New York Governor and Close Associates Under Scrutiny By U.S. Attorney

Joseph Percoco, VP Madison Square Garden

Photo: AP

[From article]
A former top Cuomo aide who is under criminal investigation for “consulting’’ with companies doing business with the state told potential clients he had the administration’s OK for the work — despite never receiving it, The Post has been told.
Madison Square Garden Executive Vice President Joseph Percoco, who until last January was Gov. Cuomo’s executive deputy secretary and one of his closest friends, “told various clients or potential clients that he had approval from the governor’s counsel’s office to work for them,’’ said a source close to the situation.
“It turned out the counsel’s office did no such thing. It didn’t give any approval,” the source said. “And Joe never gave the clients anything to prove what he said, so the clients didn’t get anything in writing.’’
Public records show that Percoco, who left the state payroll for several months in early 2014 to run Cuomo’s re-election campaign, said he received as much as $125,000 in still-unexplained “consulting’’ fees during that year from two companies, COR Development of Syracuse and Albany-based CHA Consulting, which have longstanding dealings and tens of millions of dollars in contracts with the state.
Percoco’s income from the companies didn’t become public until late last month, when US Attorney Preet Bharara served a subpoena on Cuomo’s office seeking records relating to Percoco’s work, as well as the work performed for those and other companies by influential lobbyist Todd Howe, a Percoco friend and longtime associate of both Andrew and former Gov. Mario Cuomo.
Howe, who sources said helped arrange the consulting work for Percoco, was fired last week by a longtime employer — Albany-based law/lobbying firm Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna — after being barred days earlier by Cuomo from having any contact with the state government.
[. . .]
The subpoena, excerpts of which were obtained by The Post, sought “phone logs, visitor logs, calendar entries between January 2012 and present that show meetings with any’’ entities on a list of 26 individuals and companies.
The subpoena also demanded information on “any actions taken by” Percoco, Secretary to the Governor William Mulrow, state Operations Director James Malatras, Buffalo-area Democratic operative Peter Cutler and other Cuomo aides related to the companies for which Percoco and Howe worked, as well as for several other companies connected to the governor’s high-profile “Buffalo Billion’’ economic-development efforts.
It also seeks “any documents concerning’’ two not-for-profit economic-development companies set up in conjunction with SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and its president, Dr. Alain Kaloyeros, a key “Buffalo Billion’’ adviser.
Sources in the Cuomo administration said the governor appears “increasingly nervous and anxious’’ about Bharara’s probe, and some noted that Cuomo has almost completely disappeared from public view during the past weeks as the scandal began to unfold

http://nypost.com/2016/05/08/cuomo-crony-lied-to-potential-clients-said-he-had-governors-ok-to-work/

Cuomo crony lied to potential clients — said he had governor’s OK to work
By Fredric U. Dicker
New York Post
May 8, 2016 | 11:57pm

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http://nypost.com/2016/05/09/fbi-raids-homes-of-two-cuomo-cronies-amid-corruption-probe/

FBI raids homes of two Cuomo cronies amid corruption probe
By Kaja Whitehouse, Kirstan Conley and Bruce Golding
New York Post
May 9, 2016 | 3:33am

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http://nypost.com/2016/05/02/investigation-of-confidant-could-be-a-career-killer-for-cuomo/

Investigation of confidant could be a career-killer for Cuomo
By Fredric U. Dicker
New York Post
May 2, 2016 | 12:08am

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http://nypost.com/2016/05/05/shady-cuomo-pal-received-nearly-100-financing-on-815k-home/

‘Shady’ Cuomo pal received nearly 100% financing on $815K home
By Kirstan Conley, Reuven Fenton and Bruce Golding
New York Post
May 5, 2016 | 12:55am

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http://nypost.com/2016/05/06/cuomo-linked-lobbyist-fired-by-law-firm-amid-federal-probe/

Cuomo-linked lobbyist fired by law firm amid federal probe
By Kirstan Conley and Aaron Short
New York Post
May 6, 2016 | 4:11pm

