Modal Trigger
Assemblyman William Scarborough outside his office in Albany in March Photo: Shannon DeCelle
Queens Assemblyman William Scarborough was hit Wednesday morning with a 23-count indictment charging him with using campaign funds for personal expenses, authorities said.
Scarborough, a Democrat first elected in 1994 to represent the 29th Assembly District in southeast Queens, was arrested following a joint probe by the offices of state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
He pleaded not guilty Wednesday morning to charges of grand larceny and filing false campaign documents in Albany Supreme Court.
In March, FBI agents raided the offices and home of Scarborough, 64, as part of an investigation he blamed on a Post report about his potential abuse of the state travel voucher system.
Scarborough is accused of taking $38,000 from the campaign account since 2007 in cash, transfers and deposits into his personal bank account and failing to report it to the Board of Elections, according to the indictment.
His lawyer E. Stewart Jones denied those charges, saying Scarborough paid more of his own money into his campaign expenses than he was reimbursed. The campaign finance system is a “gray area,” Jones said.
“There was no crime committed here,” the lawyer said.
Scarborough faces additional federal charges in Albany later Wednesday.
“I’m still in kind of a state of shock,” he said seven months ago, after federal agents carted off boxes of documents, calendars, his smartphone and “just about everything.”
He proclaimed himself “totally innocent.”
The Post had reported that Scarborough collected expenses for being in Albany on a Sunday in 2011 when, in fact, he was in his Queens district that day.
At the time, legislators were entitled to $165 per diem for meals and lodging every day they were in the capital. The sum was raised to $172 in October 2013.
In an October 2012 article, The Post said Scarborough submitted vouchers claiming $825 in reimbursements for spending five nights in a row in Albany, from March 13 through March 17, 2011.
But news accounts at the time said he was in Jamaica, Queens, from 6 to 9 p.m. on March 17, 2011 — a Sunday — for a town hall meeting.
Records compiled by the state comptroller’s office show Scarborough racked up some of the largest per diems in town, pulling in $30,006 in 2011, $25,038 in 2012 and $18,522 in 2013.
Scarborough is just the latest Queens pol to be hit with corruption charges.
Queens Sen. Malcolm Smith, defeated in last month’s Democratic primary, faces a trial in January for trying to bribe his way onto the Republican ballot for mayor last year.
Disgraced ex-Queens Sen. Shirley Huntley was convicted of looting $87,000 from an educational nonprofit she had founded by going on shopping sprees, among other things.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment