October 7, 2009
Ex-Political Boss Pleads Guilty in Pension Case
By DANNY HAKIM, NY TIMES
LINK

ALBANY — Raymond B. Harding, one of the last of New York’s political bosses, admitted on Tuesday that he had accepted more than $800,000 in exchange for doing favors for Alan G. Hevesi, the former state comptroller; among the favors was a scheme to secure an Assembly seat for Mr. Hevesi’s son.

The guilty plea by Mr. Harding, who was once a leader of the small but influential Liberal Party in New York, was one of the more dramatic developments in a corruption investigation by the state attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, who is scrutinizing fees paid to associates of Mr. Hevesi by investment firms seeking business with the state’s pension fund.

Mr. Harding’s admission made for an inglorious final chapter in the political life of a power broker whose influence was felt from New York City to Albany.

The Liberal Party made the most of its tiny membership, usually less than 1 percent of all registered voters, and the lure of its ballot line. The party helped propel many prominent political careers, including those of Senator Jacob K. Javits and Edward I. Koch, a Democrat who probably would not have been first elected to Congress from a Republican district without its support.

Mr. Harding, 74, was a particularly close political ally of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who put two of Mr. Harding’s sons, Robert M. and Russell A., on the city payroll. Court filings have indicated that Mr. Harding sought money from investment firms in part to pay legal bills for Russell Harding, a former Giuliani aide who pleaded guilty in March 2005 to embezzlement and possession of child pornography.

Mr. Cuomo’s investigation seems to be moving closer to Mr. Hevesi himself and further entangling Hank Morris, Mr. Hevesi’s longtime political confidante, who was charged in March in a 123-count indictment with selling access to the pension fund. Mr. Cuomo said Mr. Harding, who faces up to four years in jail, is cooperating with his inquiry. “We believe he can be extremely helpful,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The case has focused on the state’s $116.5 billion pension fund, and how people close to Mr. Hevesi exploited their relationship with the former comptroller to enrich themselves. The comptroller serves as the fund’s sole trustee, a relatively unusual arrangement that gives him ultimate authority over what firms are allowed lucrative contracts to manage the fund’s money.

Mr. Harding said Tuesday in court as part of his guilty plea that he had been installed by Mr. Morris on several deals as a sham intermediary between the pension fund and investment firms, including Pequot Capital Management, a once-prominent hedge fund.

Mr. Harding had an alliance with Mr. Hevesi that was decades long. Mr. Hevesi received the endorsement of the Liberal Party in races for mayor of New York City and state and city comptroller.

Mr. Harding said that in 2004 and 2005, he helped arrange a $150,000-a-year job for a Queens assemblyman, Michael Cohen, at the Health Insurance Plan of New York; Mr. Harding had been a lobbyist for the company. Mr. Harding said that he had cleared the seat because he had heard that Mr. Hevesi wanted it done “to create a vacancy in the Assembly for his son, Andrew, to fill.”

After Andrew Hevesi was elected to the Assembly in 2005, Mr. Harding said, the elder Mr. Hevesi thanked him for helping out.

Mr. Harding pleaded guilty to a felony related to securities violations under the Martin Act, a sweeping state securities law. Gary Naftalis, a lawyer for Mr. Harding, declined to comment on the plea.

Mr. Hevesi resigned in late 2006 after pleading guilty to a felony related to his use of state workers as drivers for his ailing wife, after an investigation that eventually broadened to include corruption in the state pension fund.

Bradley Simon, a lawyer for Mr. Hevesi, maintained on Tuesday that his client had played no role in any pension schemes. “As we have maintained for the last several years,” he said, “Alan Hevesi had no involvement in, or knowledge of, any wrongdoing, or any quid pro quo, related to the New York State Common Retirement Fund.”

The Cuomos and the Hardings have their own history. Mr. Cuomo battled Mr. Harding for control of the Liberal Party when his father, Mario M. Cuomo, was governor. The party backed the younger Mr. Cuomo in his 2002 bid for governor, a fateful decision. After Mr. Cuomo dropped out of that race, the party failed to attract the 50,000 votes necessary for it to remain on future ballots and lost much of its clout.

Mr. Cuomo’s office also said on Tuesday that Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity, a Dallas firm that consulted with the pension fund, had pleaded guilty to a similar charge that had been sealed since Friday. Mr. Meyer admitted to violating his fiduciary duty to pensioners in both New York and New Mexico and taking part in schemes allegedly orchestrated by Mr. Morris. He also faces four years in jail, but is cooperating with the investigation.

“These guilty pleas vividly depict the depth and breadth of corruption involving the New York State pension fund,” Mr. Cuomo said. “In one case, we see New York’s state pension fund looted to reward a political boss with hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper payments.”

“In the other, we see a pension fund adviser — the outside ‘gatekeeper’ who is supposed to safeguard the integrity of the pension fund process — recommending deals based on pressure from pension officials and politically connected people.”

Raymond B. Harding is former vice chairman of New York State's Liberal Party. On April 16, 2009, he was charged with accepting more than $800,000 that prosecutors say was a reward for doing political favors for the former state comptroller Alan G. Hevesi. Mr. Harding pleaded not guilty to three felonies under the Martin Act, the state securities statute that gives the attorney general broad powers to pursue financial corruption.

Mr. Harding was also accused of helping to clear an Assembly seat in a Queens district so that Mr. Hevesi's son, Andrew, could run for it in 2005. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said that Mr. Harding, once a close political ally of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and a power broker in state politics, provided "30 years' worth" of political favors to the senior Mr. Hevesi, including reliably endorsing his candidacies on the Liberal Party line.

