Ethics panel rejects claims of Spitzer’s role in 'Troopergate;' blames 4 top aides
ALBANY — A state ethics panel brought charges Thursday against four top aides of former Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer for their role in the campaign to smear the Legislature’s top Republican — but leveled no allegations of wrongdoing against Spitzer himself.
The state Commission on Public Integrity heard testimony under oath from Spitzer’s former chief spokesman that the ex-governor was involved in the effort to use the State Police to track the travels of former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Nevertheless, it said investigators could not find enough credible evidence to charge Spitzer, who resigned in March.
The ethics panel is dominated by appointees of the former governor.
Instead, the agency brought charges against the four former state officials and seeks a total of $30,000 in fines against two of them, including the ex-superintendent of the State Police.
The agency’s critics quickly claimed it engaged in a whitewash to protect Spitzer — even four months after he left office under a cloud in a separate, prostitution-related scandal.
The agency’s long-awaited report Thursday still does not close the door on the year-old scandal that became known as Troopergate. The scandal spawned five separate probes involving dozens of lawyers and investigators, cries of coverup involving both government officials and the media, and some of the most dysfunctional months that Albany has witnessed.
The commission charged that Preston Felton, the former State Police acting superintendent, and Darren Dopp, the former communications director under Spitzer, “caused the State Police to serve the governor’s and their own nongovernmental interests in a manner that compromised the State Police.”
The agency said the misconduct it found by the aides “erodes the public confidence in the integrity and independence of the State Police.”
Felton faces $20,000 in penalties and Dopp was fined $10,000. Both are challenging the findings, either before a state administrative law judge from the ethics agency or, possibly in Dopp’s case, a lawsuit against the state.
Two other top Spitzer aides — Richard Baum and William Howard — settled their cases while acknowledging their role in the episode that first surfaced last July. Steven F. Reich, Baum’s lawyer, said the settlement, which included no fine, allows Baum “to avoid lengthy and expensive legal proceedings and move on to a new chapter of his life.”
The agency did not refer any wrongdoing for criminal investigation by prosecutors.
The report Thursday, and thousands of pages of exhibits and testimony — including an all-day appearance before the panel’s lawyers by Spitzer two months after he left office under a cloud — portray a scandal that worsened for a number of players long after it first surfaced in the media last July.
The episode has left once-promising careers in government shattered. It raised questions about the role of the media being used by government officials seeking to undermine political opponents. And it left investigators from different agencies pointing fingers at each other over who was more compromised in their handling of probes into the affair.
Critics say it is not surprising the ethics agency did not level charges against Spitzer. “This is another chapter in what has become a whitewash of a cover-up,” said David Grandeau, the former state lobbying commission director.
He noted, for instance, that the panel first heard direct testimony of Spitzer’s involvement — from Dopp himself — last October, but it waited until May 9, two months after Spitzer resigned, before calling the former governor to appear.
In its report, the ethics agency seemed to predict the response by critics, noting that it relied on evidence — “not surmise, conjecture, speculation or rumor” — to make its determinations on who was and wasn’t charged. It left open the door for other charges if new evidence arises.
A Spitzer spokeswoman said the report vindicated the governor’s claims that he had no role in Troopergate. “He is saddened by the toll this investigation has taken on public servants who were simply trying to do their jobs,” Brandy Bergman said in a written statement.
Spitzer aides began compiling information about Bruno and his use of state aircraft back in May 2007, at about the time Spitzer and Bruno were, once again, engaged in one of their many battles. Bruno was later cleared of claims that he used state aircraft to attend political events by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo because his travels also included state business.
The ethics report portrayed Dopp as the mastermind behind the monitoring — in some cases in “real time” — by the State Police.
The Albany Times Union newspaper on July 1, 2007, ran a front-page story about the Bruno travels. The timing of events paint a curious picture: The paper submitted a freedom of information request for travel records on June 27. In lightning speed, the documents were released one day later and they included information — including never-before-released information about ground travel — about Bruno, even though the newspaper’s request did not mention Bruno.
A week earlier, Dopp had begun preparing a detailed memo on the Bruno travel situation that he said was for the eyes of another top Spitzer aide. That official, David Nocenti, testified he never saw the document and it appeared to be written more for the press.
Indeed, the ethics agency said the similarities in details between the Dopp memo and the Times Union story “are substantial and significant.” Times Union Editor Rex Smith did not return a message on his voice-mail Thursday evening, but defended the story as “factual” in an interview with the Associated Press. The ethics agency said Dopp used the State Police to provide information for the newspaper to embarrass Bruno in an article “that he assisted in preparing.”
If there was a blanket criticism of Spitzer and his administration by the ethics panel, it was for erecting “numerous improper obstacles” that “substantially delayed” the investigation and were “flatly at odds” with the ex-governor’s claims of cooperation during 2007.
Dopp said he told the agency’s lawyers last October of Spitzer’s role. “They heard that and stopped the probe and accused me of perjury,” he wrote in an e-mail Thursday. He said he is not sure of his legal path ahead, but said he has no choice but to fight on because, he said, “I do not believe I did anything wrong in releasing public records at the request of the media and at the specific direction of the governor.”
Joseph Brown, a lawyer for Felton , said the former State Police boss “from the beginning has said he did nothing wrong.” He said the next step will be to appeal the findings to the agency’s administrative law judge.
