez to resign from the state assembly and demands the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics begin investigating the matter: * The Daily News calls for a full probe of the Lopez harassment incidents and the events that led the Assembly to settle one claim: * Newsday praises state officials for getting serious about cleaning up Albany, but worries that pols will continue to violate the law or breach ethical standards: * The TU says it’s time for Lopez to go. *State Paid $103,000 to Settle Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Against Vito Lopez(NY Mag) * Vito Lopez Sexual Harassment Claims Settled By Sheldon Silver's Authorization Of Secret Payment(Huff Post) *"this could be worse than the Michael Boxley affair"--@Fud31 re: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's handling of Vito Lopez case.* Tax $ Settled Assembly Sex Claim: Report(NBC) * “Vito Lopez is a sexual predator who should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law with both criminal and civil charges against him,” Lincoln Restler said. “His corrupt reign has, fortunately, come to an end.” * Citizens Union would like JCOPE to take a look into the settlement with Lopez’s first sexual harassment allegation. * Governor Cuomo agreed that the ethics panel needs to do something. * Cuomo Wants Facts In Lopez Investigation(YNN) * Gloria Allred, who represented at least one woman who settled with Lopez, said her firm has “never requested or insisted that a legislative committee or other body not proceed with an investigation.” * (Another Bragg piece): NYC Councilman Dan Halloran is campaigning for Congress on a shoestring budget, and was able to travel to Israel – in style – thanks to funding from a Brooklyn nonprofit, the World Committee.

Bloomberg Doing His Best Sargent Schultz "I know Nothing"On Lopez
.@MikeBloomberg, asked whether @vitojlopez should resign, says "it's up to the albany legislature to investigate" .@MikeBloomberg, asked whether @VitoJLopez assembly payment was appropriate, said "I just don't know what laws are"* Bloomberg Declines to Opine on Vito Lopez’s Woes(NYO)

Silver Spokesman Victim Asked for Privacy
A spokesman for Silver’s office said that the only situation where a complaint isn’t referred to the ethics committee is when a victim asks for privacy. (WNYC)

Gloria Allred Not True
A statement Tuesday from Gloria Allred, an attorney for the woman, said they have “never requested or instead that a legislative committee or other body not proceed with an investigation.”

The DN editorial board says: Spill the Vito Lopez secrets
The New York Times called on Lopez to step down, while the New York Post and the Daily News put the heat on Shelly Silver instead.

Shelly buys silence(NYP) Was Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s lightning-fast crackdown last week on a powerful colleague charged with sexually harassing two female interns meant to divert attention from his own misuse of public money? * Last night, in response to a FOIL request, the amount was disclosed: $103,080, paid two months ago. * Assembly Paid $103,000 in Harassment Case(NYT)Sheldon Silver, the New York State Assembly speaker, authorized the secret payment to settle sexual harassment claims against Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, according to Assembly records.Assemblyman Vito Lopez denied charges he sexually harassed female staff members and has “no intention of resigning,” but records showed Speaker Shelly Silver approved a $103,080 payment to settle his claim. Lawmaker Denies Sexual Charges(WSJ) *Looks like Vito's grabby tendencies cost taxpayers $103k(NYDN) * copy of "Quick Pay Voucher" suggesting there was a $100K settlement for a prior Vito Lopez case. * The voucher said the money was used for "legal services." [Erik Kriss] * A Silver spokesman said alleged victims can request that sexual harassment cases not be referred to the Assembly's ethics committee. [Jon Campbell] Lots of Buzz about Lopez stepping down (NYO)

Fake Sheldon Silver Fake Sheldon Silver ?@ShellySilver
Gevalt. The Senate is a mess. The press should focus on this... RT @nydailynews Queens Sen. Shirley Huntley indicted
There is precedent for such action.

Back in 2003, Silver’s chief counsel, Michael Boxley, plea-bargained his way out of a rape charge leveled by a 22-year-old legislative intern — after which it came to light that two years earlier, another staffer had charged Boxley with sexually assaulting her.he. The first victim subsequently sued — pocketing a $507,500 payment, plus legal fees, with all but $20,000 of the bill being borne by the taxpayers.