Mr. Harding is the latest figure to be charged in the wide pension corruption investigation by Mr. Cuomo, who is scrutinizing the fees paid to associates of Mr. Hevesi by investment firms seeking business with the pension fund.

The complaint against Mr. Harding is rich with echoes of state political dramas of the past. Mr. Cuomo skirmished with Mr. Harding two decades ago for control of the Liberal Party on behalf of his father, Mario M. Cuomo, the governor at the time. But the younger Mr. Cuomo was backed by the Liberal Party and Mr. Harding in his failed bid for governor in 2002. Mr. Cuomo dropped out of the race and the party failed to attract the 50,000 votes necessary for it to remain on the ballot in future elections.

Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge-elect Nora Anderson, Indicted

Sunday, December 7, 2008
Not so fast, Nora
Daily News Editorial, December 7, 2008
LINK

It was a busy week for Nora Anderson, the Manhattan surrogate judge-elect who ran roughshod over laws and rules to claim a prize perch in the Surrogate's Court, which awards millions in legal fees to a select club of lawyers.

The week began with Anderson filing her final campaign accounting. The report shows that in the weeks since September's Democratic primary, in which Anderson grossly outspent two opponents - thanks largely to an illegal $202,000 contribution - she raised another $29,260.

Not that she needed the cash - she ran unopposed in November. But she put almost every cent ($28,378) in her pocket, leaving $7.01 in the kitty.

In theory, Anderson was repaying some of the $368,185 she loaned her campaign. In reality, she was skirting an ethics rule that bars successful judicial candidates from repaying themselves with campaign funds.

The Board of Elections certified Anderson's uncontested victory Tuesday, and she lost no time taking the oath of office Wednesday, solemnly swearing to support the Constitution and faithfully discharge the duties of the office of judge. Irony indeed.

Although the Jan. 1 start of her term is only 26 days away, Anderson might want to hold off on tailoring those black judicial robes and trying out the gavel.

Also last week, it turns out, a Manhattan grand jury investigating her campaign's slippery practices was hearing witnesses. And still waiting in the wings is the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, whose rules she has so brazenly flouted.

Nora Anderson gives grounds for investigation on Election Law violation
Editorials
Sunday, September 14th 2008, 5:35 PM

Barring an extraordinarily unlikely turn of events, lawyer Nora Anderson will be sworn in as a Manhattan surrogate judge on New Year's Day. The next morning, she must be the subject of investigation by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Talk about getting off to a bad start - one that could result in Anderson's removal from office.

Anderson ran a big-money campaign to get the Democratic nod for surrogate in last week's primary. A surrogate presides over the estates of the dead - and gets to award millions of dollars in assignments to lawyers and accountants.

So badly did Anderson want to win the $137,600-a-year post that she put $270,000 of her own money into the race. She also took a $25,000 donation and a $225,000 campaign fund loan from her boss, who happens to be Seth Rubinstein, who happens to be an active trusts and estates lawyer.

All that was okay under New York's lax campaign finance laws until Anderson reached primary day without repaying Rubinstein's loan. That day, Rubinstein's unpaid loan converted to a gift under the Election Law - Article 14, section 114, paragraph 6a, if you are interested.

Big problem. A contribution of that size is barred by law - Article 14, section 126, paragraph 3 - and under willful circumstances can amount to a misdemeanor.

Depending on how the accounting is done, Anderson may have exceeded the contribution limit by $165,000.

And that's not the end of Anderson's, er, sloppiness.

Under court rules, judicial candidates must file a financial disclosure statement with the court system's Ethics Commission within 20 days of becoming a candidate. Anderson got her document in almost two months late and then failed to include the most important information requested on the form: her income.

Anderson campaign manager Michael Oliva says Anderson believed she had until Nov. 4, Election Day, to repay the loan before it became a gift. "We tried to find the answers," Oliva said, pleading that the law was confusing.

To a would-be judge? To a would-be judge who was warned that ignorance of the law would be no excuse when, in April, she attended a mandatory training course on judicial campaigning.

There, Supreme Court Justice George Marlow, head of the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, told the assembled candidates, "You, and you alone, as the candidate, [are] ultimately responsible for what you and your committee say and do."

Anderson's violations are no small matter. She blew away two opponents by running a high-visibility campaign paid for by money that, all evidence indicates, she was not entitled to spend. And she cavalierly disregarded the law that entitled the public to inspect her personal finances.

The judicial conduct commission's jurisdiction extends to judgeship candidates. The panel must add Anderson to its docket once she is sworn in. And come to think of it, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau would be fully justified in giving the once-over to Anderson's finagling.

Shot through with errors

The streets of New York became more dangerous for the NYPD last year as the number of people opening fire on cops jumped sharply - but the Finest responded with remarkable restraint.

In the face of a 54% increase in trigger-happy criminals, officers continued an 11-year trend of discharging weapons less often. They deserve commendation for high professionalism.

Which is apparently too much to ask. True to form, as the department released a yearly count of shootings, the New York Civil Liberties Union wondered whether the cops had fired disproportionately at blacks.

Asking the question was an act of irresponsibility because there is not a shred of evidence cops are driven by racial bias in deciding at whom they'll shoot.

The NYPD had 23 million contacts with the public last year. More than 174,000 involved a gun or report of a gun. More than 4,000 ended in gun-possession arrests. And cops fired weapons in a total of 45 incidents.

In 34 cases, the civilian used or threatened to use a gun; in five, a knife; in six, a blunt object. Where does race enter the picture? Nowhere.