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OH Judge Scrutinized After Death Of Released Juvenile

Ohio Judge Tracie Hunter

[From article]
Hamilton County's prosecutor says a suspended juvenile court judge's decisions led to the deaths of two people.
[. . .]
Hunter, a Democrat who took the bench after a lengthy legal battle over disputed election results, has said she is being targeted for political reasons.
The Ohio Supreme Court disqualified her in January from acting as a judge after an indictment alleged that she backdated court records and misused a county credit card, among other allegations.

http://www.wlwt.com/news/prosecutor-suspended-judges-decisions-led-to-deaths/27872300#!bQntan

Prosecutor: Suspended judge's decisions led to deaths
Deters says Hunter let eventual killer stay out of custody
UPDATED 5:55 PM EDT Sep 04, 2014

Massachusetts Politicians Need Scrutiny

[From article]
But the most amazing thing about this year’s breakfast is the free pass the three female candidates for statewide office — Marsha Coakley, Maura Healey and Deb Goldberg — are getting for their support from a different union, Teamsters Local 25.
[. . .]
what does this have to do with the leadership that endorsed Marsha, Maura and Deb?
The connection is the current president, one Sean O’Brien. He got his start in Local 25 through his dad, William O’Brien of Medford. In 1994, two armored-car guards were murdered in cold blood in Hudson, N.H., by a crew that included four Local 25 thugs from Charlestown.
According to the indictment, William O’Brien ordered the rental car used in the getaway after the double homicide. He was never charged.
And now William O’Brien’s son Sean is the boss of Local 25, when he’s not serving a suspension for brazenly threatening his fellow Teamsters down in Rhode Island and then having his rant posted on YouTube as a warning to the honest membership.
Do you think anyone will inquire tomorrow of Marsha, Maura and Deb how they can allow O’Brien and his misogynistic minions to run phone banks for them?

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/howie_carr/2014/08/carr_pols_need_to_get_wise

Carr: Pols need to get wise
Sunday, August 31, 2014
By: Howie Carr
Boston Herald

Impeachment of Clinton Needs Thorough Evaluation

[From article]
Some may argue over whether Clinton’s perjury and obstruction of justice amounted to “high crimes or misdemeanors,” but the case needs to be established for the record that Clinton did, without a doubt, perjure himself and obstruct justice. (I believe he also suborned perjury, among other misdeeds.) Moreover, it just wasn’t true that Republicans were obsessed with Clinton’s sexual misconduct; indeed, it was an amazing bit of jujitsu for the Clintonites to make illicit sex a defense,

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/366769/impeachment-15-years-later-quin-hillyer

Impeachment, 15 Years Later
By Quin Hillyer
December 19, 2013 1:47 PM

National Review

Dark Internet

[From article]
It works by bouncing messages around several computers before they reach their final destination. The Tor network — which its founders liken to a series of ‘virtual tunnels’ — has 3,200 volunteers around the world who allow their computers to be used to send these messages.
Once users have downloaded some free software from the Tor website, they are ready to begin surfing — or selling things — with impunity.
Each message that is sent has several layers of encryption which are peeled away like the skins of an onion as it moves from computer to computer.
These reveal the next destination of the communication (which could be a file, web page, message, picture and so on), without showing its content as it is passed along the chain.
This means it is impossible to establish the identities or locations of the people at either end of the chain, or to see what they are talking about, selling, swapping or sharing.
[. . .]
Contrary to what you may imagine, the Tor Project — the body which provides the Tor network — is a highly respected organisation partly funded by Cambridge University, the U.S. State Department, the Swedish government and other organisations campaigning for liberty and free speech.
Based in Massachusetts, the Project is dedicated to electronic privacy and the rights of people to use the internet without being snooped on or tracked by intelligence agencies or companies.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512136/Its-just-child-porn-Fake-passports-guns-cocaine-hitmen-hire-clicks-away-internet.html

