Carl Heastie lets Andrew Cuomo escape

Newsday 

 The state Assembly won’t pursue impeachment charges against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo once his resignation takes effect, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced Friday.

Heastie (D-Bronx), in an interview with Newsday, said an Assembly investigation found "credible evidence" against Cuomo and likely would have resulted in impeachment charges.

But the primary purpose of the impeachment proceeding was to determine whether the governor should stay in office following sexual harassment claims and other allegations regarding actions that Cuomo took during the pandemic, Heastie said.

The governor’s decision to step down, announced Tuesday, effectively makes the question moot. Cuomo's resignation is to take effect Aug. 24.

 Heastie said another driver in the decision to "suspend" proceedings is that the state constitution doesn’t clearly "authorize the Legislature to impeach and remove an elected official who is no longer in office."

"We don’t believe we do" have the authority to continue once Cuomo departs, Heastie said. The speaker added that he understood and agreed with Cuomo accusers who say the governor should be held accountable, but impeachment wouldn’t be an available avenue once the governor leaves.

 Legislators would not have finished their investigation before Aug. 24.

Instead, the Assembly will do the "next best thing": turning over its evidence to various law enforcement agencies investigating Cuomo, Heastie said.

The attorney general has been looking into Cuomo’s $5.1 million book deal, Heastie noted. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the nursing home data. And prosecutors in five counties, including Nassau, have said they are looking into alleged sexual harassment incidents.

"The thing is, the federal government, the ... [attorney general] and local ... [prosecutors] are doing their own investigations," Heastie said. "We have not finished gathering evidence and we didn’t want to interfere with their investigations. So the next best thing to do is to turn over our evidence so they can conclude" their investigations.

Because of those other ongoing investigations, the Assembly won’t make the evidence publicly available at this time, a Heastie spokesman said.

Cuomo will be gone but nothing will fundamentally change.

New York finally reaches higher ground

Times Union 

 State leaders have finalized a deal to legalize recreational marijuana, with long-awaited legislation laying out the details appearing Saturday night. Lawmakers had previously said the bill could be voted on as soon as this week.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced the agreement, which will establish a new state Office of Cannabis Management to oversee a regulatory system for medical and adult-use marijuana as well as cannabinoid hemp. Producers, distributors, retailers, and other actors in the cannabis market will be licensed according to the system laid out in the bill, and a "social and economic equity program" will assist "individuals disproportionately impacted by cannabis enforcement that want to participate in the industry," according to a release from the governor's office.

The cannabis industry is projected to deliver $350 million annually in tax revenues and 30,000 to 60,000 new jobs statewide, the release said.

Dubbed the New York State Cannabis/Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act, the bill will create the Office of Cannabis Management, which will be governed by a five-member board — three members appointed by the governor and one appointment by each legislative house. OCM will be "an independent office operating as part of the New York State Liquor Authority," the release said.

The agreement would allow people with a larger list of medical conditions to access medical marijuana, increase the number of caregivers allowed per patient, and permit home cultivation of medical cannabis for patients.

Licensed growers and processors would be barred from also owning retail stores. Under the social and economic equity program, a goal of 50 percent of licenses would go to a minority- or woman-owned business enterprise or distressed farmers or service-disabled veterans.

The Omen

 

 NY Post

 Light some candles for Cuomo's victims too. 

 The leader of New York’s Assembly privately cast doubt on the spiraling allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo — and said his accusers will have to be interviewed “under oath,” according to a report Tuesday. 

  Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) — who authorized an impeachment investigation of Cuomo last week — also warned Democratic legislators not to rush to judgment, noting that “people get accused of things,” Yahoo! News said. 

“These days any one of us in this place could be accused,” Heastie said. Heastie’s remarks were recorded during a nearly four-hour video conference call with the entire Democratic Assembly conference that preceded his Thursday announcement that the Judiciary Committee would “examine allegations of misconduct” against Cuomo, Yahoo! News said. 

Heastie argued against immediately drafting articles of impeachment against the three-term Democrat by saying some allegations were “based on a newspaper article or other people’s assertions.” Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during a press conference at the New York Stock Exchange in 2020.  