Still, the civil liberties union spreads an innuendo of racial targeting by citing the fact that blacks made up 61% of the people who were fired on. Never mind that 75% of people who fired at cops were black; NYCLU legal advocate Chris Dunn urges a full investigation.

He should go one better. The cops shot at not a single woman in 2007. They shot only at men, even though men make up just half the population. Now there's a real disparity for Dunn to decry. Because the way he adds up the numbers, the cops must be out to kill men.

Nuts? Yes. But that's how these folks think.

In 1998, The New York City Bar Government Ethics Committee Cites Two Surrogates For Wrongdoing

Contributions to Campaigns of Candidates
For Surrogate, and Appointments
By Surrogates of Guardians Ad Litem

Report of the Committee on Government Ethics
of the Association of the Bar
of the City of New York

July 1998

The Committee on Government Ethics of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York conducted a study of the campaign finances of four Surrogate's Court judges to determine whether there is a correlation between lawyers' campaign contributions and guardian ad litem appointments. The Committee found that, in two cases, there is an apparent correlation between campaign contributions and such appointments.

This report provides background information regarding guardian ad litem appointments, describes the Committee's factual findings, and proposes a number of ways to ensure that appointments of guardians ad litem are not influenced, and do not appear to be influenced, by whether a lawyer contributed to the Surrogate's election campaign. These proposals include (a) establishing a blind or rotating appointment process; (b) requiring that Surrogate's Court campaigns make separate disclosure to the Office of Court Administration of contributions received from lawyers; and (c) requiring strict adherence to Ethics Opinion 289 of the New York State Bar Association, which provides that judicial candidates should not accept campaign contributions from lawyers who have cases before the candidate and that lawyers should not contribute to the campaigns of judicial candidates before whom the lawyers have a pending case.

I. BACKGROUND

Judges of the Surrogate's Courts in New York City are elected to fourteen-year terms. N.Y. Jud. Law § 12(c). There are currently six Surrogates in New York City. The Committee reviewed the campaign finances and appointment practices of four Surrogates in New York City: Manhattan Surrogate Renee R. Roth, whose term runs from 1997 to 2011;1 Manhattan Surrogate Eve Preminger, whose term runs from 1990 to 2004; Kings County Surrogate Michael H. Feinberg, whose term runs from 1997 to 2011, and Queens County Surrogate Robert L. Nahman, whose term runs from 1991 to 2005.2

The Surrogate's Courts have jurisdiction over all actions and proceedings relating to the affairs of decedents, probate of wills, administration of estates and actions and proceedings pertaining to administration of estates, guardianship of the property of minors, and "such other actions and proceedings, not within the exclusive jurisdiction of the supreme court, as may be provided by law." Id. § 12(d).

Many proceedings in the Surrogate's Courts involve minors or persons under a legal disability or, in the case of a trust or estate, beneficiaries whose identity will not be finally determined until some future date. If proceedings with respect to these matters are to be conclusive upon such persons, they must be legally represented. That representation is the role of the guardian ad litem in a judicial proceeding. N.Y. Surr. Ct. Proc. Act § 404(3) (duties of a guardian ad litem are to represent and protect the interests of persons under disability or unknown beneficiaries). Thus, the role of guardians ad litem is an important and substantive one, and the quality of their appointments is of substantial concern to the Bar.

The Current Appointment Process

Part 36 of the Rules of the Chief Judge governs the appointments of a guardian ad litem. A guardian ad litem must be an attorney admitted to practice in New York State, and cannot be a family member or relative of the judge. 22 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 36.1. In addition, no person may receive more than one appointment within a 12-month period for which the compensation is anticipated to be in excess of $5,000, except where the appointing judge determines that unusual circumstances of continuity of representation or familiarity with a case require an appointment for which compensation would exceed that amount. In such event, the judge must set forth in writing the reason for the exception. 22 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 36.1(c).

A guardian ad litem is entitled to receive a reasonable compensation in such proportion as directed by the Court. (SCPA §405).3 Compensation is payable from the estate, from the person under disability or from both, as the court directs.

Part 36.2(a) requires the Chief Administrator of the Courts to review applications from attorneys seeking such appointments and to maintain lists of applicants for appointment for use by the appointing judges. The lists maintained by the Chief Administrator are to contain information that will apprise the appointing judge of the applicant's background and "may be differentiated by the type of appointment and area of special expertise." The list of potential appointees maintained by the Chief Administrator includes information regarding degrees, licenses, area of practice or specialization, number and types of prior appointments, and whether or not the attorney has attended any court or bar association-sponsored programs relating to duties of any Part 36 appointee or related topics.4

Part 36.1(a) provides that the Surrogate may make appointments from the list or appoint someone not included on the list if the Surrogate believes that person is more qualified:

. . . The appointing judge may select the appointee from the list of applicants established by the Chief Administrator of the Courts pursuant to section 36.2(a) of this Part. Except for the appointment of court evaluators, should the appointing judge decide that a person or institution not included on the list of applicants is better qualified for appointment in a particular matter, either because of prior experience with the ward or estate, or because of particular expertise necessary to the case, the judge may appoint that person or institution, and in such instance shall place the reasons for such appointment and the qualifications of such appointee on the record. The appointing judge shall be solely responsible for determining the qualifications of any appointee.

(emphasis added)

II. THE FINDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE

The Committee found that the campaign financing and appointment practices of Surrogates Roth and Feinberg give rise to at least the appearance that their appointments of guardians ad litem may take into account whether an attorney made a campaign contribution, and not solely the qualifications of the attorney appointed. The Committee also found that the practices of Surrogate Preminger do not give rise to this appearance. The findings regarding Surrogate Preminger are affected by the fact that the candidate herself contributed 77% of the total funds that her campaign received, thus obviating the need to raise money from those who would seek appointments from the candidate once she was elected.5 Finally, Surrogate Nahman, who did not face a primary election, but was nominated by the Democratic Party after the winner of the primary withdrew from the race, raised and spent less than $1,000 on his campaign. As a result, his campaign was not required to file itemized campaign finance disclosure statements with the Board of Elections.

