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City Controller Alan Hevesi took sides yesterday in a City Council primary slugfest, endorsing Pauline Chu in her contest with veteran Flushing incumbent Julia Harrison. Hevesi, of Forest Hills, cited controversial remarks made by Harrison last April, when she was quoted as saying Asian immigrants in Flushing "were more like colonizers" than other groups that had settled in her district. Chu, an Asian-American who lost a primary to Harrison in 1991, is president of Community School Board 25.

City Controller Alan Hevesi yesterday endorsed Assemblywoman Deborah Glick for Manhattan borough president taking sides in a primary that has split the Democratic Party's gay and black constituencies. Hevesi chose Glick, a lesbian, over her leading opponent in the coming Democratic primary, City Councilwoman Virginia Fields of Harlem, who is black. The move came just two days after Hevesi endorsed Brooklyn Assemblyman Roger Green, who is black, in Green's longshot bid to oust Public Advocate Mark Green in the Democratic primary. Critics accused Hevesi, a likely mayoral contender in 2001, of endorsing Roger Green to avoid political problems with black...

New York’s Pension ScandalPublished: October 7, 2010 Alan Hevesi, the former comptroller, has provided the best argument to stop giving one person the power to invest New York State’s $125 billion pension fund. Mr. Hevesi pleaded guilty on Thursday to a felony corruption charge for accepting more than $1 million in travel expenses, sham consulting fees and campaign contributions. In return, Mr. Hevesi allowed his benefactor to earn more than $18 million in management fees for investing $250 million of the state’s pension fund. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, in his announcement of Mr. Hevesi’s plea, accused him of indulging in...

New York City -- Alan Hevesi walked into a Manhattan courthouse Thursday morning a convicted felon and left and admitted felon, times two. The former New York State Comptroller confessed to accepting nearly a million dollars in benefits and in return, he funneled state pension funds towards the companies behind those gifts. According to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the agency leading the pay-to-play investigation--the payoffs included: --$75,000 in travel expenses for the Hevesi family --$380,000 in sham consulting fees for a lobbyist friend --more than $500,000 in campaign contributions as directed by Hevesi. As NYS Comptroller from 2003-2006, Hevesi was...

Raymond B. Harding, the former vice chairman of the state’s Liberal Party, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony related to securities violations under the Martin Act, the latest development in Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s investigation of the state pension fund. Mr. Harding had been accused of accepting more than $800,000 that prosecutors say was a reward for doing political favors for the former state comptroller Alan G. Hevesi. Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity, a Dallas-based firm, also pleaded guilty on Friday to a Martin Act felony in the case. Mr. Meyer was a top consultant to pension funds around...

The former chairman of New York’s Liberal Party was charged on Wednesday with accepting more than $800,000 that prosecutors say was a reward for doing political favors for the former state comptroller Alan G. Hevesi. The former chairman, Raymond B. Harding, 74, was also accused of helping to clear an Assembly seat in a Queens district so that Mr. Hevesi’s son, Andrew, could run for it in 2005. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said that Mr. Harding, once a close political ally of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and a power broker in state politics, provided “30 years’ worth” of...

ALBANY, Oct. 11 — The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an inquiry into oversight of the New York State pension fund, which is drawing increasing scrutiny over claims that investment firms paid friends and relatives of former Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi in exchange for business. The S.E.C. began its examination several weeks ago, people with knowledge of it said, and is looking into potential civil violations of federal securities laws. The move follows an investigation of the same issue begun by the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, in January, along with an inquiry by P. David Soares,...

ALBANY, Sept. 12 — Few political partners have been closer than Hank Morris and Alan G. Hevesi. --snip-- Mr. Morris ran Mr. Hevesi’s breakthrough political campaign, an upset of City Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman in 1993. He was the guiding force behind Mr. Hevesi’s combative last race, when he won re-election as state comptroller amid scandal last November. And he was Mr. Hevesi’s main adviser when he resigned a month later after pleading guilty to using state workers to chauffeur his wife. Chief strategist, image maker and personal confidant, Mr. Morris, 54, has been far more than just a consultant to...

INVESTIGATORS probing possible illegal pension fund activities during disgraced state Comptroller Alan Hevesi's tenure are being hampered by the disappearance of "volumes" of sensitive documents, The Post has learned. The documents - providing a paper trail on the investment of tens of millions of dollars in pension-fund assets - disappeared after former Democratic Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli was named by the Legislature in February to replace Hevesi, who pleaded guilty to misusing state resources and resigned in disgrace in December, a source close to DiNapoli's office said. "This involves actions that occurred on DiNapoli's watch, not on Hevesi's," the source said,...

Alan Hevesi walked into Albany County Court Friday morning for his sentencing, his 35-year career as a public servant defined by one case of indiscretion. "I'm culpable, I'm responsible, and I apologize," Hevesi said. "You began to evidence a very high level of arrogance and some expectation of entitlement for services that you otherwise were not entitled to receive," said Albany County Judge Stephen Herrick. As part of Hevesi's sentence, he was forced to resign his position and pay back more than $200,000 in restitution, both of which he complied with when pleading guilty in December. The saga of former...

