Posted on 02/22/2007 2:59:27 PM PST by Spiff
BY TOM BRUNE
February 22, 2007
WASHINGTON - It had been a few years since Richard Tollner last publicly accused his former teacher Msgr. Alan Placa of groping him in high school, but Tollner recently repeated the charges - raising an awkward issue for Rudolph Giuliani's run for president.
Tollner, now a mortgage banker, appeared at a Feb. 8 Manhasset meeting of Voice of the Faithful of Long Island, a Catholic group concerned about priest-abuse cases, and told how Placa used to corner him.
After the accusations first surfaced in 2002, the Diocese of Rockville Centre placed Placa on administrative leave, barring him from priestly duties and from wearing the collar. Placa, who insists he is innocent, has not been charged with a crime.
Yet despite the controversy, Giuliani gave his old friend Placa a job at Giuliani Partners, and Michael Hess, a partner at the firm and the ex-mayor's corporation counsel, handled Placa's legal matters.
Placa is one of several close allies of Giuliani who have faced trouble, controversies or even criminal convictions - and experts say they could come back to haunt Giuliani's campaign for the White House.
"Rudy Giuliani has never undergone the intense scrutiny that all presidential candidates must. In his case, such scrutiny will almost certainly prove difficult and troubling to his candidacy," said Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution.
Questions of judgment
"The ethical and legal problems of a number of his close associates - Bernie Kerik being the most prominent - raise legitimate questions about his judgment and his ethical sensitivity," Mann said.
The Giuliani campaign declined to comment.
"Everyone has some skeletons in his closet," said Eric Davis, a political scientist at Middlebury College.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), for example, was implicated in the "Keating Five" savings and loan scandal. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) entered into a real estate deal with a political fundraiser later indicted in a kickback scheme. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as first lady faced scandals involving the travel office and the Whitewater real estate investment.
These controversies are well known, but Giuliani's past is just now emerging nationally.
The most prominent
Take Bernard Kerik.
Giuliani promoted his former campaign driver from detective to a series of jobs ending with police commissioner, and later included him as a founder of Giuliani Partners.
Kerik imploded in scandal after being nominated in December 2004 to head the U.S. Homeland Security Department. He withdrew, citing his failure to pay nanny taxes.
But Kerik also had problems as city correction commissioner, a job given him by Giuliani. Last year, Kerik pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor corruption charges, one of them for letting an allegedly mob-tied firm renovate his apartment at no cost. He was fined $221,000.
And there are others.
One is Russell Harding. Giuliani in 2000 elevated Harding, son of a key political ally, at age 34, despite his lack of a college degree or expertise, to head the New York City Housing Development Corp.
"Tammany Hall had higher standards than this," urban historian Richard C. Wade complained at the time, referring to the corrupt political machine that once ran New York City.
In office, Harding took nearly half a million dollars in agency money, giving himself raises and bonuses, spending it on lavish meals and vacations, and buying a friend a $38,000 car.
In 2005, Harding pleaded guilty to charges he defrauded his agency and downloaded child pornography. Two of his aides also pleaded guilty in the scheme. Harding is serving 5 years and must pay back $366,000. There is Louis Carbonetti, a longtime friend and father of Anthony Carbonetti, Giuliani's City Hall chief of staff and now a partner at Giuliani Partners.
Community Assistance Unit commissioner under Giuliani, Louis Carbonetti pleaded guilty in 2004 to perjury in a probe of a contract with a business improvement district he led after leaving City Hall. He is on 5 years' probation and must pay $17,500 in fines and restitution.
These and other figures run counter to the image Giuliani has cultivated: the tough federal prosecutor and mayor who cleaned up New York City.
They also tap into heartland America's stereotypes about New York, said Colby College scholar G. Calvin Mackenzie.
"His opponents in the primaries are going to do everything they can to emphasize that negative valence of New York," he said. "All they have to do is drop some names."
Giuliani's campaign staff is well aware of this potential bump in the road to the White House. In a list of potential problems, a campaign memo that surfaced last month included the entry: "Kerik."