The Committee's analysis focused on two numerical calculations. First, the Committee determined the percentage of appointments the Surrogate made to campaign contributors once fund-raising began. If a high percentage of appointments were given to campaign contributors, there is at least an appearance that appointments were influenced by the appointees' contributions or the possibility of receiving such contributions, and not the best interests of those to be represented by the appointee.

With respect to Surrogates Roth and Preminger, the Committee also calculated the percentage of the total campaign funds raised that were contributed by lawyers who later received appointments and, in the case of Surrogate Roth, lawyers who had received appointments during her first term in office. (This analysis was not done for Surrogate Feinberg, because he has been on the bench a relatively short time and therefore has not yet made enough appointments for such an analysis to be meaningful.) If a campaign was heavily reliant on contributions from appointees, it gives rise to the appearance of a quid pro quo. On the other hand, a campaign that did not rely substantially on contributions from appointees might have little incentive to make appointments on the basis of a contribution. This analysis is complicated by the fact that many Surrogate's Court practitioners may contribute to the campaign of a highly qualified but impecunious candidate because of the candidate's merits and without the expectation or purpose of increasing the chances of receiving a guardian ad litem appointment. That fact, does not, however, eliminate the appearance of favoritism created by an appointment to a lawyer who has made a campaign contribution.

A. Surrogate Roth
# From the time Surrogate Roth's campaign committee began fund-raising on December 20, 1995 through February 24, 1998, 66% of her appointments went to individual campaign contributors or individuals who work for law firms that made campaign contributions.6
# 38% of the funds received by her campaign committee were contributed by attorneys who received appointments or attorneys who work for law firms that received appointments.

B. Surrogate Preminger
# Through November 9, 1997, 9% of Surrogate Preminger's appointments went to campaign contributors.
# Through November 18, 1997, 2% of the funds received by her campaign committee were contributed by attorneys who received appointments.

C. Surrogate Feinberg 7
# Through February 6, 1998, 54% of Surrogate Feinberg's appointments went to campaign contributors or individuals who work for law firms that made campaign contributions.

Press Reports

In addition to the findings of the Committee, the press has reported that Surrogates in Brooklyn and Queens have made appointments based on political connections and campaign contributions rather than merit.8 Those reports may well be erroneous in whole or in part. The number of such reports nevertheless highlights the importance of assuring that appointments are not, and do not appear to be, influenced by contributions.

III. PROPOSALS

The Committee has identified a number of possible ways to reduce the appearance and/or actuality of a quid pro quo between contributions and guardian ad litem appointments. These proposals include the following:

a. eliminating the discretion of Surrogates in making guardian ad litem appointments and instituting a blind or rotating appointment process;

b. establishing a detailed reporting system for campaign contributions and fund-raising by lawyers; and

c. strictly enforcing New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 289 (1973), which states that a candidate for a trial court should not knowingly accept campaign contributions from lawyers who have cases before the candidate and that no lawyer should contribute to the campaign of any candidate for a trial court before which the lawyer has a pending case.

There is always a potential conflict of interest when a lawyer contributing to a judge's campaign represents an interest before a judge.9 However, the potential for conflict is increased when the judge, and not the client, selects the lawyer who is to serve as a party's representative. This appointment power presents an opportunity for patronage. This report focuses on the potential problem inherent in the Surrogate's appointment power. A blind or rotating appointment process described below directly addresses this potential problem, but requires careful management by the Office of Court Administration to avoid inappropriate and/or inefficient appointments. The proposals regarding disclosure of campaign contributions and enforcement of the New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 289 (1923) will also assist in reducing the instances of real or apparent impropriety when a lawyer makes a contribution to a candidate for Surrogate.
A. BLIND OR ROTATING APPOINTMENT PROCESS

One way to prevent favoritism or unfairness and the perception of impropriety would be to establish a rotation or blind system for appointments of guardian ad litem. Under such a system, appointments would be made in rotation from the list of those eligible for such appointments.10 Surrogates are not now required to make an appointment from the list maintained by the Chief Administrator and may deviate from the list if they determine that making an appointment from the list would be inappropriate in a specific case.

However, if a blind rotation system is to be adopted for guardian ad litem appointments under which the Surrogate did not have discretion in choosing the attorneys for appointment, a mechanism must be devised to deal with the fact that not all attorneys are qualified to administer a particular estate or represent a person under disability. For example, administration of certain estates requires expertise in a particular area of law such as tax or intellectual property. Different categories of applicants would need to be designated; an impartial, reliable and accountable screening procedure to certify attorneys for appointment would have to be developed; and the quality of the representation would have to be closely monitored by the Chief Administrator.11 Under Part 36.2, the Chief Administrator already has the authority to maintain lists of applicants available for guardian ad litem appointments "differentiated by type of appointment and area of special expertise." The Committee believes that in no event should Surrogates be involved in determining who is placed on which list of attorneys eligible for appointments.

