Thursday, May 9, 2013

And the turkeys are...

From DNA Info:

She used a bum foot to lure politicians into a federal wire trap.

Last summer ex-Sen. Shirley Huntley secretly recorded seven elected officials, a former aide and a political operative in her South Jamaica home, inviting them over under the ruse that an injured foot made it difficult to travel, according to sources and a court document.

The nine caught on tape are state senators Eric Adams, Ruth Hassell-Thompson, Jose Peralta, John Sampson, Malcolm Smith and Velmanette Montgomery; City Councilman Ruben Wills; Melvin Lowe, a former political consultant; and Curtis Taylor, an ex-Smith press adviser, the court paper shows.

Eight are now targets of criminal investigations, Brooklyn federal prosecutors have said, but none of them have been accused of any wrongdoing.

Wills said in a statement that investigators told him that he is not the subject of a probe.

The names were revealed in a sentencing memorandum connected to Huntley's criminal case that was unsealed Wednesday afternoon.

Huntley, 74, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in January to mail fraud for siphoning $87,000 from a sham nonprofit. In the run-up to her sentencing, her lawyer submitted the memorandum seeking leniency, citing Huntley's cooperation with FBI agents looking into public corruption.

The memorandum had been under seal, but a judge ruled Tuesday that it should be made public after news outlets, including DNAinfo New York, made the request.

The document details how after being busted, Huntley met with federal agents over a six-month period and told them that she knew of corruption involving elected officials.

Huntley agreed to record certain officials she invited to her modest two-bedroom South Jamaica home, where she lived with her husband, a retired guidance counselor.

She lured the targets over by claiming her broken foot kept her incapacitated, according to sources. She also suffers from sciatica and regularly takes cortisone injections to reduce inflammation in her spine, according to the memorandum.

"She said she had a broken foot but she was wired up the whole time," said the source. "Nobody thought anything of it because she's an old lady."

All nine were recorded and photographed by federal agents, according to the memorandum.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

toilet paper sales are up..............

Anonymous said...

Mamma mia!
They must really have the goods on Shirley.

I love the ruse. What a turkey shoot!

And "Imodium" sales are up too.

Anonymous said...

And they are all stuffed with...

Anonymous said...

A very befooting ruse.

Jerry Rotondi said...

Shine a light and catch those cockroaches.

I think that our brothers and sisters in law enforcement deserve a big hand for their fine work.

Keep the heat on! Look under the rug.

Anonymous said...

Too bad she didn't invite Gregory Meeks over for a chat.

Anonymous said...

Why didn't she invite ALL the State senators?

Anonymous said...

Looks like they are all Dems.

Shocking !

Jerry Rotondi said...

Looks like they're all Dems?

What else is there in the Democratic dictatorship of Queens? The clubhouse rules.

Too bad that the GOP has been run by self absorbed morons. They haven't put up any decent candidates to make for healthy competition, which is vital in a democracy. It takes 2 good teams to make a great ball game.

The last Republican that I voted for consistently was Senator Frank Padavan. He did his job well representing my neighborhood.

Alas--groan--I was duped into voting for Halloran. I will always regret that bad choice.

Anonymous said...

"Looks like they are all democrats"..... Well, there are literally only two republican elected officials from the entire borough and one has already been indicted in another scandal, 50% of republicans elected in the borough are under indictment and barely one third of democrats,,so I guess the democrats are a little more honest, but just a little.