BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Controversy surrounding Assemblyman Sam Hoyt takes hardball politics to another level
Chages fly over 3 1/2-year-old e-mails
In the 16 years he has served in the Assembly, Sam Hoyt has collected more than his share of powerful political enemies.
Take your pick among Mayor Byron W. Brown, Deputy Mayor Steven M. Casey and former Erie County Democratic Chairman G. Steven Pigeon as the most serious.
Now, three weeks before a tough primary election, Hoyt finds himself tangled in far more than Buffalo’s traditional hardball politics after 3½-year-old e-mails from his alleged former lover appeared on the Web site of a blogger with a reputation for demanding money from politicians and a conviction for driving a bank robbery getaway car.
One of the assemblyman’s closest confidants, attorney Jeremy Toth, says the exposure of Hoyt’s alleged infidelities on Joseph J. Illuzzi’s controversial Internet site stems directly from Democratic primary rival Barbra A. Kavanaugh.
“I find it hard to believe this was not orchestrated by the Kavanaugh campaign,” Toth said Thursday.
Illuzzi is part of the Kavanaugh campaign, providing free advertising and threatening to expose more embarrassing information about Hoyt on his Web site, Toth said.
“Joe Illuzzi is part of the Barbra Kavanaugh campaign just as Steve Casey and Steve Pigeon are part of the Barbra Kavanaugh campaign,” he said. “It strains belief and common sense to think that’s not the case.”
Illuzzi’s Web site has long carried a “pay to play” reputation, with many politicians opting to pony up his advertising fees for fear of provoking his wrath. Hoyt at one time bought ads on the site but no longer does.
Prominent ads for Kavanaugh do appear on Illuzzi’s site, although she claims she is not paying for them.
Kavanaugh said Illuzzi acts as a free agent and is not connected with her. “No, no, no,” she said. “There’s no conspiracy here.”
Kavanaugh concerned
Kavanaugh said the allegations stem from Illuzzi, not her. She suggested that, as an openly gay woman in public life, she worries that a personal attack might be leveled against her.
“As a lesbian,” she said, “the notion of going after family is abhorrent to me.”
But Toth said the telling factor is the close friendship Kavanaugh and Hoyt once shared.
He said Kavanaugh should have reached out to her former friend in the face of Illuzzi’s revelation of lurid e-mails he attributes to Hoyt and someone he identifies as an Assembly intern.
“I truly wish Barbra Kavanaugh had the integrity to disavow Joe Illuzzi’s tactics, remove her ad from his site, disavow [Illuzzi] publicly and reach out to Sam,” he said. “She isn’t, I think perhaps, because she can’t.”
Kavanaugh said Thursday she commiserated with Hoyt three years ago when he was experiencing marital difficulties. She said that she does not approve of Illuzzi’s tactics and that Illuzzi has posted her ad on his Web site without her permission.
But Kavanaugh said she will not ask him to remove the ad because it is not her ad.
“It’s especially sad that Jeremy is trying to use this as political fodder,” she said. “I’m not going to have the agenda set by Jeremy Toth. It’s about me and a clean-issue campaign.”
“This will all go away as soon as we stop talking about it,” she added.
Casey said that the Brown administration also has no allegiance to the controversial Web site, noting that Illuzzi attacked him for a period last year. And he said Toth and Hoyt seem to be missing the point.
“This came about because of Sam Hoyt, not anybody else,” he said. “Why is he trying to blame other people?”
The latest eruption is part of a political competition that picked up steam in 2004, when North Council Member Joseph Golombek Jr. launched a surprise primary shot at Hoyt. He came close, losing to the incumbent assemblyman, 54 percent to 46 percent.
When it was over, Hoyt was still making serious noise about running for mayor in 2005, pitting the assemblyman against Mayor-to-be Brown.
And as Hoyt began to build a political operation in anticipation of a mayoral bid (which some say was ruled out by family difficulties stemming from his extramarital activities), the split between him and Brown grew too wide to bridge.
Hoyt-Brown feud
Hoyt and Brown began running candidates for county committee against each other, and the feud came to a crescendo last year when Brown backed two Council candidates against two Hoyt favored.
The assemblyman’s candidates (Michael LoCurto of Delaware and David Rivera of Niagara) won.
Casey dismisses the situation but noted much of the problem stemmed from Brown’s insistence on supporting Antoine M. Thompson for State Senate back in 2006, while Hoyt and Erie County Democratic Chairman Leonard R. Lenihan favored Marc A. Coppola.
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” he said. “Politics is politics.”
Toth, however, sees the events of the last week as more. He says it marks a serious departure from hardball politics to something worse. He blames much of it on the influence of the Internet.
“I don’t know if every community has been inflicted with this level of bile in its political discourse,” he said. “But the Internet has made it far too easy to attack people anonymously.”
News Staff Reporter Phil Fairbanks contributed to this report. rmccarthy@buffnews.com