B. DISCLOSURE OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND LOANS BY LAWYERS

The public can review basic campaign finance information of candidates for Surrogate (or any other elected judicial official) through inspection of disclosure forms that must be filed with the New York City Board of Elections ("BOE"). However, because of the potential for conflicts of interest when lawyers make campaign contributions to candidates for Surrogate,12 the Committee believes that separate and more comprehensive disclosure should be filed with the Office of Court Administration ("OCA").13 The proposed rule (annexed as Exhibit B) regarding disclosure provides as follows:
# A campaign that accepts contributions from lawyers must disclose those contributions separately to the OCA. The disclosure must include the name of the contributor, the date and amount of the contribution, any prior contributions made, and the employer of the contributor.
# A campaign that receives loans from lawyers must disclose to the OCA the name of the lender, the date and amount of the loan, and prior loans or contributions made by the same contributor to the same candidate, and the employer of the lender.
# A campaign must disclose the identity of lawyers who solicit contributions on behalf of the campaign.
# Reporting periods and filing deadlines are concurrent with the periods and deadlines for filings with the BOE, as provided in New York Election Law, Sections 14-110(1)-(2), except for the two weeks immediately preceding the election, during which contributions or loans from lawyers of $500 or more must be disclosed within 24 hours.
# To establish compliance, a campaign that has not made sufficient disclosure would have to show that it made a good faith effort to obtain the required information.

Each of these provisions is discussed in greater detail below:

a. Disclosure of contributions from lawyers

State election law requires campaign committees to file with the BOE the name and address of the contributor, and the date and amount of the contribution (and the total of any previous contributions made by the contributor). N.Y. Elec. Law § 14-104. However, the forms do not elicit employer information or the occupation of the contributor. As a result, the public has no way of knowing whether a particular contributor is a lawyer or the identity of the law firm with which the contributor is affiliated. The Committee believes that the identity of the contributors, employer and occupation is an important aspect of disclosure for all contributors, but it is especially important in the case of lawyers and law firms because of the authority a Surrogate has to "reward" a lawyer (or a lawyer's firm) with an appointment and because of the possibility that a matter before the Surrogate will receive favorable treatment based on a lawyer's contribution. We note that the New York City Campaign Finance Board requires candidates participating in the City's Campaign Finance program to disclose this kind of information, and computerizes the information for easy public access.

Making this information easily accessible serves a number of important purposes. Firstly, it is a deterrent to any quid pro quo arrangement. If the press and public have easy access to contribution information, judges are more likely to adhere to the highest ethical standards. Secondly, the data that would be disclosed under the proposed Rule will help voters form an educated opinion about the candidate. Some voters may look favorably on candidates who do not accept contributions from lawyers, perceiving that that candidate would not "owe favors" to those contributing lawyers. Finally, if our recommendation for a blind appointment process is adopted, disclosure will allow for effective monitoring of compliance with the Rule.

b. Disclosure of loans

Like a contribution, a loan to a political committee that, for instance, assists the campaign in getting off to a fast start, or provides funds at a critical moment, can have the effect of giving the lender undue influence over the candidate. Moreover, a committee could receive an infusion of funds from a lawyer prior to the election and disclose it as a loan with the BOE even though the lender forgives the loan after the election, effectively making the transaction a contribution. Accordingly, without a requirement that loans be reported, the public would not be aware of an infusion of funds from a lawyer that may end up being a large contribution. The rule, of course, also provides for disclosure when the campaign pays back the loan. Loans are therefore included in the definition of "Political Contribution".

c. Disclosure of solicitors

By being responsible for the campaign receiving funds, lawyers who solicit contributions on behalf of a campaign for Surrogate can exercise undue influence over the candidate in the same way that a contributor can. Therefore, the proposed rule provides for disclosure of the name and employer of the solicitor, and the date and amount of money the lawyer solicited for the campaign, as well as any previous amounts that the lawyer solicited. This rule, also, is derived from the requirements of the New York City Campaign Finance Board for those who "bundle" (i.e., solicit and deliver) contributions.

d. When data must be disclosed

To ease the administrative burdens that will be placed on campaigns, the rule provides that the reporting periods and the deadlines for filing should be the same as under State law. N.Y. Elec. Law §14-110 subd. (1) and (2). However, the last filings before the primary and general elections cover periods that end two weeks before the election day. Eventually, data concerning subsequent contributions is required to be disclosed under State law, but not until after the election. The Committee agrees with the New York City Campaign Finance Board that it is important for voters to have access to information about contributions and loans that are received in the two weeks prior to the election. Due to the administrative burden that this disclosure may impose on campaigns, the proposed Rule requires this disclosure only for contributions and loans received of $500 or more. After election day, routine disclosure deadlines pursuant to State law resume.

e. Good faith exemption

Campaigns are required to make a good faith effort to obtain and disclose information as required by the rule. At a minimum, efforts should be made to elicit occupation information with all fund-raising mailings, calling or sending follow-up letters to contributors who have not fully disclosed such information. Campaigns are advised to keep records evidencing these efforts.

C. STRICT ADHERENCE TO AND ENFORCEMENT OF ETHICS OPINION NYS 289 (1973)

New York State Bar Association Ethics Opinion 289 (1973) establishes campaign guidelines for judicial candidates. The guidelines state that a candidate for a trial court should not knowingly accept contributions from lawyers who have cases before the candidate and that no lawyer should contribute to the campaign of a candidate for a trial court before whom the lawyer has a pending case. The relevant text is excerpted below:

3. Solicitation of Lawyers. Contributions may be solicited and accepted from lawyers (including lawyers having cases before, or which may come before, the candidate), provided that the solicitation makes no reference, direct or indirect, to any particular pending or potential litigation. Because lawyers may be "better able than laymen to appraise accurately the qualifications of candidates for judicial office", it would not be appropriate, given the safeguards (nondisclosure of the donors' identity and limitation on amount of contribution) contained in the following guidelines, to prohibit solicitation of lawyers who may appear before the candidate. However, contributions should not knowingly be accepted on behalf of a candidate for a trial court from lawyers who then have cases before the candidate. Moreover, no lawyer should contribute to the campaign of a candidate for a trial court before whom the lawyer has a pending case.14 (emphasis added)

This Bar Association's Uniform Judicial Questionnaire asks judicial candidates if they have adhered to these guidelines: "Do you subscribe, and have you adhered, to the campaign guidelines established for judicial candidates by the New York State Bar Association (Published in the New York State Bar Association Journal; Committee on Professional Ethics Opinion No. 289, dated April 27, 1973)? The questionnaire adds: "If you answered this question in the negative, please explain."