Deep Throat: Follow the Money
Daily News The $103,080 does not represent the full size of the settlement"

NYT leaves out Naomi Rivera when writing about the latest Albany scandals. Has never talked about Naomi Rivera
The Bronx establishment is going all-out to save Naomi Rivera.* The Bronx Democratic County Leader Carl Heastie is "unwavering" in his support for Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera, who is the subject of four ongoing investigations. [Sally Goldenberg]

From Wayne Barrett, Village Voice, February 2009:

This week's Village Voice doesn't hit streets until tomorrow morning, but for our Runnin' Scared readers, we're offering tomorrow's cover story a day early. This one should rock Albany: our Wayne Barrett details state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver's step-by-step scheme to boost his old LES pal Jonathan Lippman to the state's highest judicial post, an appointment which is scheduled to be confirmed later this week. Read it and rage. --Ed.

Wayne Barrett: How Shelly Silver Made His Pal Chief Judge
By Wayne Barrett
Published Tue., Feb. 10 2009 at 10:34 AM

Justice is Blindsided
Shelly Silver games Governor Paterson to get his childhood pal the state's top courts job
By Wayne Barrett, Village Voice, 2009
LINK

Jonathan Lippman and Sheldon Silver grew up together on the Lower East Side in the 1950s, living next door in the insular Grand Street projects and sitting near each other's family in the neighborhood's Orthodox shul. After both graduated from law school in 1968 and drifted into low-level courthouse gigs in Manhattan in their early careers, one went on to become the longest-serving Democratic legislative leader in modern New York history, master of an unprecedented 107 to 43 majority in the State Assembly. The other remained largely unknown, except inside the state's vast court system.

Last month, the two old friends reunited in the Red Room in the State Capitol to celebrate their emergence as the most powerful duo in state government.

Below the political radar, the black-hatted, still religious, and gravel-toned Silver, who is celebrating his 65th birthday and 15th year as speaker this month, has been quietly boosting the more secular Lippman for years. Now, he's finally pushed Lippman from the series of back-office management posts where he's labored for years to the job of top gavel in the State Judiciary.

Appointed Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals in mid-January by the accidental governor, David Paterson, whose troubled tenure continues to erode his own ranking among the state's power elite, Lippman is awaiting virtually certain confirmation in the next few days from the new and narrow Senate Democratic majority. He will take over a court system that spends $2.3 billion a year, employs 21,000, and is likely to deal with issues like gay marriage, the housing foreclosure crisis, Wall Street criminality, and the still anti-city school aid formula during the six years he will reign until his mandatory retirement at 70.

A year younger than his boyhood friend, Lippman awaits State Senate confirmation before becoming the first chief judge since 1898 to lead the state's highest court without ever serving as one of the court's seven members . When Silver gave a short speech at Paterson's announcement of the appointment, Lippman quipped: "Two kids from the Lower East Side--not too shabby."

In fact, the story of how Lippman reached this pinnacle has its shabby side. He exudes an above-politics reform aura, but he did not climb to the top of the state's judiciary without making some stops in the dark along the way. His ally, Silver, helped clear that path to power, working a system whose anti-democratic ways have been rebuked by two federal courts.

Lippman has been a hardworking ambassador and manager of the courts for decades, visiting almost all of the system's 343 locations and acquainting himself with virtually every one of its 1,300 judges. But he has also been its consummate political player, seemingly more interested in influence than law.

---

Jonathan Lippman will soon preside over the most complicated and significant cases in New York, even though he's never practiced as a private attorney.

His legal career began in a judge's chambers as a law secretary and, when he turns 70 in six years, it will end there. In fact, he has spent so much of his career as a bureaucrat that he's written only 16 signed judicial opinions, 14 of them since Paterson's predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, made him the presiding justice of Manhattan's Appellate Division in 2007. With that scant a record as a jurist, it's impossible to know what his judicial philosophy is, and even his 24-year tenure in three appointive administrative posts offers no consistent thread about his judicial values or independence.

On one hand, he described himself in a 2006 speech as "unencumbered by parochial or partisan or political agendas," and is so widely considered a champion of court reform that New York's Bar Association found him "exceptionally well qualified" for chief judge, ahead of the "well-qualified" ratings it gave long-standing Appeals judges. The Times endorsed him, and he was given the Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence in November by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Judge John Roberts.