Giuliani is trying out a formula to head off the attacks. When CNN's Larry King last week asked about Kerik, Giuliani responded, "I think the answer is I made a mistake and I took responsibility for it."
Loyalty a priority
Critics say Giuliani often selected little-known people like Kerik, groomed them and advanced them as far as they could go in their careers, making loyalty to him the priority.
Some analysts say most of his aides were competent and upstanding, and he had no more scandals than other mayors. One Democratic analyst said Giuliani's public presence after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks trumps his scandals: "9/11 cleansed Rudy of his sins."
Yet Giuliani won't be able to control when controversial figures from his past re-appear.
Kerik, for example, re-emerged in October in stories about his role in wiretapping the husband of a New York candidate at her request. And the city's correction department under him is still being probed.
Then there was Tollner's talk a week ago in Manhasset.
In it, he described how Placa sought to isolate him from others so he could touch him. Placa stopped, Tollner said, only after he threatened the priest when he approached him at his father's funeral.
Placa has denied the story.
After Placa stepped down from his church posts, a Suffolk County grand jury report in 2003 cited his three accusers and said he used his position as vice chancellor of the diocese to stifle priest-abuse complaints.
Placa, who was not charged with a crime, is in a church process to clear his name. He lives at a parish where many support him despite protests.
Placa, a once powerful and now polarizing figure on Long Island, is an old Giuliani friend who was best man for his first marriage, baptized his children, helped him annul his first marriage and buried his mother.
Giuliani walked away from Kerik and others but has stood by Placa, an attorney who still works at Giuliani Partners.
Tollner said his speech had nothing to do with Giuliani, but some priest-abuse activists are puzzled by Giuliani's loyalty to Placa. Terry McKiernan, of Bishop Accountability in Massachusetts, said it could be "a surprising case of a politician standing by an old friend even though the old friend is inconvenient." But Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, in Chicago, offered a different take. "It certainly begs the question of whether Giuliani is going to be tough on sex offenders and tough on crime if he is willing to employ someone with allegations like that."
The legal and ethical troubles of some of Rudolph Giuliani’s past associates could bring difficulties for his presidential bid.
MSGR. ALAN PLACA
Former vice chancellor of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Suspended amid accusations he groped a student three decades ago. Is a longtime family friend of Giuliani, who since hired him as an employee at his firm. LOUIS CARBONETTI
Head of the city's Community Assistance Unit under Giuliani. He left, and in 2004 pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his relationship with a firm that got a contract from a business improvement district he headed.
BERNARD KERIK
Former New York City police commissioner. His failure to pay nanny taxes cost him a post as homeland security chief. Pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor corruption charges for actions he took as corrections commissioner. RUSSELL HARDING Appointed by Giuliani in 2000 as head of the city's Housing Development Corp. Pleaded guilty in 2005 to embezzling more than $400,000 from the agency and to possessing child pornography. Allies could cause alarm
A list of Rudolph Giuliani's associates, past and present, who have faced legal trouble are likely to spur questions about his judgment
Political baggage?
His preparations for possible terrorist attackss are also questionable. Despite getting the reports about comms not working between FDNY and NYPD during the 1993 WTC attack, Giuliani didn't fix the situation and 8 years later found the city unprepared for the 2001 WTC attack. Tell me how that helps his image on national security and war fighting issues. I mean, if a glaring security and safety deficiency, exposed by an attack on us, is found in our national security or our armed forces, will it take President/Commander in Chief Giuliani 8 years to fix it if he even attempts to fix it?
Giuliani agreed to give the New York Stock Exchange a $1.1 Billion dollar handout (which, by the way, is equal to the entire operating budget of the New York Fire Department) but he could never find it in the budget to upgrade the FDNY and NYPD communications systems even after the original WTC attacks demonstrated their deficiencies. How does this demonstrate the way he will act as Commander in Chief when determining priorities for the military and homeland security?
In truth, the whole national security thing with Giuliani is purely myth. Yes, he's a war hawk. Just like almost every other Republican Presidential candidate right now except for Paul and Hagel. But his actual record on issues that directly pertain to how he would operate as President is not going to help him.
