Posted by GET NY on 04:44:43 08/12/05
A MACHINE DIVIDED
Scandal, defection, a man named Sampson and the end of Joe Hynes.
By Christopher Ketcham
Volume 18, Issue 32
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Behind the scenes, something else was going on. Norman's lawyers in the run-up to the trial discovered that Hynes had committed some interesting campaign infractions of his own, related to the desperate defense he mounted against Sandra Roper following the failure of Norman's lawyers to whack her from the ballot in 2001.
On September 7, 2001 four days before the primary that year a group called the Committee for a Golden Future began writing checks to Democratic clubs across Brooklyn, checks that eventually totaled $26,000. The group's sole reason for being was the reelection of then borough president Howard Golden, a machine hack and ally of Hynes'. But Golden was not facing reelection that year. In fact, term limits forced him out. So where was the money going? It was being illegally funneled, in part, into Hynes' campaign which by primary day was $25,000 in debt from the Roper challenge for street operations. Hynes' campaign spokesman, Mortimer Matz, was paid directly by the Committee for a Golden Future with five checks totaling $20,000.
Meanwhile, Hynes' campaign disclosures show no payments to Democratic clubs for campaign operations and no payments to spokesman Matz. Howard Golden, meanwhile, received a $125,000-a-year no-show job with Hynes upon terminating his employment at Borough Hall in 2001. He was quickly forced to step down when newspapers questioned his purpose in the DA's office. It's notable that election law violations on Hynes' part are no anomaly. In his 1998 bid for the state house that ended so miserably, Hynes received a bag of $12,000 in cash from now deceased Williamsburg rabbi Liebish Lefkowitz. Under New York State election law, unfortunately, it is illegal take more than $100 in cash as a campaign contribution.
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