The state's chief financial officer, Comptroller Alan Hevesi, resigned Friday and agreed to plead guilty to a felony for using state employees as his wife's chauffeurs. The plea ends Hevesi's 35-year political career and wraps up an investigation by Albany County District Attorney David Soares, who had been presenting evidence about Hevesi to a grand jury. Hevesi, a Democrat from New York City, will serve no jail time. He also agreed not to take office on Jan. 1. Hevesi was re-elected in November amid the scandal, and state lawmakers had considered removing him from office. In court, Hevesi acknowledged that...

The voters may have saved Alan Hevesi. The state comptroller's 57 percent re-election win last month over Republican rival Christopher Callaghan just might allow him to stay on the job - even though investigators concluded that he illegally used an office employee to chauffeur his wife. A New York magazine story that will hit newsstands tomorrow points to a 1987 article in the Fordham Urban Law Journal about impeachment and removal proceedings written by Republican state Sen. Michael Balboni of Long Island. The senator, a young lawyer at the time, reported that courts have held that if the public re-elects...

<p>Spitzer's office plans to release an explosive report as soon as tomorrow, outlining the results of a two-month-plus investigation into the cost to taxpayers of Hevesi's multiyear use of a state worker as a private chauffeur and companion for his wife.</p>

Mr. Hevesi, in a statement issued by his office in response to questions for this article, said, "Honest concern for my wife led me to make a mistake for which I have apologized. "Knowing the facts, millions of New Yorkers elected me by an overwhelming percentage to serve another four year term as comptroller," he said. "That is what I intend to do." ...If the Senate removed Mr. Hevesi, the governor would choose his successor. But if Mr. Hevesi resigned, the Legislature as a whole would choose his replacement, giving control to the Democrats. Mr. Hevesi had been somewhat buoyed...

Lawyer: Hevesi Can Be Removed Posted by: Athan Kompos, Producer Created: 11/4/2006 12:11:43 PM Updated: 11/4/2006 12:17:02 PM ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A lawyer appointed by Governor George Pataki has determined there is enough evidence to remove [democrat] Comptroller Alan Hevesi from office for using a state employee to chauffeur his wife. But he added the likely violations of state law were civil, not criminal The decision announced today is another blow to Hevesi's already battered re-election campaign. But former U.S. Attorney David Kelley said it's too early to make a recommendation for Hevesi's removal because it's unclear whether the...

(Albany - WABC, November 3, 2006) - Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office determined Comptroller Alan Hevesi owes the state at least $90,000 more for the use of a staffer as a driver for his wife, lawyers for Hevesi said Friday. A Hevesi official says the comptroller delivered a check for that amount later in the day. Officials say Spitzer aides ordered the money placed in escrow until an investigation is completed. The order to pay the additional money comes as Hevesi seeks re-election to a second term while dealing with the driver scandal that has damaged his standing in the...

If Gov. George E. Pataki seems less than certain about what to do with Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, there is a good reason: no statewide elected official has been removed from office since Gov. William Sulzer in 1913, and that case remains debatable to this day. The accusations that may deliver Mr. Hevesi to the Legislature’s rusty gates of justice center on findings of the State Ethics Commission that he broke the law by using state employees to chauffeur his ailing wife. He has apologized for not reimbursing the state promptly. The Ethics Commission also said that the amount he...

THE heat on embattled State Comptroller Alan Hevesi is bringing unwanted attention to his relationship with Queens City Councilwoman Melinda Katz, who has long been his political protégé. "It's an open secret in Queens political circles," one lawmaker told Page Six. "She kisses him on the lips in public, and he went to war with the county organization to get her elected." "It's common knowledge," said another politico. "I've seen them making out." One pol said he spotted them canoodling years ago one night at Terrace on the Park, the catering facility near La Guardia Airport. Although Katz is single,...

Off the Trail As the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, twisted in the wind like a political piñata last week over using a state employee as his wife’s driver, other New York leaders seemed a touch defensive about their own driving habits. When asked, Gov. George E. Pataki, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and both the State Senate majority leader, Joseph. L. Bruno, and minority leader, David A. Paterson, strongly denied ever — ever! — using state vehicles for personal errands without quickly reimbursing the state. Senator Bruno, in particular, bristled when he was asked if his driver ever drove his...

Pataki appoints special prosecutor Albany — Gov. George Pataki appointed a special prosecutor yesterday to kick off an extraordinary process that could lead to embattled state Comptroller Alan Hevesi being forced from office for using a state worker as his wife's private driver. Pataki asked David Kelley, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to help him decide within a week whether to make the unprecedented request of the Republican-controlled state Senate to vote for Hevesi's removal. "It is an extraordinary act for officials to overturn an election of a statewide elected official after a vote by...