Women involved in Assemblyman Hoyt affairs were not interns, state records show
Two women believed to have been romantically linked to Assemblyman Sam Hoyt were adults and not interns when they were allegedly involved with the married legislator, according to records from the Assembly and the state comptroller’s office obtained by The Buffalo News.
The information, which could exonerate Hoyt of legal or rule violations, came as an Assembly ethics committee with broad investigatory powers began a lightning-fast probe into the allegations against the eight-term assemblyman, just weeks before a crucial primary election.
But Wednesday, Hoyt, 46, said he could not comment on the details — including the timing — of his alleged affairs.
A day earlier, Hoyt, D-Buffalo, had admitted to The News that he had “broken his wedding vows” 3 1/2 years ago but denied he had done anything illegal or against Assembly rules in doing so.
He was responding to rumors posted on a local political Web site that he’d had affairs with two interns.
The blogger not only posted the rumors but Tuesday forwarded the allegations, including lurid e-mails that Hoyt exchanged with one of his former lovers, to the press office of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat.
Silver, in turn, forwarded the information to the chairman of the ethics panel, which took up the matter within 24 hours — unusually fast for Albany.
The State Legislature has a strict policy against fraternization between lawmakers — along with other state employees — and interns. There are no specific rules barring lawmakers from fraternizing with staff members. However, there are rules that can come into play in such cases, such as workplace harassment provisions.
At issue in Hoyt’s case is whether the women with whom he is alleged to have had been sexually involved were interns during the relationships.
According to state records and the time stamps on the e-mails Hoyt allegedly exchanged with one of the women, they were not. The News is withholding the names of the two women at present for privacy reasons.
One of the women had been an intern for an Adirondacks-area Assembly member from January until May 2003. She then became a legislative aide and later a Senate committee clerk, a position she held until July 29, 2005.
The earliest e-mail from Hoyt to this woman is dated November 2003, months after she had become a legislative aide. She would have been 24 at the time.
The other woman had been a student assistant from 1999 until the end of December 2001. She then was listed as being part of a federal work student program for the next month. There were no other records for the woman.
The alleged e-mails indicated Hoyt was involved with this second woman sometime around June 2004, more than two years after she left Albany. She was 25 then.
Late Wednesday, Hoyt passed on the opportunity to comment on the records indicating the women in question were adults and not interns during the time in question.
“I have been told that because of the ethics committee investigation, I should not comment at all,” he said, before heading to a re-election fundraiser.
The ethics committee is expected to consider other records besides those compiled by the comptroller and the Assembly. They include documents that could determine whether the women had any other connection to the Assembly — such as acting as volunteers.
Wednesday, the panel holed up in a windowless room at the Capitol for nearly three hours to look at whether the veteran Buffalo lawmaker may have broken any anti-fraternization or harassment rules.
The committee, which has the authority to recommend sanctions against Assembly members, made no decisions Wednesday regarding the Hoyt allegations, lawmakers said.
In Albany, lawmakers privately talked of the exceptionally rapid reaction by the ethics committee in beginning its probe.
At least one of the committee’s members had already driven home from Albany following a 2:30 a. m. vote by the Assembly on an emergency measure to cut state spending.
The committee has broad latitude to look at alleged indiscretions by Assembly members. Relations between legislators and interns are specifically barred under anti-fraternization rules adopted by the Assembly in 2004.
The provision came into effect following a series of alleged improprieties in the Assembly, including an alleged episode in an Albany motel room involving a downstate lawmaker and an intern. It also followed the arrest of a former top aide to Silver on rape charges.
Hoyt did not appear before the ethics committee Wednesday. Following the session in a fourth-floor conference room, the committee’s members declined to say if they had been in discussions with Hoyt — or even whether they were investigating Hoyt.
“There’s no comment as far as what goes on” in the committee, said Assemblyman William Magnarelli, D-Syracuse, chairman of the panel.
The committee barred anyone from the room except its members and staff.
Asked why it had gone into closed-door executive committee, Magnarelli said, “There is a possibility that a person employed by the Assembly may be subject to sanctions.”
There are political consequences at play for more than just Hoyt, who is facing a tough re-election bid against challenger Barbra Kavanaugh, a former Buffalo Common Council member.
Silver, who is himself in the midst of a rare primary race for his job, has come under sharp criticism for his handling of past allegations of sexual wrongdoings in the Assembly.
Elizabeth Crothers, a former Assembly staffer who in 2001 accused a top Silver aide of raping her, is actively working with Silver’s opponent in the September primary to unseat the top Democrat. She has accused Silver of whitewashing the internal Assembly investigation into Michael Boxley, who a few years later was arrested on charges of raping another Assembly staffer.
Silver said Wednesday he had not talked to Hoyt since the matter surfaced this week. Silver has offered no words of comfort or support for his fellow Democrat. In 2000, Hoyt joined with the plotters of a failed coup attempt to wrest control of the Assembly’s top job from Silver.
The ethics panel last investigated an Assembly member a year ago, when it censured Assemblyman Michael W. Cole, R-Alden, who represents parts of Niagara and Erie counties. The Assembly removed Cole from his job as ranking member of the Assembly committee on alcoholism and drug abuse — costing him a $9,000 stipend — following news that he had slept on the bedroom floor of an Assembly intern following a night of drinking at an Albany bar.