It's not just child porn: Fake passports, guns, cocaine, even hitmen for hire are a few clicks away on the internet
Tor is a computer system which allows people to talk in private online
Messages are encrypted as they bounce around a computer network
Officials cannot see who is talking to who or what is being said
It has been used by political activists during the Arab uprisings
However criminals also use it to sell drugs, guns and child porn
By  STEVE BOGGAN
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 18:24 EST, 22 November 2013 | UPDATED: 18:25 EST, 22 November 2013

* * *
[. . .]
Meanwhile prosecutors in New York have charged Ulbricht - a native Texan who was living in San Francisco and holds degrees from the University of Texas and Penn State - with trying unsuccessfully to solicit the murder of a Canadian man who allegedly hacked into Silk Road, obtained dealers names and began blackmailing Ulbricht.
Ulbricht is also accused of operating Silk Road under the alias 'Dread Pirate Roberts' and earning $80 million from commissions involving every sale.
[. . .]
FBI agents appear to have penetrated the behind-the-scenes operations of Silk Road and obtained a list of the sites users and sellers, court papers show.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511727/Silk-road-drugs-gangs-Ross-William-Ulbricht-planned-6-murders.html

Man behind Silk Road drug gang 'planned to carry out six murders'
Ross William Ulbricht accused of masterminding Silk Road website
Notorious online marketplace sold everything from illegal drugs to guns
The 29-year-old is now alleged to have hired a hitman to carry out six killings
FBI shut down website, but just weeks later it has reopened as Silk Road 2.0
By SHARI MILLER
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 07:27 EST, 22 November 2013 | UPDATED: 09:07 EST, 22 November 2013

Boston Criminals Free From Scrutiny

 
Edwin Alemany, Suspect Arrested With Long Arrest Record


Amy Lord, 24, Homicide Victim

"The Herald reported that he was living in public housing, with a rap sheet that would make a hardened criminal blush and yet still free to roam the streets." Police priorities are the same as the priorities of the TSA at airports. Police refuse to profile likely criminals, or even known criminals with a long history of arrests for violent crimes,  drunk drivers etc.;  just as the TSA refuses to profile likely terrorists. They focus instead on vulnerable civilians who are unlikely to be able to commit a crime. TSA searches 5-year-olds and 90-year-olds. Massachusetts police especially in Cambridge focus on 70-year-old white males who write, make videos and petition city and state government agencies to stop criminal abuses of vulnerable persons. Is that why there are so many violent criminals running free in and around Boston? Cambridge police and Harvard University campus cops conduct relentless harassment and character assassination every day for fun and for profit on property owned and operated by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. James Bulger and his merry band of colleagues, were free to conduct their violent business in the Boston area for 30 years. Harvard University is likewise free from any accountability to local, state or US laws, to abuse vulnerable civilians without any response from government agencies whose mission is to protect vulnerable persons. “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”- Voltaire
 
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/editorials/2013/07/wake_up_call_for_city

Wake-up call for city
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Editorial
By: Boston Herald Staff

Extending Public Records Act to Campus Cops

The Crimson argues, "The case for HUPD transparency has never been founded on a suspicion that Harvard’s police force deserves particularly harsh scrutiny." Because of negligent training of HUPD campus cops, harsh scrutiny is desperately needed. Too often campus cops with loaded weapons are employed for personal and political interests of faculty and administrators. Those abuses are never scrutinized and are clear abuses of privileged state police power. University administrators are unable to regulate and monitor these campus police who often operate out of personal animosity abusing vulnerable citizens. Extending scrutiny through public records will not end all of the abuses, but it will help.

