Posted on 05/11/2007 9:27:49 AM PDT by ellery
Hardy-har-har.
Too bad you can't debate the issue on the merits.
How is a purchased item which has enver been resold "personal income"?
He got favorable treatment with something of high value, which is not acceptable for a politician. It smacks of quid pro quo , since he gave favorable financial treatment to the Yankees. Whether he was right or wrong, it gives the appearance of a crooked politician, getting a favor returned.
He was here recently and most of his questions were about abortion and those rings.
Finally, a rational response.
This is arguably true: however "high value" is a relative term when you are discussing multimillionaires.
The fact is that Giuliani is actually a huge Yankees fan, will probably never sell the rings unless he falls on desperate financial hard times, and he was already personal friends with the owner of the ballclub well before he was mayor.
It smacks of quid pro quo , since he gave favorable financial treatment to the Yankees.
This is where the argument breaks down. What favorable financial treatment did the Yankees receive, exactly?
Whether he was right or wrong, it gives the appearance of a crooked politician, getting a favor returned.
The question is: which favor are we talking about?
I have read where the Yankees received sweetheart deals from the city under Mayor Giuliani.
The DMV collects sales tax. They don't care if you really sold the car for $1. They want the sales tax based on the average price of that vehicle. The IRS collects income tax. They don't care what price you buy something for. The only care when you sell something and make a profit on it.
Rudy paid the Jeweler $4000 for a ring and the state and local sales taxes should have been collected by the Jeweler at that time.
Let me ask you this. Should the dozens of other people who got those same rings FOR FREE be subject to taxes based upon the value some sports memorabilia collector estimates or the actual value ($4000) charged by the jeweler who made them?
The way the IRS treats this is to consider it imputed income. The multi-million dollar players had taxes withheld from their pay as if they had made an additional $4000. The 6-figure coaches had the same amounted of imputed income added to their pay, as did the 5-figure clubhouse attendant, ground crew and other front office personnel that the Yankees deemed deserving.
They all get rings valued at $4000, not $250,000.
If at some point they sell that ring, the IRS will take their share of any gain made over the original sales price.
Can we be more specific?
The city certainly hasn't contributed any money to help Steinbrenner purchase that pricey roster of his.
The city hasn't spent a cent toward the huge cable-TV package that the Yankees benefit from - in fact the city vainly threatened the Yankees that they would interfere with the licenses for the YES network unless the Yankees reduced their income from the network. That was an empty threat since the city has no authority over the licensing process.
And the new Yankees Stadium that is in process is one of the few stadiums in America that is financed entirely through private investment without the use of any public grants.
So I am at a loss as to what sweetheart deals you are referring to.
It had to do with an agreement announced in December, 2001 just before Giuliani left office, which promised new stadiums for both the Mets and Yanks, with the city bearing half the estimated $1.6 billion construction cost. It gave the teams five one-year lease extensions, during which they could deduct up to $5 million a year apiece from their city rent payments for stadium planning costs. However, Bloomberg stopped it, I believe.
Is there a gift tax? I recall somebody getting a car (on Oprah?) and having to pay tax on it - same with someone getting a house in our area. Seems there is a technicality on how to avoid paying the tax. But this does raise the impression of impropriety and especially since he went after those who accepted small gifts.
That was my point, actually. You said it much better than I did.
If a business is regulated by a city and that city sells items to the mayor of that city for a mere fraction of their market value, then that sale can be considered a bribe. Here Mr. Giuliani was offered the sweetheart deal of paying $1000 each for four rings which apparently had a value of over $60,000 each.
While Mr. Giuliani may not have been influenced in his role as a regulator for of the New York Yankees as result of this "sale", it looks like a bribe, and it smells like a bribe.
If we're going to let this slide, then we probably are going to have to let slide Hillary Clinton's $95,000 one-week profit on her $5,000 commodities trade. If I recall correctly we all complained about Hillary's corruption in regard to that stock trade. Hillary only made $100,000 on a $5,000 investment, whereas Giuliani made $250,000 on a $4000 investment.
I suppose this gives me one more reason not to vote for Mr. Giuliani. Let his defenders defend this.
Keep in mind that an elected public official is held to a higher standard of law (because they control the public purse).
