Haggerty points finger at Sheekey

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg's political mastermind was outed in court papers Friday as the architect of a plan to hide $1.1 million in Election Day poll-watching.

Indicted campaign aide John Haggerty said in a 41-page motion that former Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey convinced Bloomberg to hire the state Independence Party to do the monitoring - instead of using his own campaign team.

Bloomberg's money went into the party's "housekeeping account," which is supposed to support only general party activities.

The Independence Party wasn't required to report the spending until two months after Bloomberg's reelection on Nov. 3, 2009. The party simply listed payments to a shell company Haggerty set up.

"It was Mr. Sheekey who decided that Mr. Haggerty should contact the Independence Party and request that ballot security be conducted through that political party," Haggerty's lawyers wrote.

Sheekey, who is now at Bloomberg LP, did not respond to requests for comment.

From Huffington Post:

Bloomberg is also not above doing favors for wealthy friends. The children and relatives of Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO, Peter Peterson, a founder of the Blackstone Group, former Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff and Laurence Tisch, CBS chief executive, all jumped to the front of the line and received highly coveted internships at New York City Hall. So did Luke Russert, son of Tim Russert of NBC's "Meet the Press," Amy Secunda, daughter of a co-founder of Bloomberg's info-tech company, the daughter of the President of the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, and Bloomberg's own daughter Emma.

While all this may have legally been honest graft, Bloomberg is now under scrutiny in an investigation into more traditional forms of graft such as theft and bribery. John Haggerty, Jr., a Republican Party consultant and a friend of Mayor Moneybags has been indicted for stealing over a million dollars from the 2009 Bloomberg reelection campaign. Haggerty was "supposed" to provide election day services to the Bloomberg campaign through the New York State Independence Party, but the Manhattan district attorney charges he pocketed the money instead and used it to buy a house. Haggerty faces a possible 25 years in prison.

I love to see Moneybags squirm and I am hoping for a big messy trial where Bloomberg is forced to testify, but I bet Haggerty cops a plea for a much reduced sentence, time served or probation and somehow ends up on the Bloomberg or Republican party payroll again. At a press conference, an annoyed Moneybags was grilled by reporters about the case and would only reply he had been asked by the District Attorney not to comment. Of course something like that never stopped him from pontificating before.

From True News from ChangeNYC:

Harold Wolfson who Replaced political guru, Kevin Sheekey, as deputy mayor is now caught up in the cover-up of the Haggerty 750,000 scandal and will have to exit City Hall soon. Yesterday, Wolfson said the money given a day before a hotly contested election by Bloomberg to the Independence Party was a donation and not for campaign expenses. Wolfson's current explanation of the money that wound up in Haggerty's pocket is 180 degrees different that the one her gave the NYP early this year (January 30th). At that time the Deputy Mayor said that the money that Bloomberg gave the party was for election day expenses. On June 10th in the NYP Wolfson also told the NYP that Haggerty was not authorized to keep any extra funds. Wolfson June 10th statement seem to agree with his January 30th statement that the $750,000 was for expenses. How can you return a donation which he claimed yesterday? Additionally the Village Voice Wayne Barrett wrote in February that Bloomberg's lawyers admitted the campaign broke the law. What the Manhattan DA must now investigate is why and who told Wolfson to now say the money was a donation to the Independence Party.