Free Republic

Disgraced ex-City Councilman Dan Halloran — who spent years in federal prison for a $200,000 bribery scheme to rig a mayoral election — has been arrested and charged for having hundreds of sickening child sex abuse videos on his phone, according to authorities. Halloran, 54, was busted at Miami International Airport on Saturday as he arrived in the US for a layover flight from Cuba, Local 10 News reported. He was found with 1,362 child-sex videos hidden on his iPhone — including about 35 videos of “prepubescent” girls being victimized, according to a federal criminal complaint obtained by the outlet.

The New York attorney general’s dark-side personal life was an open secret in Democratic Party circles. New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman has resigned, just hours after it was reported that he had been accused of violent assaults on women he had dated. These allegations, which include threats that Schneiderman made to stalk and kill the women if they told on him, came as a shock—except to anyone who has followed his career in politics. Schneiderman’s louche ethics have been well known. You didn’t need an “in” at Albany watering holes; just reading the newspapers would have told you...

State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they were plotting to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes. The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said. FBI agents arrested them both at their Queens homes shortly after 6 a.m. [snip] Prosecutors are planning to lay out the whole sordid scheme during a news conference later today.

<p>A federal grand jury has slapped Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks with a subpoena demanding records about his tax-exempt charities and what happened to their money -- including one that stiffed Hurricane Katrina victims, law-enforcement sources revealed yesterday.</p> <p>The subpoena from a Manhattan grand jury signals an expanding corruption probe of Meeks and two fellow Queens Democrats, state Senate President Malcolm Smith and the Rev. Floyd Flake, who also were involved in separate subpoenas issued earlier this month.</p>

Bruce Ratner is a New York real estate developer and owner of the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association. For five years, he’s been trying to move the team to a new arena in Brooklyn that he hopes to build, relying on New York’s powers of eminent domain to move hundreds of homeowners and businessmen out of their quarters. The Brooklyn arena project, known as Atlantic Yards, is on life support. It is only being kept alive by an investment of Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Prokhorov, who is reportedly worth more than $13 billion. He is investing $200...

ALBANY -- Sen. Malcolm Smith is the Prince of Pork. The Queens Democrat pigged out on $5.7 million in grants last year -- more than any other state legislator and $4.4 million higher than the average state senator, according to a report by a government watchdog. That disparity makes Smith the poster child for an oft-criticized system that ensures that politically powerful lawmakers get to dole out a lion's share of pork-barrel grants. The report by the New York Public Interest Research Group found that roughly a third of the state's 212 legislators -- led by Smith -- gobbled up...

Majority Leader Malcolm Smith's reign was on brink, but spokesman said nothing happens in Senate till Smith says so. ALBANY - Blame it on the BlackBerry. Upstate billionaire Thomas Golisano said he began plotting to overthrow Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith after the Democrat spent a whole meeting in late April reading e-mails. "Of course I was upset, I thought that was very rude," he said of the meeting in Smith's office. "When I travel 250 miles to make a case on how to save the state a lot of money ... and the guy comes into his office and...

BY ELIZABETH MOORE | elizabeth.moore@newsday.com 10:20 PM EDT, June 9, 2009 ALBANY - In the end, it was Malcolm Smith's BlackBerry that did him in. Businessman Thomas Golisano, upset over tax and spending increases in the state budget, had journeyed to the Capitol in April to share with the Senate majority leader what he says were $1 billion worth of ideas for trimming costs. But Smith's attention quickly strayed to his e-mail, where it stayed for the rest of the meeting, Golisano said. "We felt we were talking to the wall," the Paychex Inc. chairman and three-time Independence Party gubernatorial...

It was just three days after Gov. David A. Paterson introduced a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry, and the Rev. Floyd H. Flake had some thoughts for any lawmaker who wanted to change New York’s definition of marriage. “I don’t care what the politicians think,” Mr. Flake, a former Democratic congressman and one of the city’s most influential religious leaders, thundered last week during a Sunday service at the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in Queens. “Ain’t nothing perfect about laying down and signing a license with somebody who got the same body parts you got.” Mr. Flake...