On the other hand, he is such a skilled and connected insider that when he ran for the first and only time in 2005, he was the only candidate in the state running for Supreme Court who couldn't be voted against. Lippman was on all five ballot lines: Democratic, Republican, Working Families, Conservative, and Independent. In fact, he had refused to allow his name to be put in the nomination unless every party backed him for the seat, which is the top trial court of the unified court system. (In New York, the "Supreme" Court is not actually supreme: The Court of Appeals is at the top of the judicial pile, above the Appellate Division and the Supreme Court, where major civil and criminal cases are heard.)

David Alpert, the onetime Democratic leader in Lippman's home county of Westchester, says the first time he ever heard of the man was when he got a call from a Republican, State Senator Nick Spano. Spano told him that he and a Westchester Democratic assemblyman, Richard Brodsky, had passed an amendment creating a new Supreme Court seat in Westchester, and Spano wanted Lippman "to be cross-endorsed for it." That meant Spano wanted the Democrats, Republicans, and other minor parties to all vote at their judicial nominating conventions to put Lippman's name on their ballot lines for this new, vacant seat, in exchange for which the Republicans would demand that the Democrats endorse at least one of their candidates.

"I didn't even know [Lippman] lived in Westchester," says Alpert, who was accustomed to promoting attorneys and county judges who had done their time for the party to Supreme Court slots. "I had breakfast with him, and the first thing he told me was that he and Shelly were raised together. He said he wanted to be cross-endorsed and that he wanted to go on to be an appellate judge." Alpert was just one of a legion of county leaders Lippman had to deal with over the years as he sought a Supreme Court seat--five counties with five parties occupy the 9th Judicial District--but Alpert says "we tried twice" (in 2000 and 2002, he believes) to deliver a multi-party cross-endorsement deal and couldn't.

Joseph Ruggiero, the Democratic leader from Dutchess County in 2002, said that on the day of the judicial convention when Democrats picked their Supreme Court nominees, Silver placed a conference call to a group of party leaders gathered at the Westchester headquarters and asked them to support Lippman. "We all said yes," recalled Ruggiero. How could they say no? With a Republican governor and Senate majority leader at the time, Silver was New York's top Democrat, and Denny Farrell, Silver's right hand in the assembly, was the state party chair.

When the current Westchester Democratic leader, Reggie LaFayette, finally did deliver a deal for Lippman in 2005, he explained Lippman's unusual candidacy--clearly more top-down than the typical grassroots designation--to his executive committee this way: "I told them I don't create judge seats. It was created higher up than me, by the two houses of the legislature. And someone yelled out, 'You mean Assemblyman Silver,' and I said, 'Well, he had to vote for it.' " But the bigger problem for LaFayette was cajoling his fellow leaders into giving up a seat in a cross-endorsement deal and backing a Republican. Cross-endorsements are easy when the two parties are competitive and no one knows who will win, but Democrats had won five of six judgeships in 2004, without any deals, and felt no need to give the GOP anything.

The executive committee understood LaFayette's argument and signed on, but a few weeks later, the price of the Lippman package deal got much steeper. The leaders could live with cross-endorsing the initial Republican candidate, a respected county judge named Stewart Rosenwasser. But just days before the September judicial conventions, the Republicans replaced Rosenwasser with a candidate that horrified many Democrats: Joseph Alessandro, also a county judge.

Alessandro had been found "not qualified" by the Bar Association and was dogged by tawdry tax and lawsuit charges. The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct is still investigating those charges, and Alessandro, who did become a Supreme Court judge, is now facing possible severe sanctions. Yet it was Lippman's demands that would put Alessandro on the bench.

Lippman wanted to be endorsed by all five parties, and that insistence created an opening for the county's most voracious party boss, Dr. Giulio Cavallo, who controlled the Independence Party. He wanted Alessandro, not Rosenwasser, to become Lippman's opposite number in the multi-party swap and get the cross-endorsements. LaFayette and the Republican leader, RoseMarie Panio, eventually decided to back Alessandro, but fights against the deal broke out on the floors of both of these ordinarily scripted and staid conventions. Challengers ran against Alessandro and, had he lost at either convention, Lippman's precious deal--and ultimately his route to the Court of Appeals--would have died.

The inclusion of Alessandro so offended Working Families party chair Pat Welsh that he endorsed Lippman but refused to back Alessandro, telling the Voice that the deal was "unconscionable." (Lippman ran on five ballot lines; Alessandro, apparently unconcerned about the Working Families Party, four). A disgusted Rosenwasser wound up quitting the bench altogether.

