Political Corruption In New York
Political scandals take place from time to time. When they do they can be a tempest in a teapot, or a full-blown disaster for politicians. New York State is experiencing one of these disasters. No one seems to know how far-reaching the results will be, but there are plenty of opinions on the subject. The scandal really started rolling when the former speaker of the New York State assembly, Sheldon Silver, was convicted of corruption. He said he was innocent and eight days after he was arrested on federal corruption charges he resigned as speaker on February 2, 2015. I guess it was too hard to defend against what he had done, because on November 30, 2015 he was found guilty on all counts and removed from the New York State assembly. He had many years in the Assembly, apparently more than enough time to make his dealings. Many times when you catch a big fish like this, he decides to save his own skin and turns in those he had connections with and might even indicate somebody more powerful than himself, even if that person was innocent.
As heads began to roll a man named Marcello Trebitsch was found conducting a Ponzi scheme. You may wonder why I even mention this man. The reason is very simple, Mr. Trebitsch is the son-in-law of Mr. Silver. It makes one wonder if he was influenced by how easily Silver was able to make so much money illegally and get away with it over the years? What he did was far cruder than what Silver did. He cheated four investors out of $6 million. In case you don’t know what a Ponzi scheme is, a Ponzi scheme is when a person collects money from others on the false pretenses of them making a huge profit on their investment and then takes part of the money to pay back people, to keep them on the hook. The few people who actually make a big return then tell others increasing the amount of people being cheated. If Silver was the role model for this man, that is pretty sad.
Silver is a Democrat and lest you think I am mentioning this because I am against Democrats, the next person I want to mention is a Republican. Dean G. Skelos was the former majority leader of the New York State Senate. Apparently he thought he could demand anything he wanted and get it and I am not talking about legally. He also has a long history in politics. In 2015 he was arrested and then convicted on federal corruption charges and vacated his leadership post after his arrest and was then expelled from the New York State Senate. One of the things he did was strong-arm businesses into giving his son high paying jobs, some of which he never showed up for. Many people don’t know this, but in politics one of the time honored traditions by corrupt politicians was to have people given jobs where they never showed up but still received their pay. It actually happened in some of the government agencies. People would be getting paychecks who nobody ever saw.
Dean Skelos gave all the wrong lessons to his family. In case you’re wondering why I say this it is because his son Adam was also arrested at the same time and he was charged with corruption. A report came out stating that in 2010 then Sen. Dean Skelos asked real estate company Glenwood Management to give his son financial help and his son made $145,513. An FBI Special Agent testified the next year he received $363,223. Adam must have thought it was great having a father with so much power. One company said they had been receiving requests from the father that the son be helped out financially. You have to realize that many companies depend on contracts and these contracts come from government agencies and they must have felt if they didn’t play ball they would get no business in the state. This may only be a guess by me, but is an educated one. So now we had the father and the son both going to jail.
There is no way of knowing how far this investigation will go, but there seems to be hints and rumors everywhere. I would like to say before I go any further that problems like this are not unique to New York State. Corruption in government exists on all levels and many times it is only a matter of time before someone gets indicted. I would like to relate a story to you that someone told me, take it for what it is worth. I have no way to verify it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true. Supposedly an investigation of judges was conducted in a certain judicial district and when the first couple of judges were found to be corrupt the investigation was halted, because it became obvious that most all of the judges would have had to be indicted.
A more local New York politician will remain nameless since she has not been indicted yet, but she has been asked for her financial records. Whether there is a connection or not to the particular scandal that is raging is yet to be seen. Several articles have come out stating that the governor is nervous about what is going on. No one wants to be named in an investigation and prosecutors love to indict people with big name recognition. Just on that point alone, even if one is innocent you can understand why they would be worried.
I think the public has demonstrated how they feel about politicians in general and we have seen it in the polls. The public is pretty much disgusted with the way business is conducted by politicians and many are ready to vote anyone into office who was never a politician, just on that fact alone. Who can blame them after seeing that mess in Washington which has gone on year after year. Many believe if we dig deep enough we will find corruption throughout the entire system and I have to admit it, I feel the same way myself.
It will be interesting to see where the New York scandal will go. Will it take down people at even higher levels of the government or has it reached its pinnacle?
