Queens has been home to a litany of of corrupt elected officials. Photo Courtesy of Metro Images.
It was not too many years ago that it seemed that Malcolm Smith was a protagonist making history for all the proper reasons. In 2009, he became the first African-American majority leader of the state Senate, instantly positioning himself as one of the most powerful politicians in New York.
Less than six years and one federal conviction later, Smith is a footnote of that history; the latest in a long line of unscrupulous elected officials who have at some point called Queens home.
The Democrat Smith was found guilty of bribery, fraud and extortion earlier this month for his role in a failed $200,000 pay-to-play scheme in which Smith tried to buy his way onto the Republican line of the 2013 mayoral ballot with the help of several other players.
Among those players was disgraced former City Councilman Dan Halloran, a Republican from Whitestone who was convicted last summer of helping to facilitate the Smith bribe scheme and pocketing illicit cash himself.
Among the bold-faced names joining Smith and Halloran in this rogues gallery is former Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio, a Democrat who resigned in 2009 after more than 30 years representing south Queens in the Lower Chamber. Seminerio copped to accepting money through a sham consulting firm doing business with Jamaica Hospital. He died in 2011 while serving his six-year sentence in Butner, N.C.
A fellow nefarious former member of the Queens delegation to the Assembly actually helped seal Seminerio’s fate. Flushing Democrat Brian McLaughlin, who pleaded guilty to racketeering and is currently serving 10 years in federal prison, surreptitiously recorded Seminerio detailing his work as a “consultant.”
McLaughlin, who once was also one of the most powerful union officials in the country, embezzled funds from taxpayers, labor unions and even a borough Little League team.
Former state Sen. Shirley Huntley of Jamaica pleaded guilty two years ago to funneling nearly $90,000 in grant money earmarked for a borough nonprofit to her personal coffers to fund shopping sprees. She was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and three years’ probation.
Attempting to curry favor with prosecutors and the court, Huntley secretly taped conversations with nine elected officials, including Smith and City Councilman Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica).
Two weeks ago, Wills was indicted for the second time in the past nine months, most recently for allegedly filing false financial reports with the city Conflicts of Interest Board. Last May, Wills was arrested for allegedly pocketing thousands of dollars in public campaign funds and charitable grant money for personal benefit. He is fighting both cases.
Wills’ fellow Jamaica Democrat Assemblyman William Scarborough was indicted last October, in part for allegedly using campaign funds for personal use.
And this isn’t everybody. This is just some of the infamous public-corruption cases that have emanated from “The World’s Borough.”
“No matter how inventive corrupt politicians are in trying to abscond with public funds, they never seem to learn from the many who have been caught previously with their hands in the public till,” Dick Dadey, executive director of good-government group Citizens Union, told Crain’s New York Business in May following Wills’ first indictment.
“When will they learn that corruption never pays?”
By Michael V. Cusenza
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