The ring issue might be a classic example of an elected official promising he will use his office to allocate tax dollars (then receiving a gratuity as payback).
As tommydale incisively reported above.......in December, 2001 just before Giuliani left office, he promised new stadiums for both the Mets and Yanks, with the city (taxpayers) bearing half the estimated $1.6 billion construction cost. It gave the teams five one-year lease extensions, during which they could deduct up to $5 million a year apiece from their city rent payments for stadium planning costs.
Rooty suckered taxpayers suckered all around in that deal.
CASE IN POINT: Then-Sen Harrison Williams (D-NJ) went to prison for several years b/c he took a gift of titanium stock from an undervover agent posing as a sheik who wanted government assistance.
An ordinary citizen who took stock in a company (or a baseball ring) commits no crime. However, when an elected offical pockets such items, it is punishble by law.
Another example---presidents cannot accept gifts worth over $100.
Key legal issues:
1. What is the legality in NYC related to public officials receiving gifts/special treatment from those doing business with the city?
2. Did Giuliani get special treatment from the Yankees?
3. If so, did he get this special treatment while in office (if it was only after he left office, and it was not deferred special treatment promised to him while in office, then he's in the clear)
One additional issue:
4. Did the Yankees get special treatment from Giuliani, in which case it's at least reasonable to infer a quid pro quo
So, to these questions:
1. What is the legality in NYC related to public officials receiving gifts/special treatment from those doing business with the city?
From the article: What's more troubling is that Giuliani's receipt of the rings may be a serious breach of the law, and one that could still be prosecuted. New York officials are barred from taking a gift of greater than $50 value from anyone doing business with the city, and under Giuliani, that statute was enforced aggressively against others. His administration forced a fire department chief, for example, to retire, forfeit $93,105 in salary, and pay a $6,000 fine for taking Broadway tickets to two shows and a free week in a ski condo from a city vendor. The city's Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) has applied the gift rule to discounts as well, unless the cheaper rate "is available generally to all government employees." When a buildings department deputy commissioner was indicted in 2000 for taking Mets and Rangers tickets, as well as a family trip to Florida, from a vendor, an outraged Giuliani denounced his conduct as "reprehensible," particularly "at high levels in city agencies," and said that such officials had to be "singled out" and "used as examples."
And there's another, more recent, and closer-to-home example of arrogant nondisclosure noted publicly by Giuliani. When former police commissioner Bernard Kerik pled guilty last year to charges involving a city contractor's gift to him of a $165,000 apartment renovation, Giuliani said that Kerik had "acknowledged his violations." As part of a $221,000 plea deal, Kerik agreed to pay a $10,000 fine to the COIB for accepting and then failing to accurately disclose the renovations. Not only are Kerik and Giuliani's concealed gifts of similar value, but Kerik, like Giuliani, made a partial payment for the renovations—$17,800, far less than full value.
More ominous for Giuliani, Kerik's prosecution came eight years after the renovation of his apartment began, an indication that the ordinary statute of limitations doesn't apply to the continuing reporting requirements of the COIB. In addition, Giuliani reportedly paid the Yankees as recently as 2004 for one of the rings, another reason why an investigation might still be timely. It is also a violation of state unlawful-gratuity statutes for a public official to "solicit, accept, or agree to accept any benefit" from a business like the Yankees, which leases the stadium from the city.
2. Did Giuliani get special treatment from the Yankees?
From the article: Jerry McNeal, a World Series historian associated with the Baseball Hall of Fame, says that public officials don't usually get rings. "No, you have to be associated with the team in some way," says McNeal. "When the L.A. Dodgers won the world championship, Frank Sinatra was good friends with the manager, Tommy Lasorda, but he couldn't get a ring." Phyllis Merhige, senior vice president of the American League, says she isn't aware of rings going to public officials. "In a situation, I'm guessing, an official that was involved in the building of a new stadium or keeping a team in a city would be considered for a ring. But I couldn't tell you whether it's been done or not. There are no records." She says that congressional representatives are barred by law from receiving rings or other gifts from teams.