The Committee is of the view that because many cases in Surrogate's Court are uncontested and involve purely administrative matters, the term "pending case" as used in the opinion as applied to a campaign for Surrogate should be interpreted to mean a contested matter or a matter which the attorney reasonably believes will be contested. The guidelines could be enforced by requiring candidates to return any contribution that is not accompanied by a form on which the donor has checked off a declaration that they have complied with NYS 289 (1973).

If compliance with NYS 289 (1973) were monitored closely and the guidelines were strictly enforced, it would reduce the appearance or actuality of conflicts of interest in the Surrogate's Court.

IV. THE POWER OF THE NEW YORK STATE ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD TO ADOPT THE PROPOSED RULE

The New York State Administrative Board of the Courts has the power to adopt the proposed Rule regarding disclosure of campaign contributions, annexed as Exhibit B.

Illustrative of the New York State Administrative Board's ability to reach the conduct of attorneys outside of the courtroom is the manner in which new standards of conduct were enacted regarding the practice of law by matrimonial lawyers. The Chief Administrative Judge of the Courts adopted a new Part 136 of the Rules of the Chief Administrator relating to mandatory "Fee Arbitration in Matrimonial Cases" upon consultation with and approval of the Administrative Board of the Courts. The adopted provisions gave clients in matrimonial actions a right to arbitrate fee disputes under the Rule's framework. Although these provisions regulated out of court conduct, their impact on the ethical standards and the public perception of the profession clearly justified regulation by the New York State Administrative Board of the Courts. Similarly, regulation of the manner in which lawyers and their firms contribute and solicit political contributions while simultaneously seeking appointments from those officials raises equally important issues of proper conduct and public perception which justify promulgation of the proposed rule by the Administrative Board.

Complementary authority to address the proposed rule also rests in the hands of the Appellate Divisions pursuant to § 90(2) of the New York Judiciary Law. A court rule incorporating the proposal would bring the proscribed conduct within the definition of "professional misconduct" that forms a basis for discipline under § 90(2).

CONCLUSION

The Committee believes that these proposals would reduce the appearance and/or actuality of a quid pro quo between contributions and guardian ad litem appointments.

In a different but somewhat related context, this Committee has recommended a two-year ban on acceptance of public finance-related legal work by lawyers who make contributions to public officers or candidates for public offices who retain lawyers for such work. We have considered applying this approach, by means of a ban of some duration on acceptance of guardianships ad litem by lawyers who have contributed more than a de minimis sum to the campaign of the Surrogate making the appointment.

The Committee has concluded that if the reforms proposed by this report are adopted, such a ban should not be necessary. It may be appropriate to consider such a ban if the reforms we have proposed in this report are not adopted, or are adopted but prove insufficient. The appearance of "pay-to-play" by lawyers in making campaign contributions is extremely harmful to the integrity of the profession, whether it is done to secure public finance engagements or guardianships ad litem. We believe that the reforms proposed by this report are tailored to the Surrogate's Court issues and urge their adoption.

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT ETHICS

Joel Berger, Chair

Christopher D. Berner
Susan B. Braver
Ivo G. Caytas
Patricia J. Clarke*
Robert Conrad
Hon. George B. Daniels
William A. Delano
Peter M. Dwoskin
Laurel W. Eisner
Francis M. Fryscak
Leo Glickman*
Marcia J. Goffin+
Frank P. Grad
Jeff G. Hammel
William Josephson
Peter J. Kiernan
Paul J. Lightfoot
Eileen D. Millett
Gideon A. Moor
Richard Rifkin
Robert Rodriguez
Gene Russianoff
Kirsten E. Rutnik
Edward C. Wallace

* Subcommittee
+ Abstains

Footnotes

1: Surrogate Roth is currently in her second term. Her previous term ran from January 1983 through December 1996.

2: The Committee did not examine contributions to the campaigns and appointment practices of Queens County Surrogate Robert Nahman, Bronx County Surrogate Lee L. Holzman or Richmond County Surrogate Charles J. D'Arrigo.

3: In determining the amount of the guardian ad litem's compensation, several factors are relevant, including the resultant benefit to the estate, time expended, character of the service, complexity of the case and size of the estate. The method of fixing the fee is considered to be similar to the method for fixing counsel fees.

4: Surrogate Preminger has promulgated procedures for appointment of fiduciaries, including guardians ad litem, that call for appointments to be made on a rotating basis from a list she maintains. All attorneys who wish to be appointed as guardians ad litem in matters before Surrogate Preminger must submit an application for appointment. In order to be eligible for appointment an attorney must: 1) be on the list maintained by the Chief Administrator; and 2) agree to accept pro bono assignments relating to Surrogate's Court matters. According to Surrogate Preminger's written procedures, when a matter requires designation of a guardian ad litem, Surrogate Preminger selects an attorney from the first ten names in the rotation. In determining which attorney to select, Surrogate Preminger's procedures indicate that she will consider the requirements of the appointment, the attorney's experience and qualifications, and the nature of the attorney's prior appointments (if any). Attorneys designated for appointments (other than pro bono appointments) are then moved to the end of the rotation. The Committee has not endeavored to study the operation of this system in practice, including the quality of the resulting appointments.