---

At Lippman's January 2006 induction ceremony for Supreme Court in White Plains, Silver regaled the audience of bigwigs--at a special celebration separated from the swearing-in of the other new judges--with "our gang" stories from their first meeting at the age of six. Saying, "We have shared a common path," Silver joined in celebrating "with my colleagues in the legislature," many of whom were there, "who I say had a good hand in making today happen." While Lippman is now said to be downplaying Silver's role in his rise, he called him "family" in his speech and praised him for "marshaling the troops, and, boy, can he marshal the troops."

Lippman called himself "basically an apolitical person," and then thanked 16 party leaders, referring to each of the five from Westchester, including Cavallo, as "my leader," singling out Spano, who, he said, "vouched for me on the Republican side." Judge Gail Prudenti, the presiding justice in the Appellate Division covering Westchester, spoke on behalf of what she called "the many, many, many campaign advisers to the seemingly never-ending 'Lippman for Justice' campaigns."

The unexamined side of the Lippman saga is revealed in these salty Westchester tales, where the judge who pretends he is above self-serving politics played it as skillfully as his sidekick from the neighborhood who does it for a living. Lippman created the state's Judicial Campaign Ethics Center to guide candidates for elected judgeships, but he told Alpert, and many others, that he wanted the seat handed to him without the inconvenience of an election because it would be unseemly for the chief administrative judge to solicit contributions.

Yet he had no problem brandishing the calling card of Silver's friendship, or dialing up county leaders and other powerbrokers, some of whom, including Senate Assistant Majority Leader and onetime GOP boss Spano, were receiving lucrative patronage assignments from his courts. He even had no hesitation about going forward with the deal though he knew it would result in the elevation of an already tarnished judge, Alessandro, who may soon be repudiated by the Conduct Commission.

In fact, just as he began his efforts to secure a Supreme Court slot in 2000, he opened an elaborate office for himself in state space, across the street from the White Plains courthouse, and began spending a lot of time there, deeply involving himself in the judicial politics of that district. Shortly before that, he abruptly asked the district's administrative judge, Angelo Ingrassia, a Republican from a small county in the district, to step down a year before his mandatory retirement age. He even gave Ingrassia a car and chauffeur for his final year to induce him to do it.

He then split Ingrassia's job into two positions and gave both to Spano allies--one a Republican and the other an influential Democrat from Westchester, the populous center of the district. The new administrative judge, Frank Nicolai, denied in a Voice interview that he "campaigned for Lippman" in the long-running effort to secure a Supreme Court seat, as some sources contend. That would be a violation of judicial ethics, which only permit judges to campaign for themselves. "If someone asked," Nicolai said, "I'd say he'd be an outstanding judge." Asked if he might have initiated some of those conversations, Nicolai added: "I might have."

Nicolai presided at Lippman's 2006 swearing-in, where Lippman, Silver, and his other prestigious friends were so self-congratulatory it was almost as if he had actually won an election--when all he'd really done was collect chits and lean on the party bosses who'd installed him. With all the editorial hubbub about the judicial nominating process in New York, spurred by the federal court decisions that the process was an unconstitutional infringement of the franchise, Lippman the reformer had inadvertently established by his own experience how poisonously anti-democratic it was.

Yet, at his induction, he called his campaign "a unique experience," and even praised the mix of elective and appointive positions in New York's judicial system. Indeed, he has proven, from his Supreme Court fix to his culminating appointment as chief judge, that he is the master of both processes, each with their own brand of incestuous networking. If that is merit, then Lippman is what many of his supporters see him as, the embodiment of the merit system in our courts.

---

Lippman wanted a Supreme Court spot to make himself legally eligible for appointment to a second-tier appellate post, which he saw as a vital stepping-stone to the top-tier Court of Appeals. He had to do it then because his other sponsor, Chief Judge Judith Kaye, would have to step down when she turned 70 in 2008, and even a brief stint on the appellate bench would give him an opportunity to build a record as a scholarly jurist, though it would be quite a lean one in comparison with competitors who'd actually written opinions for lifetimes.

But his timely and controversial "election" was hardly the only awkwardly abetted step on his unprecedented career ascension. Prior to it, Lippman had only been a Court of Claims judge--an appointment bestowed by Governor George Pataki a few months into his first year in office (1995), when the Democrat Lippman managed to secure a spot despite the hunger of Republicans eager to grab judicial patronage slots after 12 years of Democratic rule.