McNeal estimates that Giuliani's rings "would go for at least $50,000 apiece," adding that they "might even go for more than that." If Giuliani were elected president, he says, the rings "would skyrocket in value." Pete Siegel, the president of Gotta Have It Collectibles on East 57th Street, puts the value of Giuliani's four-ring set at a quarter of a million dollars. Siegel says that Giuliani has purchased sports items at his store and even came in once wearing a World Series ring. Having just sold two 1998 rings owned by a coach and front-office executive for $28,000 and $29,000, Siegel says that "Giuliani's rings would be on the same level as players' rings for all those years." He says he knows that Giuliani "definitely has a 1996 ring," though he is unsure if that was the ring the former mayor wore to his store.
Robert Lifson of Robert Edwards Auctions maintains that Giuliani's rings would be "more meaningful and valuable than some of the players'." Lifson's "gut" tells him the value could "go through the roof," estimating that they would sell for "north of $25,000 apiece." People would pay "a much bigger premium to have the ring of America's Mayor than an executive that nobody knows," says Lifson, who insists that "any modern Yankee ring" would sell for five figures even if it were the ring of an unknown. He says the rings are "works of art" that serve also as "a symbol of greatness in sports." Spencer Lader, a certified appraiser for the Yankees who has appeared on their TV network's memorabilia show, tells the Voice he puts the overall value of Giuliani's collection at about $200,000, adding, as did others, that the 1996 ring is "the most coveted."
-snip-
Frequently ensconced in George Steinbrenner's eight-seat 31A box and four Legends 31AA seats next to the Yankee dugout while he was mayor, Giuliani and his many guests were also repeatedly given Yankee jackets, caps, autographed balls, and other gifts. "He would require gifts at every game," says a former close Giuliani aide, whose account is supported by both a Yankee source and an ex-cop assigned to the mayor. He even wanted a fitted cap with the World Series logo and other special caps, and the equipment management had to reach into the players' uniform case to find one for Giuliani's large head. The Giuliani group also raided the closet in Steinbrenner's office, even taking DiMaggio jackets with red piping for the mayor and guests. "They finally turned the spigot off in 2000 and said we just can't do it anymore," the aide recalls. The cop remembers jackets and balls—some signed by all the Yankees—stuffed in the back of the city cars they used to drive back from the stadium.
The Yankees say Giuliani paid for at least some of his tickets, though he did not pay when "he attended in his official capacity." They declined to specify which games were official, or to answer detailed questions about the other largesse. Several friends who sat with Giuliani at games, like Emergency Management Director Jerry Hauer, say they were never asked to pay. "I don't believe he paid for our seats," says Hauer. "I don't think anybody paid for them. It would have cost him a fortune." Russell Harding, one of three members of his family who went to Yankee games with Giuliani and the head of the Housing Development Corporation, wrote in an e-mail disclosed after his arrest on charges of bilking the city for hundreds of thousands of dollars: "I never have to pay for things like that . . . especially Yankee tickets . . . just one of the perks I get with my job . . . And knowing the mayor doesn't hurt either." Russell's brother Robert (both are sons of Liberal Party boss Ray Harding) was actually in charge of the Yankee Stadium negotiations for Giuliani.
With tickets for Giuliani's box and Legends seats selling for $50 to $200 for regular-season games, and with Giuliani and an average of eight guests attending a minimum of 20 games a year, the eight-year price tag for the mayor, including the far more expensive postseason games he never missed, would have been an estimated $120,000. That's quite a load on an average salary of $150,000. Obviously, any substantial tickets and assorted gifts to the mayor or his city employee guests would also have run afoul of the $50 COIB limit.
The Yankees say that Mayor Bloomberg has purchased four season tickets in Section 53, behind the Steinbrenner box that Giuliani still uses, and pays even when he attends in his official capacity. Bloomberg does not allow anyone on the city payroll to use his seats because he regards it as granting an improper benefit to a subordinate. (The Yankee spokeswoman declined to characterize the difference between how the two mayors dealt with seating at the stadium.) Giuliani's periodic payments for some of these tickets may also have had a tax motive. Had he paid nothing for the seats, he would have had to treat the entire Yankee goodie bag as income.