“We need to get witness testimony. We need to hear from people who have this information. You put them under oath,” Heastie said. “They may have made false statements. I don’t know.” 

Heastie said some interviews conducted by the Judiciary Committee “would not be made public” but added that “some people could be called in front of the committee as part of a hearing. see also Biden refuses to say Cuomo should resign immediately amid sex harass scandal Heastie also said he had “no idea what the time frame is,” adding, “An outside firm is going to have to be hired that deals with this type of stuff.”

Cuomoleaks

Times Union

  Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was allegedly briefed on the details of a closed-door vote by the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics last January, around the time the panel voted on whether to investigate Joseph Percoco, a former top aide to the governor.

The allegation — that someone in JCOPE may have illegally informed the governor or his staff about the voting breakdown of the panel’s non-public decision — was secretly investigated by the state inspector general’s office between January and Oct. 4, when the inspector general sent a letter to JCOPE stating its investigation had been unable to substantiate the complaint.

The apparent breach of JCOPE’s bylaws was revealed when Cuomo allegedly contacted Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie almost immediately following the commission’s January meeting and expressed concerns about the votes of the speaker’s appointees to JCOPE.

Julie A. Garcia, a Warren County attorney who had been appointed to JCOPE by Heastie in August 2018, said she cannot discuss any matters related to the commission’s discussions or votes in executive sessions.

But without disclosing what the vote related to, Garcia confirmed that she complained to former JCOPE Executive Director Seth Agata last January that someone from Heastie’s staff had contacted her shortly after a commission meeting in January and informed her about Cuomo’s alleged conversation with the legislative leader.


NY Post


The state’s embattled ethics agency refused Tuesday to release the whistleblower complaint that prompted the state’s Inspector General to open a probe into leaks involving Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics met behind closed doors for almost four hours in Albany and then suddenly adjourned, refusing to cast a vote on releasing the complaint or to answer questions from reporters about it.

The complaint alleges that Gov. Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Heastie spoke in Jan. 2019 about JCOPE’s confidential deliberations around a possible probe of Joe Percoco, Cuomo’s former top aide and fixer — who now sits in federal prison following a 2016 corruption conviction.

State Inspector General Letizia Tagliafierro — a Cuomo appointee, who said she recused herself from the leak probe — sent a letter on Oct. 4 saying her office couldn’t substantiate the claim.
The entire affair is cloaked in mystery.

JCOPE refuses to comment on Percoco or any possible investigation. And Tagliafierro’s office refuses to say whether or not Cuomo or Heastie were interviewed as part of the probe.
“Consistent with other investigative bodies, this agency cannot discuss the particulars of investigative methods or procedures – particularly in matters that are unsubstantiated,” Tagliafierro’s spokesman Lee Park told The Post, adding the letter is subject state freedom of information laws.

Governor Cuomo and Albany legislators making dollars

NY Post


In a victory for lawmakers, a state judge issued a ruling Friday that upholds legislative pay hikes that took effect in January while striking down restrictions on outside income — thus allowing them to keep their outside gigs.

An executive and legislative compensation committee empaneled by Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders linked the pay hikes and restrictions on outside income as a part of a package last year.

The base pay for senators and assembly members jumped from $79,500 to $110,000 this year, and is supposed to jump $120,000 next year and $130,000 in 2021.

It also set Cuomo on track to become the nation’s top paid governor, increasing his salary to $200,000 this year, then $225,000 in 2020 and $250,000 in 2021.

This is why Mario's eldest son is running for a fourth term. Especially with the rumors of his rich girlfriend Sandy Lee dumping him.

Carl Heastie ties up anti-gang legislation

From the NY Post:

The Republican-led state Senate, for the fourth consecutive session, passed legislation to crack down on violent gangs — but Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie shot it down.

The bill comes amid a wave of violence by the MS-13 gang, which has menaced suburban Long Island and other areas.

The bill passed 48-13 — with all the no votes coming from New York City Democrats.