At the time, Lippman was the top deputy in the Office of Court Administration, and all he had going for him were his Silver ties; an assiduously cultivated friendship with GOP Senate Judiciary Chair Jim Lack; and the backing of Judge Kaye, who argued that Lippman should hold a judicial title since she intended to install him, as she did a few months later, as the chief administrative judge.

Spano, who had just become the Republican county leader in Westchester in 1995, met Lippman in the few days between Pataki's appointment and the Senate's confirmation. Since Lippman was technically a candidate from Spano's home turf, he had to sign off and did, endorsing Lippman on the Senate floor and launching what he concedes became a series of efforts on Lippman's behalf that he would make over the coming years. Three of the pivotal party brass--Westchester Conservative Gail Burns, Rockland County Republican Vince Reda, and Cavallo--were on Spano-engineered Senate payrolls when Lippman collected his cross-endorsements in 2005, and the senator concedes that he spoke to them, as well as to Westchester Republican RoseMarie Panio, a close ally. "I'm sure I expressed support for Judge Lippman," Spano tells the Voice. "Anytime his name was up, I was an enthusiastic supporter."

In fact, Spano, who was widely viewed as the Senate Republican closest to Silver, confirmed his call to Alpert and acknowledged that he'd pushed midnight legislation through in 2005 and earlier, aided by Brodsky, that created new Supreme Court seats in the judicial district covering Westchester. The bill in 2005 was introduced by Pataki on June 24 and passed by both houses that day. While Spano said he didn't think "it would be fair to say" the seats were "created for anyone," he concedes that "Lippman's name came up" when the bills were adopted. Lippman needed more than one bill because the cross-endorsement deals with the Republicans fell apart, for reasons having nothing to do with him (once the Republicans demanded four Republican cross-endorsements for Lippman). He even went so far as to be nominated by the Democrats in 2002, only to file a formal declination when the deal with the GOP broke down.

A few months after Spano helped engineer Lippman's 2005 cross-endorsement, his brother, Mike Spano, an assemblyman mired in the hopelessly outmanned Republican minority, quit the assembly and joined a premier Albany lobbying firm run by Silver's former chief of staff, Pat Lynch, who is perceived to be the lobbyist closest to the speaker. When Nick Spano was defeated for the Senate in 2006, he formed his own lobbying company that Lynch invested in and allowed him to operate until this month out of her Albany suite. Mike Spano eventually went back to the Assembly, but he later became a Democrat at a press conference attended by Silver. Nick Spano, who reported half a million dollars in lobbying fees in 2007, denies vociferously that his aggressive support for Lippman has anything to do with his current business. But his ties to Lynch, and Lynch's hiring of his brother (who was hardly an influential Albany player), are a measure of his alliance with Silver, who Nick Spano says he "might have talked to" about Lippman's candidacy over the years "in social settings."

All the while that Spano was aiding Lippman's candidacy, he was reaping at least $79,739 in fees as a "court evaluator," a person paid to measure the mental competency of someone named in a legal petition. Though Spano isn't a lawyer, he has received 31 of these assignments and four other referee assignments. OCA regulations require the disclosure of these fees, but Spano's fees in 15 cases aren't listed on the office's printout. While Lippman's OCA had nothing to do with choosing evaluators (individual judges do that), it did collect applications for appointments; approved evaluators, like Spano, for the list; and set the qualifications for appointment, which appear to permit just about any professional to sign up.

Evaluators look into the eyes of the subjects of these court petitions, many of whom are elderly and in nursing homes, and decide whether they should retain control of property and other assets, the value of which they also consider. Spano sponsored the law that created this position, and he and other pols in Westchester, including then Senator Guy Velella, wasted no time collecting assignments. Velella, who has since been convicted on unrelated charges, was another social friend of Lippman's, and dined with him and Senator Lack and their wives at Rao's, the famously exclusive restaurant in East Harlem. Even one of the restaurant owners collected 19 appointments as an evaluator.

Lack, however, never dipped into the evaluator till, but he did collect 66 court appointments as a guardian or referee while chairing the Senate Judiciary, 26 of which were from Judge Prudenti, who spoke about her adviser role in Lippman's never-ending campaign at the 2006 induction. A Court of Claims judge himself by then, Lack was also present at the swearing-in and was saluted by Lippman, though he'd left the Senate after chasing a woman to her home in a road-rage dispute and ducking under the garage door when she tried to hide from him. "Do I think it's a terrible thing that people involved in public office receive this?" Lippman once told Newsday, referring to judicial patronage. "No, I don't."