3. If so, did he get this special treatment while in office (if it was only after he left office, and it was not deferred special treatment promised to him while in office, then he's in the clear)
From the article: If Giuliani neither received the rings, nor was promised them while in office, he would not have violated these rules. In repeated exchanges with the Voice, a Yankee spokeswoman was vague about when Giuliani actually received the rings, though she suggested that Giuliani might have obtained them when he paid for them—which would have been well after his mayoral term ended in 2001. Alice McGillion of Rubenstein Associates, the public relations firm that represents the Yankees, said that in 2003, Giuliani paid $13,500 for his 1998, 1999, and 2000 rings, and in 2004, he paid $2,500 for his 1996 ring. She said that the team had only "transmittal" documents that confirmed the payments and that, from those documents, it could be "reasonably deduced" that he didn't receive the rings until then.
McGillion acknowledged that she had no other evidence besides the records of payment to lead her to believe that Giuliani received the rings years after the championships were won. She declined to respond to two sets of e-mailed questions about whether it was the team's contention that rings weren't made for Giuliani until 2003 and 2004, or if they were maintaining that his rings had actually been manufactured during his mayoralty and held by the Yankees, with his assent, until after he left office.
Giuliani's protracted delay—paying for a 1996 ring eight years later—might well be seen by the IRS, COIB, or other investigators as an indication that he recognized the impropriety of receiving them while mayor, or, as Giuliani used to describe it in his prosecutorial days, an "inference of guilt." If the rings were promised and made for him while he was in office, though not actually delivered until after his term ended, that could still involve violations of the gift or gratuity statutes, according to investigators.
Four sources, two from the manufacturer and two from City Hall, have told the Voice that a ring was made with Giuliani's name on it in 1996 or early 1997. The City Hall sources also recall him receiving the ring at that time. In addition, one of these sources, joined by two other ex–Giuliani staffers, says the mayor did not take possession of the three additional rings until much later. The best recollection of these aides is that he got these rings as a package near the end of his term in 2001, just as his administration closed a number of critical deals with the Yankees. While the Yankees could offer no explanation for why he paid for three rings in one year and the 1996 ring a year later, the chronology cited by the sources suggests one. He paid for the three he received together, and then later remembered to pay for the one he'd gotten long before. He paid $2,000 less for the 1996 ring than he did for the others—another indication of how disconnected from market factors this reputed sale was, since many ring experts believe the 1996 ring, which ended a nearly two-decade Yankee drought, is the most valuable of the four.
But when did Giuliani get that 1996 ring? Did he, as the Yankee spokeswoman suggests, receive it only when he made a token payment for it in 2004, after he was no longer mayor? Not according to the man who actually made the ring, William Sandoval.
Sandoval says he's made rings for 26 years. After attending a stone-setter school, he went to work for L.G. Balfour in Attleboro, Massachusetts, which manufactured sports and school rings at its plant there for 84 years. "I was a special maker, doing diamond settings and customer repair," the Guatemala-born jeweler, now with his own small business in Rhode Island, tells the Voice. "I did the Yankees, the Celtics, and the Baltimore Orioles. Balfour liked my work. I did every championship ring." He particularly recalls the 1996 ring he did for the Yankees. Fifty percent larger than any previous team ring, the famous interlocking NY at the center was made of 23 diamonds, one for each title, encircled by the words World Champion. With the Series trophy and courage and heart on one side, the ring also featured the Yankee Stadium facade, the Yankees top hat, and the word tradition on the other.
It was easy to remember because it was Sandoval's last championship ring. Balfour was acquired by a New York investment firm in 1996 and closed its Attleboro plant to move to Texas in late 1997, laying off hundreds of workers. Its successor firm, American Achievement, still does Yankee work.
Sandoval distinctly remembers that they made a ring for Giuliani because, he says, he crafted it himself. Asked if he was certain if the Giuliani ring was made at the same time as the rest, he says: "It has to be at the same time." Asked again if he "definitely" remembers making a ring for Rudy Giuliani, Sandoval replies: "Yes. Oh, yes." His memory is confirmed by a former Balfour vice president who oversaw sports sales and asked that his name not be used. "I honestly think that Giuliani did get a ring," he says. "The only people who could get rings had to have a letter signed by Steinbrenner on Yankee stationery." Attempts to get the current manufacturer to confirm that rings were made for Giuliani for the other three championships were unsuccessful; the sales representative for the firm referred all questions to the Yankees.