5: Surrogate Preminger's campaign committee raised $599,589, of which $463,310 was provided by the candidate herself.

6: The analysis does not include contributions made by those who are closely associated with the appointee, e.g., other members of the law firm with which the appointee is affiliated and immediate family members of the appointee. If the Committee were able to identify these relationships and include contributions from those closely associated with an appointee, the percentage might well be much higher. The unavailability of such information underscores the need for more detailed reporting, as we recommend below.

7: As noted on page 4, because of the relatively short period of time that Surrogate Feinberg has been on the bench, there is insufficient data as to the percentage of total fund-raising attributable to lawyers appointed as guardians ad litem by the Surrogate.

8: Maggie Haberman, Jack Newfield, and Allen Salkin, Queens Court Doles Legal Business to Dem Insiders, NEW YORK POST, February 16, 1998; Maggie Haberman, Jack Newfield, Allen Salkin and Anne Adams Lang, Kings County Princes, NEW YORK POST, November 9, 1997; Maggie Haberman, Jack Newfield, and Allen Salkin, Here's Who Gets Pick of Judge's Patronage Plums, NEW YORK POST, November 9, 1997; and Maggie Haberman, Jack Newfield, and Allen Salkin, "Reform" is in Hands of Old-Machine Pol, NEW YORK POST, November 10, 1997.

9: In addition to appointing a contributor as guardian ad litem, other forms of favorable treatment could include awarding higher compensation for the appointment, moving a case more expeditiously or making advantageous procedural rulings.

10: See proposed rule annexed as Exhibit A.

11: While the criminal courts Assigned Counsel Plan might arguably serve as a possible model for such a system, there are some distinguishing factors and the quality of representation afforded by 18-B assigned counsel has been criticized from time to time. Article 18-B of the County Law requires each County to establish a program to furnish representation for indigent defendants in criminal proceedings. This program, known as the Assigned Counsel Plan, includes standards for the selection, designation, performance and professional conduct of individual panel plan attorneys.

In the First Department, there are five different Panels:

Trial Court Panel
Felony Panel
Homicide Panel
Parole Revocation Panel
Appeals Panel

In the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, a Central Screening Committee maintained by the county bar associations reviews the applications and recommends qualified attorneys to be added to the Panels. The recommendations are forwarded to the Administrator for review and approval. The Appellate Division then designates the panels from attorneys recommended by the Screening Committee and the Administrator.

An Advisory Committee establishes eligibility requirements for selection to each panel. All members of 18-B panels must complete an extensive application and questionnaire about their history, experience and proficiency in criminal law. Requirements include references from colleagues, adversaries, and (for appellate work) judges.

All assignments must be made from the panel list in the order of the next available attorney on the list. The Administrator is required to maintain records to monitor compliance with this requirement.

12: Although this report focuses on judicial candidates for Surrogate, the Committee believes that the proposed disclosure requirements would be appropriate for all candidates for judicial office.

13: This recommendation does not contemplate requiring the OCA to enforce compliance with the disclosure rule. We anticipate that the potential for review by the press and a candidate's opponent should assure compliance with the disclosure rule. If it does not, sterner measures may be necessary.

14: The guidelines provide that "a lawyer should not be considered to be involved in litigation pending before a judge if his firm is so involved but he has not personally participated and does not expect to participate personally in the litigation in any material way."

Exhibit A

Parts 36 of the Rules of the Chief Judge should be amended to read as follows:

Text that is underlined should be added to the rules
[Text that is in brackets should be deleted from the rules]

§ 36.1 Appointments

(a) All appointments of guardians, guardians ad litem, court evaluators, attorneys for alleged incapacitated persons (under Article 81 of the Mental Hygiene Law), receivers, persons designated to perform services for a receiver and referees shall be made by the judge authorized by law to make the appointment upon evaluation by that judge of the qualifications of candidates for appointment. The appointing judge [may] shall select as the appointee the next available applicant from the list of applicants established by the Chief Administrator of the courts pursuant to section 36.2(a) of this Part.

§ 36.2 Lists of Available Applicants

(a) The Chief Administrator of the Courts shall provide for the application by persons and institutions seeking appointment as guardians, guardians ad litem, court evaluators, attorneys for alleged incapacitated person, receivers, persons designated to perform services for the receiver, and referees. The Chief Administrator shall assemble such applications and shall maintain and make available for use by the appointing judge lists of applicants for appointment.

(b) The lists maintained by the Chief Administrator shall contain such information as will enable the appointing judge to be apprised of the background of the applicants set forth therein. The lists may be maintained by court, county, judicial district, judicial department or combination thereof, and [may] shall be differentiated by type of appointment and area of special expertise.

Exhibit B

The Chief Administrative Judge of the Courts, upon consultation with and approval of the Administrative Board of the courts, adopts the following Rule applicable to candidates who run for the office of Surrogate.

. 1. Purpose and Intent

The purpose and intent of this Rule is to ensure that high standards of professional integrity are maintained, to assist in preventing the appearance and/or the actuality of corrupt practices being exercised by Surrogate by promoting easy access to certain campaign finance information, and to provide information that will assist the voting public in forming an educated opinion about the potential conflicts of interest that are created when a candidate for Surrogate receives Political Contributions from lawyers, law firms and political action committees controlled by lawyers and law firms.

