Posted on 03/22/2008 11:48:31 AM PDT by neverdem
Gov. David A. Paterson reimbursed his campaign committee this week for two stays at a Manhattan hotel that he has acknowledged using to carry on an extramarital affair, his aides said Friday.
Mr. Paterson used his campaign’s American Express Platinum Card to pay for the hotel stays — one night in November 2002 and another in April 2003, totaling $253 — but he has no recollection of the circumstances, and no records could be found to shed light on them, according to the aides.
Henry T. Berger, an election lawyer for Mr. Paterson, also told reporters that the governor used his campaign credit card to buy furniture and men’s clothing in 2004, but reimbursed the committee at the time for the $2,138 in spending.
The remarks by Mr. Berger, made to reporters in his office at the Empire State Building, came as the governor and his aides try to put to rest any suggestion of wrongdoing and move on from his acknowledgment Tuesday that he had extramarital affairs.
Mr. Paterson had been asked by reporters about his campaign’s spending on stays at the hotel, which is not far from his Harlem home. State election law prohibits the use of campaign money for personal expenses, but if politicians promptly reimburse a campaign they can usually avoid any penalties.
In repaying the committee for the hotel stays, the governor was not admitting that they were related to an affair, Mr. Berger said, adding that he found nothing improper in any of the expenditures that he reviewed.
Mr. Berger, whom Mr. Paterson asked to review his campaign finances, said he examined a series of expenses reporters had asked about, as well as records of Mr. Paterson’s Senate campaigns going back to 1999. He said he did not expect Mr. Paterson to make any...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This gov is saying: I paid the money back, so no harm, no foul?
He would have NEVER paid if not for the spotlight.
As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St. ...He and his wife went to the West Side Days Inn when they were trying to rekindle the romance in their marriage, he said.
The Paterson Campaign Suite at The West Side Days Inn - "The Love Shack"
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Buried in the Saturday edition!
LOL. Apparently he's never heard of this new invention called the "country inn." Works a lot better than the Days Inn.
Does he also have to give back the jukebox money?
(sorry)
The consierge prolly told him it was the penthouse suite, and the bed was in the shape of a heart.
He wouldn’t know the difference. Or it could be the same room that he had all along, makes it easier to braille his way to it.
I’m going to hell for this post, aren’t I ?
All I can say, if the hubby bought me to this place for a “romantic weekend” to reconcile a fizzled marriage he better have plied me with plenty of booze and more than a dinner at Denny's.
Thanks for the pics.
I'm sure his paramour will be thrilled to hear that.
Oh, that makes it all good again.
Ousted NY Assemblyman and corrupt Dem party boss Clarence Norman Norman was tried, convicted, and received successive jail-time for similar campaign transgressions Paterson admits to. Norman used campaign funds for pricey clothes and shoes.....and more.
DID PATERSON DO THIS? (1) Norman is accused of filing vouchers for travel expenses with the Assembly even though the Kings County Democratic Party had already footed the bill. (2) Norman was sentenced last month to 2-6 years in prison for not reporting thousands of dollars in in-kind political contributions and pocketing a $5,000 check intended for his re-election committee.
REFERENCE
NORMAN DUE THIRD TRIAL
NY POST By ZACH HABERMAN Feb 15, 2006
The state’s highest court says ousted Assemblyman Clarence Norman will have to face trial — again. The Court of Appeals said yesterday they would not listen to arguments by Norman’s legal team, who had hoped to get it to toss out charges that he cheated on his Assembly-paid travel expenses.
The dethroned Brooklyn Democratic Party boss, convicted twice last year of skirting campaign-finance rules, will now face his third criminal trial in less than seven months. Norman is accused of filing vouchers for travel expenses with the Assembly even though the Kings County Democratic Party had already footed the bill. He allegedly pulled off the penny-pinching scheme at least 76 times for a total of $5,585.
“We are prepared to go to trial on March 6,” said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the Brooklyn DA’s Office. A lawyer for Norman did not return a call for comment. Norman was sentenced last month to two to six years in prison for not reporting thousands of dollars in in-kind political contributions and pocketing a $5,000 check intended for his re-election committee.
Norman also faces a fourth indictment for strong-arming judicial candidates into using specific people to print their campaign literature. He is currently free on $110,000 bail. zach.haberman@nypost.com
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/63611.htm
COULD BE A LOT OF THIS GOING AROUND IN NY POLITICS. RIGHT GOV PATERSON?
September 22, 2005
NY POST By JIM HINCH
TOO BUSY’ POL: I FORGOT ABOUT $7,000
Indicted (and later convicted) Brooklyn Dem boss Clarence Norman remembered his $13.75 bill for chicken wings, but somehow forgot to tell his campaign treasurer about more than $7,000 in allegedly illegal campaign contributions.
That’s according to Norman’s testimony in his corruption trial.
Prosecutors showed that in 2000, Norman billed his campaign account for $2.17 worth of toilet paper, $13.75 for the chicken and $42 for envelopes at Staples. But when it came to telling his campaign treasurer, Carmen Martinez, about thousands in printing bills he got an
auto lobbyist to cover, Norman was suddenly “too busy.”
Norman admitted that if he had told Martinez, she would have reported the bills — which exceeded the $3,100 legal limit — to regulators. Still, Supreme Court Justice Martin Marcus knocked two counts off Norman’s rap sheet
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/28382.htm
Spitzer Successor Boasts He Never Had to Pay Any of His Own Money for Sex
New York’s Governor David Paterson (D) boasted that unlike his predecessor, the disgraced former Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer, he’s never paid high or low priced prostitutes for sex.
“Eliot doesn’t have mojo,” Paterson asserted. “When you’ve got mojo like I have the babes beg for it.”
Mojo, however, may not have been Paterson’s only asset in wooing the babes. It appears that campaign cash and appointments to state jobs may have played a role in greasing the skids for his liaisons.
At least two state employees have been alleged to have had illicit trysts with Paterson “during the rocky years of his marriage.” While there is no evidence of direct cash payments to any of the women, expenses incurred for hotels, meals, and “incidentals” were billed to his campaign as “constituent services.”
Paterson explained that he didn’t feel it was right for constituents to service him at their expense. “I am a gentleman,” Paterson said. “No gentleman makes a lady pay, especially if she is a constituent.”
read more...
http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm
his fake memo about consituent services proves - or implies - that he was hiding an expense from accounting checks; which is a red flag for all of his returns. What else has he done to pay himself without paying taxes?
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