4. Did the Yankees get special treatment from Giuliani, in which case it's at least reasonable to infer a quid pro quo?
On December 31, 2001, first deputy mayor Joe Lhota was standing on the steps of City Hall, listening to the bagpipes playing in anticipation of Rudy Giuliani's farewell, when he was tapped on the shoulder and asked to sign a document. It was the last official act of the Giuliani administration: an amendment to the Yankee lease. Bills from Yankee lawyers that were reimbursed by the city indicate that the parties were busily negotiating the terms of the deal for at least five of Giuliani's final hours that day. Fourteen days later, Bill Thompson, the new city comptroller, would write the new mayor, Mike Bloomberg, to complain about the amendment Lhota signed, which allowed the Yankees to terminate their lease on 60 days' notice "anytime over the next nine years" if the team "reasonably determined" that the city was unlikely to proceed with the new stadium Giuliani had promised them. Previously, the Yankees had made a five-year commitment to remain in the Bronx if they stayed there through the 2002 season.
Bloomberg quickly moved to kill the lavishly subsidized term sheets that the Giuliani administration had signed to build new stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets. But he could do nothing about the $50 million in stadium planning costs that another last-minute lease amendment delivered to the teams. That amendment, signed by Giuliani in the closing moments, allowed each team to deduct from the rent they paid the city any costs they attributed to stadium planning—up to $5 million a year for five years.
A Voice story in 2006 revealed that the Yankees deducted the $203,055 they paid lobbyist Bill Powers, the former head of the state Republican party. They also deducted hundreds of thousands in other legal and lobbying fees retroactively, meaning that the city actually paid the Yankees' costs involved in negotiating, drafting, and pushing for the very lease amendment that allowed the deductions in the first place, an unprecedented circular giveaway. Though the amendment only permitted the Yankees to deduct for expenses from the beginning of 2001, the team submitted thousands in bills from the Regency Hotel as far back as 1999, a maneuver subsequently blocked by the comptroller. Remarkably, this was the Yankees' second dip into the city treasury to plan its own stadium. Giuliani's Economic Development Corporation had already reimbursed the Yankees $3 million for similar expenditures.
The ninth-inning amendments were just the latest in an orgy of favors that Giuliani granted the Yankees. When Thompson did an audit of the Yankees' payments to the city in 2004, it was only supposed to cover the period since 2002. But his office was so intrigued by the Yankees' meager payments to the city during the Giuliani years that he extended its review back to 1997 and discovered that the Yankees had grossly shortchanged the city. The club is allowed to deduct from its rental obligation the revenue-sharing payments it makes to Major League Baseball. It had mysteriously overstated those payments by $34 million between 1997 and 2002, shortchanging the city by $2.7 million.
In fact, as astonishing as it may seem, the Mets, big-time losers for most of the Giuliani years, were assessed for twice as much in net rent to the city for a half-empty Shea as the Yankees were for its packed house, an average of $5.4 million a year versus $2.86 million. The Yankee lease has long allowed the team to do its own stadium maintenance and deduct its costs from the rent, while Shea is maintained by the Parks Department. The Yankees drove an armored truck through that loophole in the Giuliani years. Even though the loophole is still in effect under Bloomberg, the payment pattern has reversed itself, with the Yankees paying twice as much as the Mets for 2002–2004, an annual average of $4.93 million versus $2.58 million.
The Yankees argue that Giuliani's final stadium proposal was a boon to both teams equally, though the 60-day escape clause and the quadrupling of luxury boxes were unique Yankee benefits. But Mets owner Fred Wilpon wasn't even seeking a new stadium until late 2000, asking for city help simply to renovate Shea. He joined the Giuliani feast only to keep pace with the hog in the Bronx.
Of course, before Giuliani brokered his Bronx deal, he waged a three-year war to give the Yankees, not the Mets, a stadium on the West Side. He and Steinbrenner began that strong-arm campaign in 1996, just as the mayor was collecting his first ring. That's also when he amended the Yankee lease for the first of five times, quietly granting the Yankees permission to exclude much of cable and luxury-suite revenue from the calculus that determined the rent due the city. In fact, all the team paid the city to rent Yankee Stadium in a World Series year, when all deductions were made, was a measly $100,000.