But it hasn’t even come up for a vote in Heastie’s Assembly.

The measure would increase sentences for gang-related felonies and create new felonies for individuals who participate or benefit from gang activity or recruit others to join gangs.

Heastie insisted longer prison sentences are not the answer.

“We support anti-gang initiatives. However, increased penalties are not necessarily a deterrent,” he said. “A better approach is to discourage people from engaging in gang activity in the first place, and that is where the focus should be.”

In fact, the bill offers anti-gang initiatives at the front end.

A new Criminal Street Gang Prevention Fund would be established to support a gang violence prevention curriculum in schools, for example.

Heastie makes his case for legislative pay raises

From the NY Post:

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie claimed today that lawmakers deserve a raise because they’ve never worked harder.

Ignoring the corruption scandals swirling around Albany, Heastie argued in a letter to the Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation that “the complexity and demands” of a legislator’s job “have dramatically increased.”

He pointed out that legislators’ base salary of $79,500 is now worth $53,997 in real purchasing power because there hasn’t been a pay hike since 1999.

Heastie didn’t mention ethics reform, which has been a point of contention between lawmakers, who claim they passed meaningful changes, and critics who contend they haven’t done enough.

The speaker, a Bronx Democrat, also did not recommend a specific new salary, merely pointing to a rate of inflation of about 2 percent a year.

But he noted that the current salary is modest at best for people living in and around the five boroughs.

If salaries aren’t adjusted, Heastie said only inexperienced, retired, or independently wealthy people would be willing to take the job.

Hmmm... inexperienced means that there wouldn't be decades-long incumbency, retired means they may actually show up for work and independently wealthy means they likely won't take bribes. I think I'll stick with no raises as the way to go.

Increase in legislative pay is questionable

From NY1:

Governor Andrew Cuomo has made its clear that his appointees to the legislative pay commission can control whether or not state lawmakers receive a pay increase.

"You will need my appointees and judicial appointees to approve it," he said.

The Commission held several meetings this year and is expected to deliver its report in November, safely after state lawmakers stand for re-election.

But Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie says that was never part of the agreement. In a statement, Heastie says, "The idea behind the commission was to determine administrative, legislative and statewide elected salaries devoid of any political considerations or agendas. Unfortunately, counter to the purpose of the Commission, there are some who have tried to politicize this process by suggesting legislators testify or trade legislation for a pay increase."

Heastie went on to say Cuomo's budget director recently wrote a letter to the Commission explaining why an increase is necessary for his commissioners. Heastie says he, too, will write a letter on behalf of his legislators. which holds everyone to the same standard.

Assembly speaker profited from mom's crime

From the NY Times:

When Carl E. Heastie leapt from obscurity to the top of New York State’s political power structure this year, he brought with him the potential of a new beginning in Albany. He vowed to bring accountability and integrity back to a statehouse that was reeling from the latest arrest of a lawmaker — the man he was succeeding as the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver.

But an episode from Speaker Heastie’s past that has never received public scrutiny casts new light on his claims of being a reformer.

About 16 years ago, when he had not yet run for public office but had already become entrenched in Bronx Democratic politics, Mr. Heastie was able to hold onto a home that prosecutors said his mother had bought with embezzled money and that a judge had instructed him to sell. Selling it years later brought what appears to be the only significant financial gain of his life.

An unusual string of legal lapses enabled Mr. Heastie to keep the home, an apartment in a three-story rowhouse in the Bronx. Carelessness of those involved in the case could be to blame, or something more questionable could have occurred given the Bronx Democratic Party’s influence on the court system and its long history of back-room deal-making.

In 1998, Mr. Heastie’s mother, Helene, pleaded guilty to writing checks to herself from the nonprofit organization where she had worked. Prosecutors said she used some of the money to buy her family a home in 1995 that cost $165,000. To stay out of jail, she and her son agreed to sell their home, which, by then, they co-owned, and relinquish the proceeds to her former employer.

“If it was purchased with moneys that were stolen, then no one should receive the benefit of that,” Justice Robert H. Straus told the Heasties during a hearing in January 1999 at State Supreme Court in the Bronx.

