Monday, July 20, 2009

Heat lamps turned up on Council

From the Daily News:

Hours after Councilman Miguel Martinez admitted being a thief, prosecutors and investigators emphasized their inquiry into City Council slush money was far from over.

Already on their radar screen is Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo.

Like Martinez, Arroyo funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from the slush fund into a nonprofit controlled by relatives.

The relative was her nephew, Richard Izquierdo, and the nonprofit was the South Bronx Community Corp. Last month Izquierdo was arrested for stealing money from an SBCC affiliate.

The charges included using funds from the nonprofit to pay for flights to Puerto Rico and other warm locales for Arroyo and her mother - and Izquierdo's grandmother - Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo.

Izquierdo also had the nonprofit supply a new floor for the assemblywoman's Bronx office, a criminal complaint said.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This has been going on for years ... hmmm .... why now ... why minority ... hmmm ....

Anonymous said...

I hope the "investigators" aren't DOI! Time to bring in the FBI,not because they are the best investigators,but they'll keep things on the up and up.

a well informed inside player said...

I think I'll e-mail the FBI to make sure that they don't overlook any possible "Parkside Group" connection.

They went around "convincing" a lot of not for profit organizations to use them as their lobbyist.

They managed to convince them that Parkside would be able to get them more grant money in return for the big fees that Evan Stavisky & Co. were charging these orgs.

Among such notable participants in this "partnership" were i.e. Flushing Town Hall and the Queens Botanical Garden!

Was Evan's group acting as the middlemen for these slush fund disbursements?

Let the Feds figure that one out!

Anonymous said...

Another "wise" (and crooked) Latina!

Anonymous said...

At this point the Feds should offer up an amnesty program. come clean now, resign and plead gulity to a misdemenaor. If you're a lawyer, you must also give up your law license. Lifetime prbation and never run for public office again. Or don't take this deal and go to trial. Wonder what the majority of council members would do? But at least we'd have term limits again!