Giuliani was so committed to the West Side site he created a phony charter commission to put manufactured amendments on the ballot in 1998, a legal maneuver that submarined a referendum opposing the stadium. When a steel beam at Yankee Stadium collapsed that year, he turned it into a campaign to virtually condemn the stadium, rejecting the findings of his own building commissioner that the stadium was sound. No fact could get in the way of what Steinbrenner wanted.
The goodies list seems endless. Giuliani spent $71 million on a stadium for the Staten Island Yankees, a low-level minor league team half-owned by Steinbrenner's son. So few people go to games there that the team has yet to hit the minimal attendance threshold that triggers some rental payments to the city. Though the lease required the team to submit turnstile attendance numbers to the city, the stadium operated for years without turnstiles, and the comptroller has repeatedly found that it shortchanges the city. The city also helped the Yankees reconfigure Yankee Stadium in lucrative ways, including adding the very Legends seats in foul territory near the dugouts and home plate that Giuliani wound up occupying. On December 19, 2001, also just days before the end of Giuliani's term, Bob Harding signed a letter approving a million-dollar replacement of the playing field.
Ping to details in #54
Jerry McNeal, a World Series historian associated with the Baseball Hall of Fame, says that public officials don't usually get rings. "No, you have to be associated with the team in some way," says McNeal. "When the L.A. Dodgers won the world championship, Frank Sinatra was good friends with the manager, Tommy Lasorda, but he couldn't get a ring." Phyllis Merhige, senior vice president of the American League, says she isn't aware of rings going to public officials. "In a situation, I'm guessing, an official that was involved in the building of a new stadium or keeping a team in a city would be considered for a ring. But I couldn't tell you whether it's been done or not. There are no records." She says that congressional representatives are barred by law from receiving rings or other gifts from teams.
McNeal estimates that Giuliani's rings "would go for at least $50,000 apiece," adding that they "might even go for more than that." If Giuliani were elected president, he says, the rings "would skyrocket in value." Pete Siegel, the president of Gotta Have It Collectibles on East 57th Street, puts the value of Giuliani's four-ring set at a quarter of a million dollars. Siegel says that Giuliani has purchased sports items at his store and even came in once wearing a World Series ring. Having just sold two 1998 rings owned by a coach and front-office executive for $28,000 and $29,000, Siegel says that "Giuliani's rings would be on the same level as players' rings for all those years." He says he knows that Giuliani "definitely has a 1996 ring," though he is unsure if that was the ring the former mayor wore to his store.
Robert Lifson of Robert Edwards Auctions maintains that Giuliani's rings would be "more meaningful and valuable than some of the players'." Lifson's "gut" tells him the value could "go through the roof," estimating that they would sell for "north of $25,000 apiece." People would pay "a much bigger premium to have the ring of America's Mayor than an executive that nobody knows," says Lifson, who insists that "any modern Yankee ring" would sell for five figures even if it were the ring of an unknown. He says the rings are "works of art" that serve also as "a symbol of greatness in sports." Spencer Lader, a certified appraiser for the Yankees who has appeared on their TV network's memorabilia show, tells the Voice he puts the overall value of Giuliani's collection at about $200,000, adding, as did others, that the 1996 ring is "the most coveted."
Thank you.
“Some say the rings are worth a combined $250,000.
Ping me when an appraiser confirms it.
Not that long ago I worked for an atty who rep’d an NFL player’s wife in a divorce .. player had a few SB rings .. and the value was no where near these amounts. Not even close. But ... if the high figures makes it sound more scandalous ... well, that’s what the media does!
“Some say the rings are worth a combined $250,000.
Ping me when an appraiser confirms it.
Ping.
From the article:
Spencer Lader, a certified appraiser for the Yankees who has appeared on their TV network's memorabilia show, tells the Voice he puts the overall value of Giuliani's collection at about $200,000, adding, as did others, that the 1996 ring is "the most coveted."
Even if you are correct, and the appraisers are assigning an inflated value to them, certainly we can agree that they (and the tickets, and the autographed balls, etc) are worth more than $50, correct?
Rudy went after others who accepted gifts with such zeal (for which I applauded him at the time), but kept goodies for himself. What do we call people like that?
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