But Mr. Heastie did, indeed, profit from his mother’s crime.

Despite the judge’s instructions, Mr. Heastie was able to keep the apartment. His mother died at age 60 three weeks after being sentenced, and Mr. Heastie said he stopped trying to sell the property. When he finally did sell it — six years later for nearly $200,000 more than his mother had paid — he used the proceeds to buy a more expensive home.

Mr. Heastie said through a spokesman that his lawyer at the time told him his mother’s death freed him from any obligation to sell the apartment.

But Duncan Levin, a former chief of asset forfeiture for the Manhattan district attorney’s office who reviewed the case for The New York Times, said Mr. Heastie was “sitting on stolen money” that prosecutors should have recovered during his mother’s criminal case or after her death.

Heastie scored big off mafia guy

From the NY Post:

The state’s newly minted Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie, accepted cash from a mobster convicted of racketeering and steered thousands more to a man who did time for manslaughter, records show.

Between 2003 and 2008, more than $2,800 flowed into the Bronx Democrat’s campaign coffers from Tri-State Employment Services and its top executives, including reputed Bonanno associate Neil Messina, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison last April in connection with a 1992 home-invasion murder.

Heastie also directed at least $250,000 to the Bronx Business Alliance. The now-defunct nonprofit’s head, John Bonizio, was convicted of manslaughter in 1982 for bludgeoning a man to death with a baseball bat. Bonizio also made a plea deal after being indicted in the same year for trying to bribe an NYPD detective.

“Associations like these seriously undermine his attempts to show that the Assembly Democrats have turned the page,” a Democratic operative said of Heastie.

“As someone who is totally undefined in the public eye, this is a troubling first impression.”

From bad to just as bad?

From the Daily News:

If Frank Seddio of the Brooklyn machine, Joe Crowley of the Queens machine, Keith Wright of Manhattan’s barely-a-machine and Carl Heastie of the Bronx machine succeed in installing Heastie as speaker without so much as a public look-see, New Yorkers may one day look back on Silver’s reign as a golden age of good government.

The four overlords are driving Democratic Assembly members from each of their boroughs into voting for Heastie, never mind that, in deposing Silver, everyone in Albany swore that the Corruption Caucus was dead.

[Carl Heastie] happens to be a featured name in the files of the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, for having failed to properly account for $25,000 in campaign spending.

He also claimed almost $21,000 from the Assembly’s notoriously lax travel expense account during just the first six months of 2014 — more than any other member — while otherwise keeping a low profile in Albany.

As for the progressive paragon’s Assembly record, Heastie sponsored a 2013 bill that would have allowed check-cashing outlets to make loans to low-income New Yorkers at interest rates up to 200%. The check cashers had dumped $10,000 into his party accounts.

One of Heastie’s rivals for the speakership, Rochester-area Assemblyman Joe Morelle, raised an alarm about the “rush to judgment” while meeting with this board Thursday. Give him credit for taking a grilling, including on his loyalist first response to Silver’s arrest: “We have every confidence that the speaker is going to fill his role with distinction.”

3 Dems to take over for Silver

From the NY Times:

Sheldon Silver, the longtime speaker of the New York State Assembly, agreed on Sunday to relinquish his duties on a temporary basis as he fights federal corruption charges.

His decision came amid mounting pressure from his fellow Democrats in the Assembly, who worried that the criminal charges would impair his ability to carry out the duties of one of the most powerful positions in the state’s government.

In an unusual arrangement, Mr. Silver would not quit his post. Instead, he would temporarily delegate his duties as speaker to a group of senior Assembly members.

Under the tentative plan developed on Sunday, the Assembly majority leader, Joseph D. Morelle of the Rochester area, and the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Herman D. Farrell Jr., Democrat of Manhattan, would assume responsibility for budget negotiations.

Three other senior Democratic members — Carl E. Heastie of the Bronx, Catherine T. Nolan of Queens and Joseph R. Lentol of Brooklyn — will round out the leadership team.