Bronx Assemblyman Charged with Taking Bribes
Second political corruption scandal in New York in a week
In Albany's second major corruption case this week, a New York State lawmaker was arrested on Thursday on federal charges of accepting bribes and another lawmaker was forced to resign for his part in the scheme to help developers open adult day care centers.
Assemblyman Eric A. Stevenson, a Democrat who represents some of the city's poorest neighborhoods in the South Bronx, was accused of taking money to help several developers obtain building certificates, expedite construction work and recruit older people, according to a criminal complaint filed by the United States attorney in Manhattan. He is also accused of drafting legislation that would have prevented any new adult day care centers from opening in New York City with the express intention of helping the developers.
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Trouble is, this is like Abscam, with only gov’t provoker agents (one of whom they had leverage over due to a previous investig’n) offering the bribe. Why doesn’t the FBI just bribe everybody and thus disqualify them all?
Anyway, you may be interested to know I have cx to a couple of the principals in the other alleged bribery case. Jay Savino I’ve dealt with politically in the Bronx, and Dan Halloran I’m friendly with thru both pagan and libertarian circles. Dan even gave me a couple of books.
It strikes me that the only way we can make progress is by using influence any way we can, and most of those ways of using influence are at least arguably illegal. So to succeed in changing the world, you have to risk going to jail. Because they can target anyone they want, and nobody thinks they are corrupt, even though they have corrupted people working for them.
Bribes have become “The way to do business” in the Northeast. In my past projects in those areas I have steadfastly refused to pay off anyone. In doing so several projects died during the entitlement phase. Others took 2x longer to build at 2x the cost as say; Texas.
As I see it, the Nanny State creates and cultivates the “pay to play” system. Were they to remove the shackles on developers, billions of $ of new projects (and jobs) would be created almost instantly. Taxes would be paid, jobs created, services established.