There's no indication that Lippman did anything more than oversee this grab bag of goodies--with evaluators often earning $3,000 for a couple hours of work. But if Lippman was so concerned about the appearances of being political that he effectively exempted himself from the requirement that he actually compete in the electoral arena, he might have been a bit more careful about the appearances of his alliances with the beneficiaries of this dubious bonanza.

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The day after Lippman became a Supreme Court Judge, in 2006, he asked Judges Kaye and Prudenti to name him to the Appellate Term, a job he would perform in addition to the administrative post he retained. This assignment--which allowed him to hear appeals of some lower court decisions--was his only way of acquiring appeal experience without being formally elevated by the governor to the full Appellate Division.

When a vacancy developed in the Manhattan Appellate Division and Spitzer selected Lippman as the county's presiding judge, howls were heard because two of the most respected sitting judges on that Appellate Division were bypassed by the screening panel of lawyers that vets judicial candidates, narrowing the governor's choice.

The same thing happened in December, when the screening panel for chief judge excluded two sitting Court of Appeals judges, as well as all women and Latino candidates--giving Paterson an invitation he couldn't figure out how to refuse. The panel included four Kaye appointees and one from Silver. Panel member Leo Milonas was so close to Lippman he spoke at the induction. Lippman saluted Milonas then as "truly my friend for life," calling their friendship, which began when Lippman worked for him at OCA, "an unforgettable relationship that, to my great benefit, continues today in every way."

Reminded of that by the Voice, Milonas saw it as no reason to have recused himself from anointing Lippman, noting that he was "more qualified" to help pick a chief judge "because I know people." The panel's chair, John O'Mara, a Pataki appointee, sat with Lippman on the court's Capital Construction Board for years.

An angry Paterson asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate the panel's exclusionary list of seven nominees, but he never released Cuomo's report or recommendations. Instead, he began openly associating the chief judge selection with the other grand decision that faced him--the choice of a new senator to succeed Hillary Clinton--sending the signal that he had to pick a woman for the Senate since the panel's list barred him from picking one for the court.

When Silver reversed course and supported Caroline Kennedy, insiders suspected it was all about his love for Lippman. At that point, the governor had also just about convinced everyone that he wanted Kennedy, and the assumption was that Silver got the message that if he wanted Lippman, he'd better sing "Auld Lang Syne" to his Kennedy animosity. Paterson was asked about this connection at the Lippman announcement and denied it, adding that he "actually did not know the extent" of Lippman's "relationship" with Silver until he called the speaker to tell him about the appointment--which would make the governor the only high-ranking New York official unaware of it.

Ironically, of course, Paterson deserted Kennedy, and even claimed, improbably, that he never intended to pick her, though he revealed how important he thought Silver's opinion was about his eventual choice, Kirsten Gillibrand (another woman, to balance Lippman), when he said at her announcement that he moved it up to Friday from Saturday so the Sabbath-observing Silver could attend. It would be par for the course in Paterson's stumbling regime that he would agree to Silver's choice for chief judge in return for Silver's support of Kennedy, and then not get her, only to be stuck with Silver's pal for judge.

Whatever the deal, Paterson appeared boxed in when he announced that he would choose from the screening panel's list for chief judge. But there is one school of thought, citing interpretations from the OCA, that suggests that Paterson could simply have chosen to do nothing when the January 15 appointment deadline arrived. These analysts argue that Paterson could have named no one until later this year, when panel chair O'Mara steps down. That would have meant that Carmen Ciparick, a woman and a Hispanic who has been on the Court of Appeals for 15 years, could have continued serving as the acting chief judge, a position the other five judges voted to give her when Kaye retired in January. The press office at the court says Ciparick is the chief judge "as long as the seat remains vacant." If Paterson had simply done nothing, he could have eventually asked the new panel for a new list, and Ciparick, who applied and was rejected by O'Mara's very politicized panel, might actually have gotten a chance to compete for the job.