Law and Order: His law and order record does not go well beyond clearing the streets of squeegee men, bums, and hookers. Some tout his efforts to go after organized crime, but he lost all credibility on that when it was exposed that he'd appointed a corrupt high school dropout with mob ties to be the Commissioner of the New York Police Department. Bernie Kerik, again. Giuliani went on to strong arm President Bush into appointing Kerik to one of the top law enforcement positions in the country - the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Kerik had to withdraw his name when he was later indicted for his crimes for which he received an even later conviction. He avoided jail, but narrowly.
- Giuliani also continued the 'sanctuary city' policies of enacted by his Democrat predecessors. He welcomed hundreds of thousands of criminals - illegal aliens - into his city and refused to work with the INS on enforcing immigration laws. In fact, so annoyed with the pressure that INS was putting on him to cooperate and uphold law and order, he actually sued the Federal Government to try to be able to just ignore the law and continue coddling hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens. His lawsuit failed, and failed again on appeal, but he flouted the law anyway and continued to coddle the hundreds of thousands of criminals in his city.
Appointments/Nominations to his administration:First, I'll start with two words. Bernie Kerik. We know what a great job Giuliani did at getting Bush to appoint his mobbed up, high school dropout, corrupt business partner Bernie Kerik to head the Department of Homeland Security. Giuliani earlier appointed Kerik to head the New York Police Department And we know now how that all worked out. Kerik narrowly avoided jail, but he was convicted anyway.
Giuliani, in a quid pro quo for the New York Liberal Party's endorsement and support, appointed Liberal Party Chairwoman Fran Reiter as Deputy Mayor. He also appointed Russell Harding, the son of Giuliani's close friend Raymond Harding who also chaired the Liberal Party and was one of Giuliani's closest campaign advisers, to be the City Housing Director. Russell Harding had to leave office upon being arrested by federal law enforcement and charged with conspiracy, fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, receiving child pornography, and possesing child pornography. He was using his official credit card to pay for personal items including a car, 'Sopranos' and 'Sex in the City' DVDs, and a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. He later pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 5 years in prison and forced to repay $367,000 he embezzled from the New York City.
He also appointed hundreds of judges in New York during his term. You can count on one hand how many were "strict constructionists" and/or conservative.
Yes, Rudy Giuliani has a sterling record when it comes to appointing people to positions in his administration. One can only imagine the types of people he'd appoint to his administration and to the Supreme Court if given the opportunity. It would be wise not to give him that opportunity given his record.
Fiscal Conservatism: Rudy is barely a fiscal conservative. He's a big government Republican. Rudy got taxes cut $2.0 billion. But that only offset the $1.8 billion tax increase Mayor Dinkins signed off on a few years earlier. A modest $200 million tax cut. Rudy also froze the 12.5% surcharge on high income earners, but he didn't eliminate the surcharge. Nor did Rudy abolish the city income tax structure. Rudy also left NYCity saddled with a projected, pre-9/11 deficit of $2.0 billion and a $42 billion debt. Second largest behind the federal government. Rudy also added 15,000 new teachers to the city employment rolls, helping to increase the membership of two of America's largest liberal oraganizations. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. Rudy also took all those savings from the cuts in welfare costs and applied them to other city welfare progarms. Really no savings whatsoever. The scope of city services wasn't reduced. In addition, Rudy almost doubled the costs of contractual outsourcing from $3.0 billion to $5.8 billion. These are just a few of the things that demonstrate that the myth of Rudy's fiscal conservatism is just that - a myth.
Giuliani fears ex-wife will hit presidential bid
London Times | 1/7/07
FR Posted on 01/07/2007 11:46:24 AM PST by wagglebee
There is one woman who could cause Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, more problems than Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House: she is Donna Hanover, his second wife...... Hanover, an actress and broadcaster, was enraged by Giuliani’s flagrant infidelity towards the end of their 18-year marriage and the divorce case was vicious. Giuliani’s advisers fear that she could be a loose cannon in the 2008 campaign.
