Original Link
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/nyregion/14senator.html
Efrain González Jr., a Bronx Democrat, on the Senate floor. He declined to comment on a new indictment, but said he was innocent.
A New York state senator was charged yesterday with stealing more than $400,000 in state money appropriated for charities in his district and using it for personal expenses and luxuries for himself and his family.
The charges against the senator, Efrain González Jr., a Bronx Democrat, were contained in a new indictment announced by the United States attorney in Manhattan and came four months after he was indicted on charges of stealing $37,000 from a nonprofit organization.
Federal prosecutors said Mr. González funneled the money through two nonprofit companies, the West Bronx Neighborhood Association and United Latin American Foundation, which did little if any charitable work. The association’s office, according to prosecutors, was nothing more than a room adjoining Mr. González’s district office in the Bronx.
Federal prosecutors said Mr. González then used the state money — and some $40,000 in federal grants to the same charities — for a variety of personal expenses. Those included financing his private cigar company, paying membership fees in a vacation club in the Dominican Republic, paying rent and renovations for homes used by his wife and mother-in-law, paying college tuition for his daughter, and buying items like Yankees tickets and jewelry.
Moments after his latest indictment was announced in Manhattan, Mr. González was asked for comment on the Senate floor during a break in a special session and replied, “No comment; talk to my lawyer.” Then he added: “I’m innocent. You know, we’ve got to keep moving.”
He is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow in federal District Court in Manhattan.
Mr. González’s chief of staff, Miguel Ponce, said yesterday that the senator “is looking forward to his day in court.”
At a news conference yesterday announcing the new indictment, Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney for Manhattan, said the senator’s indictment pointed out the risk of corruption inherent in the Legislature’s practice of setting aside a pot of money for member items, the pet projects of individual lawmakers in their districts. Critics have objected that the budget does not identify the legislator sponsoring each item.
“This was a process that had little transparency in it, and that created risk,” Mr. Garcia said. “What we’re saying today is that that risk played out.”
Mr. Garcia declined to say whether federal prosecutors were investigating other lawmakers for the abuse of member items and whether any other charges were likely, saying only that his office was “obviously very focused on public corruption.”
Rose Gill Hearn, the city’s commissioner of investigation, who joined Mr. Garcia at the news conference, called on lawmakers to police the member item process better.
“The transparency, accountability and integrity of the member item process is an issue that should be analyzed on the state and city level,” Ms. Hearn said.
If convicted, Mr. González, 58, first elected in 1989 and re-elected in November, could be sentenced to 20 years on the most serious charges of “theft of honest services as a state senator” by embezzling member items and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The Legislature sets aside $200 million a year for member items, federal prosecutors said yesterday. That includes $85 million each in the Senate and Assembly, and $30 million for the governor.
Yesterday’s indictment expands on the earlier one, charging that from October 1999 to January 2005, Mr. González allocated $423,000 in member items to a nonprofit corporation called Pathways for Youth, based in the Bronx, which said its mission was to help young people.
Pathways in turn directed the money to the West Bronx Neighborhood Association, whose stated mission was to promote civic and community affairs, but which in fact, prosecutors contend, served as a personal piggybank for Mr. González and two associates, Neil Berger, the executive director of Pathways, and Lucia Sanchez, a director of the association.
Mr. Garcia said yesterday that while Pathways did perform some legitimate charitable activity, the association and the third charity, United Latin American Foundation, did not perform “any substantial nonprofit work.”
Mr. González and the president of the United Latin American Foundation, Miguel Castanos, 46, of the Bronx, are charged with conspiring to steal more than $225,000 from that organization.
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