The same is true should the Senate take no action now. In fact, several Democratic state senators have been making a fuss for weeks about the lack of Latino representation in positions of power--at any level of city or state government. It is an issue that threatened the Democratic takeover of the Senate majority at the same time that Paterson was deciding, unknown to anyone, to displace a sitting Latina chief judge he could have allowed to remain, and perhaps even wind up appointing. His simultaneous selection of the anti-immigrant Gillibrand for the Senate seat compounded Paterson's trouble with Hispanics.

New York's first black governor preferred the comfort of Silver and Kaye and Lippman and the old-line judicial establishment. Lippman had even been careful enough to establish a personal rapport with the governor when Paterson was the Senate minority leader, meeting with him on OCA issues. Unelected himself and unsure of the extraordinary powers of his office, Paterson seems to shrink in Silver's company, now blaming the millionaire's tax on him as if the speaker sets the budget agenda.

The graying gang from Grand Street rolled the neophyte governor from Harlem, and will soon double their choke hold on state government, a triumph of loyalty and intrigue, which, in old New York, adds up to just another measure of merit.

Research assistance by Dene-Hern Chen, Jana Kasperkevic, Sudip P. Mukherjee, and Jesus Ron

Showing 19 comments

Elena Sassower 3 years ago

Bravo to the Village Voice!

Will the Voice also be covering tomorrow's Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation "hearing", which was not scheduled until yesterday -- presumably to enable the Senate to install Lippman as New York's highest judge BEFORE the public outcry from the Village Voice's dynamite piece.

The corruption of "merit selection" to our state's highest court, and of judicial selection to NY's lower state courts, both elective & appointive, as well the corruption of the Commission on Judicial Conduct, etc -- all involving Judge Lippman -- has been the subject of nearly two decades of advocacy by our non-partisan, non-profit citizens organization -- which will be testifying tomorrow.

Our website, www.judgewatch.org has a webpage devoted to Judge Lippman's nomination to the Court of Appeals, most conveniently accessibile via the top panel "Latest News"

Elena Sassower, Director
Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA)

dg 3 years ago

Judges are political. Politicians are political. WOW!!! What a scoop. Wayne, that's just killer investigative reporting! No wonder you have to give your paper away for free.

kakistocracy buster 3 years ago

Pretty big leap there Wayne. If the Governor didn't pick anyone for the chief judge (completely contrary to the requirements of the State Constitution) until March, you'd lose O'mara, but not the whole commission. Journalists today want it both ways. Despite the neat cover art, this story is weak.

Frank Brady 3 years ago

This is an excellent, well-researched article. It begs the question whether anyone, especially our "trusted leaders," have the courage of their convictions anymore? My vote ALWAYS goes for people who stand up for what is right, and who dare to stand up for what they truly believe in- even when it's not popular. It's quite sad that in what was once the greatest state, the Empire State, there is virtually no great person to look up to and call a true leader. Is it too much to ask?


Eli Vigliano, Esq. 3 years ago

Mr. Barrett, why did your Editor and Publisher wait four years to let the public in on this scathing story of Judge Lippman's political chicanery, going as far back as 2002? Why did they hold off its release until the 11th hour before his coronation tomorrow as Chief Judge of New York's Court of Appeals?
Your newspaper was intimately familiar with the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc., having done a feature story about its Director, Elena Ruth Sassower in 2004 that was the subject of her critical letter concerning such coverage published in 2005 by your newspaper. http://www.judgewatch.org/publ...
In the fall of that year, her mother Doris L. Sassower, as Director of the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc., (CJA) courageously challenged the nefarious cross-endorsement deal by the Republican and Democratic party bosses of the Ninth Judicial District that guaranteed Judge Lippman's 2005 election to the NYS Supreme Court in exchange for an illegal quid pro quo in the form of Democratic party endorsement of a Republican lower court judge who had been found "Not Qualified" by the Westchester County Bar Association, thereby setting the stage for his unparalleled meteoric rise up the ladder of judicial success. http://www.judgewatch.org/judi...
Yet, curiously, no reference to CJA?s trailblazing work in this field appears in your article, suggesting a failure of research or deliberate press suppression. Which is it, Wayne? The public is entitled to know.
Eli Vigliano, Esq., Founder and Chairman of the Ninth Judicial Committee, a local citizens? group formed in 1989 to fight political manipulation of judgeships in New York's Ninth Judicial District, out of which emerged the Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc.

pork 3 years ago

great article. isn't it just a little late?