Giuliani was acclaimed as the “mayor of America” for his heroic role during the attacks on September 11, 2001 and is revered for his leadership. At the time he was living in the spare room of an apartment belonging to gay friends after Hanover forced him out of Gracie Mansion, the official residence.*
New Yorkers relished the details of Giuliani’s larger-than-life personal story. But conservative “values voters” could be different, as Giuliani’s own aides noted in a 140-page memo leaked last week by supporters of a rival candidate. **
The campaign dossier suggested that Hanover could be one of several potentially “insurmountable” vulnerabilities that could cause him to drop out of the race. It was an embarrassing start to a campaign that is not yet officially under way.
But the party base may be turned off by his support for abortion, immigration, gun control and gay rights (although not gay marriage).
It is their votes that he needs to secure the nomination. “It would be one thing if Giuliani could say, ‘I’m a strong social conservative in my private life’, but he can’t even say that,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative commentator and author of The Party of Death, an attack on social liberalism. “It’s not just the fact of his multiple marriages, it is the way the Hanover marriage melted down. It was operatic.”
When Giuliani met Hanover on a blind date in the early 1980s, his first marriage to Regina, his second cousin, was already over. Hanover, who went on to appear in the television series Ally McBeal, was a glamorous soulmate who seemed to enjoy the spotlight as much as he did.
They had two children, Andrew, 21, and Caroline, 17, but in 1996 Hanover stopped calling herself by his last name and a year later Vanity Fair magazine said that he was having an “intimate relationship” with a senior member of his staff.
In 2000, without telling Hanover first, Giuliani
announced at a press conference that he was separating from her. She retaliated by accusing him of being unfaithful with the employee, but he was already with
Nathan.
Maggie Gallagher, a family values campaigner, was outraged by Giuliani’s “scummy” performance, accusing him of making Bill Clinton “look good as a husband and father”.
New Yorkers learnt during the divorce case that their cancer-afflicted mayor was temporarily impotent and Hanover demanded a huge settlement, including £760 a month to care for Goalie, the family’s golden retriever.
In the end Giuliani, who was beginning to earn big consultancy fees after September 11, agreed to a settlement of $6.8m to avoid the full horror of a court case.
Even if she stays mum, there is enough in the public domain to rattle conservatives. Yet however vicious the personal attacks on Giuliani, they are unlikely to dent his reputation for competence. He did, after all, handle the September 11 attacks while bunking with gay friends in the midst of an affair and a divorce battle.
But,but New York City's population/economy is larger than most states! /S
Rudy ain't lookin good atall!
Worse than that...
Giuliani's political cronyism in getting his corrupt, unqualified business partner appointed to head the Department of Homeland Security DURING A TIME OF WAR could have resulted in disaster for the country. While the country is under the threat of terrorist attack, Giuliani was playing games getting a corrupt high school dropout with mob ties appointed to one of the most sensitive national security positions that exists. Thank God that Kerik was found out and dropped before he could do any real damange. No thanks to Giuliani. And it is amazing that Giuliani has skated - so far - and got away with this debacle.
Rudy McRomney is being PimPed by the MsM and MsP for a reason...
Obviously, it's been effective enough to bother you!
So that they can split the base.
One unproven allegation about something that supposedly happened more than 30 years ago? I don't blame Rudy for not throwing a friend under the bus for this. Sadly, when the possibility of easy money's involved, false accusations are inevitable. And child abuse is generally a serial crime. ONE allegation? Rudy probably knows this guy well enough to assume the charge is a fabrication.
BTTT
Yup.
BIG anti-Rudy BTTT
Bush already did that (split the base) with border inaction and hopefully NOT allies with the Mexican Drug cartels(government).. Could be, but I hope not.. that would be treason and sedition.. Globalists are capable of anything..
Love that bumper sticker.
Rudy and Alan were in high school together.
It isn't even all open yet.
more smear attacks. do you realize how many of these charges of priest abuse, were phony, just to win civil judgements from the church.
As an aside, Mark Levin brought out the fact that Howard Dean, and Muskie were high up in the polls early, but look what happened.
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