Posted on 12/01/2007 11:41:58 AM PST by Liz
TALKING POINTS MEMO is swimming in credit card receipts from Rudy Giuliani's administration; one thing in particular has struck us: in 2001, apparently with an eye to future globetrotting, Giuliani's administration sent a check for $400,000 to American Express.
Though the amount was billed to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, an office that provides lawyers for indigent defendants, the money served as an advance against Giuliani's future travel, and other expenses later incurred by the mayor's office and his security detail.
The unusually large prepayment, as yet unreported, adds weight to the theory that the Giuliani administration was using accounting gimmicks to obscure his office's travel expenditures.
With $400,000 prepaid on the Amex account, the mayor and his staff drew down on the credit card for a number of trips, including a handful out to the Hamptons, where Judith Nathan had her condo. Giuliani's administration ultimately spent approximately $100,000 of the $400,000 before leaving office in January, 2001.
Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, confirmed to us that his administration put a stop to the practice of putting funds for future travel in bulk on a credit card. Shortly after Bloomberg took office, American Express refunded $298,000, the remaining unused balance on the account.
The move came shortly after the city comptroller sent the mayor a letter critical of the Giuliani adminsitration's practice of billing obscure city agencies for mayoral travel expenses. But Loeser declined to comment when asked directly why the administration did this, and declined to comment when asked directly if the Bloomberg administration thought the Giuliani approach was problematic.
"We process spending and travel differently," he said. "We use a different method. If we have government funded travel, we go through the city's travel agent."
Prepaying a city credit card with such a large amount is a procedure that "appears to be intentionally opaque," a high-level budget official under a previous administration told us. "You're not able to see clearly what [the money] is being used for," the official said, "because it's bundled in an AmEx card as opposed to as direct payments to vendors."
The unusual $400,000 prepayment is revealed in a letter from Giuliani's deputy director of fiscal operations that was contained in a package of documents City Hall released today, in response to reporters' questions about Wednesday's Politico story.
You can see the letter here (link at site).
Giuliani's administration had done a similar thing in June of 2000, cutting city checks for $54,000 worth of "prepayment" and billing them to the New York City Loft Board and other backwater agencies.
Smaller items than a pannini press have taken down the powerful.
At the very least, he has violated procurement laws. Purchases over a certain dollar amount must by law go through the procurement process and be put out to bid. Subverting this process is highly illegal.
“At the very least, he has violated procurement laws. Purchases over a certain dollar amount must by law go through the procurement process and be put out to bid. Subverting this process is highly illegal”
How serious a crime is this?
Wait till (or IF) he were to be nominated. Then we'll see a flood that would impress Noah and his 'two of every kind'.
And that is most probably $5 million per year.
Rudy Is a looser and follows this erect genitalia around his workplace.
**************
That he does. Fortunately for us, this story has broken before the primaries.
This whole “scandal” would have net Guiliani an $800 shopping spree at Crate and Barrel or 6 or 7 dvd players — that is, if he is proven to have pilfered the points from the city.
“At the very least, he has violated procurement laws.”
Forget about procurement laws. He also had the NYPD driving his mistress and her family around NY. The comptroller of the state had to resign because he sometime uses official cars to transport his sick WIFE with cancer around. Also had to plead guilty to a crime if I remember.
This whole ordeal makes NYC government officials look like a bunch of Hucksters..Just SOP for ole NYC.
S-e-n-s-a-t-i-o-n-a-l.
Hoping AND praying it’s even LESS than $800 that trips up the sucker.
Thank you.
A forensic accounting of Kerik and Giuliani's other city appointees' budgets might find similar frauds.
You're right. New York State Comptroller, Alan Hevesi, didn't just have to resign, he was prosecuted and pleaded guilty to a felony charge of defrauding the government, which carries a maximum penalty of 1 1/3 to four years in prison, for bilking the government by using state employees as drivers and personal assistants for his sick wife.
There's no reason Rudy shouldn't be prosecuted for his crimes.
"Hey, Rooty, wanna lap dance? Gimme your AmEx."
THIS JUST IN:
JUDI NATHAN FORCED THE NYPD TO CHAUFFEUR HER FRIENDS AROUND---- EVEN WHEN SHE WAS NOT IN THE CAR
(CBS) .........Giuliani is facing questions about security (expenditures). A source involved with the mayors operations at the time of the expenditures tells CBS 2 HD that his mistress Judy Nathan took flagrant advantage of the police car and driver Ridy assigned to her.
The source says Nathan forced police to chauffeur her friends and family around the city even when she wasnt in the car.
That set off alarms with ethics watchdogs. The rules are clear, you cant use city resources for private reasons, said Gene Russianoff of the NY Public Interest Research Group. And if youre using a city car, a police driven car to chauffeur around relatives, unless theyre explicitly protected and their deemed to be the subject of potential security threats, its just wrong.
5% simple interest on $400,000 over a year would have earned $2000. Course, maybe AmEx threw in a free steak knife set for the $400K (/sarc).
The obscure city agencies charged with repaying Rooty's expenditures lost the use of those funds during the time between reimbursements.....if, in fact, they were ever reimbursed.
The agencies might have had day-to-day budgeting and operational problems---maybe purchasing delays or cancellations.
Most of these agencies are not lavishly funded as they try to meet the needs of the less fortunate. Legal aid might have been denied, or handicapped programs curtailed, so Rudy could have his mistress satisfy his urges.
Needy citizens were deprived of the full measure of services the City Council intended and the taxpaying public had every right to expect.
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