[Reply to comment]
Being trained by MCJTC does not mean they are trained properly. Cambridge City police are also negligently trained by MCJTC. Some of the MCJTC training modules are nonsensical and unlawful. In addition HUPD promotes the false notion that they have exclusive jurisdiction on Harvard property. They falsely believe along with administrators and faculty that the overpass in front of the Science Center is Harvard property. It is owned by the city of Cambridge. HUPD only has jurisdiction to enforce state laws on Harvard property. The Sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk extended the privilege of allowing HUPD to make traffic stops as they travel between Harvard and Boston campuses. They abuse that privilege. They stop traffic closing streets without authority. They are not empowered to enforce and they are not trained in knowing Cambridge and Boston City ordinances. Yet dispatchers arrogantly choose to send HUPD to local events when city ordinances are violated. The dispatchers abuse their power contrary to law, to divert calls to protect Harvard. As for HUPD abuses of power on behalf of faculty and staff you may be unaware of them but they are real and they are pervasive. It is a personal abuse contrary to state and US laws. Finally too many HUPD officers have a cavalier attitude toward security at Harvard buildings. They often leave the doors open for their colleagues so they do not have to wait for them. It is why two Harvard seniors lost their degrees after a homicide at a campus dorm. So much for proper training. They are campus cops and need monitoring when they abuse their power. It is human nature, according to Philip Zimbardo. That applies to HUPD which claims to consist of humans.

[Reply to second comment]
I am sorry to disagree with you. HUPD are special state police officers sworn by the state police commander; and deputies sheriff sworn by the sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk. They have power only on Harvard property, with the exception noted previously. If you believe as I do that HUPD officers are human, they are likely to abuse their power. It is the nature of police, according to the Mollen Commission in New York City. But also see Philip Zimbardo's experiments on abuses of power. Police need constant scrutiny because of their power over civilians. In Massachusetts police get no scrutiny. Too much space is needed to describe the abuses of HUPD powers I experienced. I am no longer surprised with the disbelief by civilians who were never targeted by police for personal or for political reasons. There are many books about abuses of police powers. Regarding the competence of HUPD with murder investigations, state police have experienced officers. That is not to say that they always do a proper job. There are many books about sloppy police work also. That often leads to wrongful arrests and wrongful convictions. Do you doubt that happens too? City and state police have jurisdiction on and off the Harvard campus. HUPD tries to create a belief that they have exclusive jurisdiction on Harvard property. They do not. Some Cambridge police officers defer to that false separate jurisdiction. It makes their job easier. The last time I read some of the MCJTC's training modules I learned how they are trained to respond to persons with disabilities. Here's what I found in 1997. If a person complained about the FBI and the CIA targeting them, police are trained to treat that as a symptom of schizophrenia. One problem is that the state empowers police officers to make medical diagnoses based on speech. Second problem is that for 20 years the delightful James Bulger, FBI informant, now on trial in Boston US Court, for 19 homicides was killing people who reported him to the FBI. Some of his victims knew he worked for the FBI. When they went to local or state police, under the MCJTC's training they would be treated as if they were mentally ill, and then ignored before they were killed by Bulger. Are you aware of the egregious abuses of that period? It was similar to how police treated the parents of victims of the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal. The police threatened the parents for reporting such crimes. They did not believe it. Then there was the FBI frame up of four white men for murder. Two of them died in prison and two were released after 30 years. Do you know about that? Compared with those abominations, abuses by HUPD are inconsequential.

[Reply to Comment]
We disagree. Holding police accountable for 40 years of abuses is beyond the capability of the court system, or online comments. John Durham found one FBI agent responsible for 20 years of FBI criminal abuse. Do you believe that? FBI agents from other offices avoided the Boston office. They were known to be corrupt, not just one agent. Consider that in perspective of the Harvard campuses with HUPD asserting exclusive jurisdiction. Do you think the FBI had any interaction with HUPD, or Harvard administrators, or faculty at the law school or the Kennedy School of Government? See recent essay on this news site by ethicists Lawrence Lessig, HLS professor, and the ubiquitous David Gergen of the KSG. They suggest that money is the corrupting influence of government and direct attention to the corrupt US Congress. They join their colleagues in and out of government ignoring a generation of FBI criminal abuses. Are they clever or what? Does HUPD work closely with Cambridge police and other departments or are they like Caesar's wife? You believe that those studies do not apply to HUPD. Is that because HUPD officers are not human? Have their genes, like the genes of US psychiatrists been cleansed of mendacity, greed and sadism? Your demands for evidence of specific HUPD abuses on a student newspaper web site is cute. Is the Crimson now accepting formal complaints about criminal abuse because the DA, the police and the US Attorney cannot be bothered? BTW one Assistant Middlesex DA a few years ago told me that they were so busy with homicides that they were unable to accept complaints about lesser crimes. How charming the way the DA's office works. I'm reminded of Mark Twain's aphorism: "It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you think you know for sure that just ain't so."

[Reply to Comment]
A spokesman for the HUPD explained that Harvard campus officers are highly trained in the most gentle procedures, the latest laws of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts and the US Congress. HUPD employs the best and most expensive, and least invasive technology for preventative surveillance. HUPD officers obey all laws. HUPD officers do not abuse their power and have never abused their power. They are respectful at all times and never target any individuals for personal or political reasons, or as favors for faculty, administrators, graduates, politicians or other police brothers. HUPD maintains the highest standards of safety for the citizens of the Harvard community. Because Harvard employees and students are superior morally and intellectually, HUPD officers know that laws are optional for Harvard affiliates, on campus. Other police brothers are not always cooperative. Any complaints about wrongdoing by HUPD officers are fantasies of racist, mentally ill, disgruntled civilians who have no business on Harvard property, or on the Harvard Crimson web pages. The Harvard community and city officials are aware of the racist, mentally ill, drug addicted critic. We call him, "The Opposition." He is abusing his ability to speak and to write. The First Amendment was not meant for criticism of Harvard. Compassionate Harvard and city officials are trying to get him treatment for his delusions.

[Reply to Comment]
The forty years of police abuses I refer to were not all by the FBI, nor was it all in Massachusetts. But you would be surprised at how extensive the cooperation is between police departments, across political subdivisions, including the HUPD. As for my experiences with the HUPD I do not think truth will prevail online or in court. Courts too are staffed by humans. There is a specific clause in the US Constitution which denies to me rights and privileges extended to others. I haven't seen it but I know it is there. Middlesex County was dissolved due to pervasive corruption. It did not end the crimes of officials. The City of Cambridge was so corrupt in the 1940s that they changed the Charter to a Plan E form of government. It did not end crimes by city officials. The English have a term "rotten borough." It applies to Cambridge and Middlesex. What role does Harvard University play in the quality of government? Forty years ago Harvard had guards without weapons. Now they have an armed police force which I've seen abuse their power repeatedly over 20 years. Maybe it is because of that special Constitutional provision. HUPD does not operate in a vacuum. They operate within the structure of the state which grants them their power and within the department working with the Cambridge and state police and the FBI. So it is not practical to isolate the abuses of HUPD without being aware of the functioning governments which surround Harvard. How many campus cops are former city or state police?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/11/1/HUPD-information-line-circle/

HUPD: About Time For Transparency
Massachusetts should make Harvard finally release police records
By The Harvard Crimson Staff
Published: Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Social Security Overpays Some, Harasses Others

http://bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1345466&srvc=news&position=recent

Social Security makes $8B in improper payments
By Associated Press
Boston Herald
Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Only One Corrupt Official Found in Massachusetts

Only one official arrested for soliciting bribes? Wilkerson. Turner. That's three. Only three out of thousands? It must be the intense scrutiny from District Attorneys and the AG's office over the last 20 years. No police officers? Too much scrutiny. How's a working man to survive?

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1292055

Welfare worker accused in bribes-for-benefits scheme
By Marie Szaniszlo
Boston Herald
Thursday, October 28, 2010

Police Officer Arrested For Shooting Others

Double standards in law enforcement lead to further abuses of power. Civilians must scrutinize police all the time to prevent them from abusing their power. It is the nature of the beast of policing.

http://bostonherald.com/news/national/midwest/view.bg?articleid=1287650

Police officer arrested in Ill., Ind. shootings
By Associated Press
Boston Herald
Friday, October 8, 2010