. 2. Definitions

"Political Contribution" shall mean any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money made, directly or indirectly, to a candidate for Surrogate.

"Political Solicitation" shall mean a solicitation directed to any person or entity resulting in a Political Contribution to a candidate for Surrogate.

. 3. Disclosure of contributions and loans made to, and solicitations made on behalf of, campaigns for Surrogate's Court judge by lawyers

(a) Public disclosure of all Political Contributions made to, and Political Solicitations made on behalf of, political committees of campaigns for Surrogate by lawyers, law firms and political action committees controlled by law firms or lawyers must be made to the Office of Court Administration in a complete and timely manner, as described in § 3(b) and (c) below.

(b) Contents of the public disclosure

(i) Political contributions received from individual lawyers. For each political contribution received from a lawyer, the lawyer's complete name, residential address and employer, and the amount and the date the political contribution was received must be disclosed.

(ii) Political contribution received from law firms. For each political contribution received from a law firm, the law firm's complete name and address, and the amount and the date the political contribution was received must be disclosed.

(iii) Political Contributions received from political action committees controlled by law firms or lawyers. For each political contribution received from a political action committee, the committee's full name and address, the complete name and address of the law firm or lawyer that controls the committee, and the amount and the date the political contribution was received must be disclosed.

(iv) Political Solicitations made on behalf of the campaign. The same information about solicitors must be disclosed as if the solicitor was a contributor except that the amount and date of each political solicitation shall not be separately detailed. Rather, the amount the solicitor obtained through solicitations during a particular reporting period shall be aggregated and disclosed as one sum.

(v) Returned Political Contributions. Except under the circumstances described in § 3(b)(vi), when a campaign returns a political contribution, it shall disclose the complete name and address of the contributor, the date the political contribution was returned, and the amount being returned. in the case of a lawyer's political contribution being returned, the lawyer's employer shall also be disclosed.

(vi) Exception to reporting a political contribution or political solicitation. If a campaign returns a Political Contribution because the contributor or solicitor who solicited the Political Contribution is a lawyer, law firm, or political action committee controlled by a lawyer or law firm within five business days of ascertaining this information, the political contribution or political solicitation need not be separately disclosed to the Office of Court Administration.

(vii) Good faith exemption from liability. Campaigns must make a good faith effort to disclose all the information required by this Rule. A campaign that fails to disclose the information required by this Rule will not be liable under the Rule if it makes a good faith effort to obtain and disclose the information. Good faith may be demonstrated by requesting the required information on contribution cards, in mailings, or by telephone. Campaigns should keep records evidencing their good faith efforts.

(c) Filing dates and reporting periods.

(i) Filing dates. The public disclosure described in § 3(b) above must be made by the same dates for campaign finance public disclosure as required by N.Y. Elec. Law § 14-108 subd. (1) and (2).

(ii) Reporting periods. Except as provided in § 3(c)(iii), all reporting periods for this Rule shall be concurrent with campaign finance public disclosure reporting periods as provided in N.Y. Elec. Law § 14-108.

(iii) Special pre-election public disclosure. Public disclosure of contributions and loans of $500 or greater, and solicitations that lead to contributions of $500 or greater, must be made on a daily basis during the 14 days prior to each election for which the candidate is on the ballot. The disclosure must be received by the Office of Court Administration within 24 hours of the contribution, loan or solicitation being made. All other contributions, loans and solicitations must be disclosed by the first deadline after the election as described in N.Y. Elec. Law § 14-110 subd. (1). During these 14 days, if a campaign receives multiple contributions from a single source aggregating $500 or more, then the contribution that causes the total to equal or exceed $500 must be disclosed, and the previous amount contributed during these 14 days must be disclosed. Thereafter, all subsequent contributions from that single source must be disclosed pursuant to this provision.

Application

This Rule shall apply to any Political Contribution made to or Political Solicitation made on behalf of a campaign for Surrogate on or after ____________, 1998.

2005 Article Published in Gotham Gazette Says Surrogate 's Court Must Go

Manhattan Surrogate's Court, 31 Chambers Street

So, what's happening today? The Court is more corrupt than ever, and the stories are being posted. I have spent 11 years being pesecuted by Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge Renee Roth, and now Judge Troy Webber, and their crew: Mary Santamarina and Barbara Levitan, Surrogate's Court Law Department Attorneys, and Dorothy Henderson, former Law Clerk to Judge Roth and now the law clerk to New York State Supreme Court Judge HON. NICHOLAS FIGUEROA:
Chambers: 60 Centre Street, Room 655
New York, New York 10007
Phone: (646) 386-3187
Law Secretary: Dorothy Henderson, Esq.

My story of woe will be told in a few days.

The public should know that the Surrogate's Court has long been places of intrigue and back-door scams. If you live in New York City, please contact your nearest estate planner immediately, even if you are young and healthy, because to die in this State and have your property get into the hands of the lawyers, clerks and judges of the Surrogate's Court is a crime waiting to happen.

Feinberg Disbarred, Rosenthal Suspended
N.Y. LAW JOURNAL, By Daniel Wise, December 05, 2008
LINK

Former Brooklyn Surrogate Michael H. Feinberg, who was removed from the bench three years ago, was disbarred yesterday by the Appellate Division, Third Department.

In two disciplinary proceedings factually linked to Mr. Feinberg's, the Third Department also suspended Louis R. Rosenthal, the former counsel to the Brooklyn public administrator, for two years, and censured Stephen H. Chepiga, the chief clerk of the Surrogate's Court in Brooklyn since 1998.

Mr. Feinberg was disbarred upon the strength of the Court of Appeals decision in 2005 removing him from the bench for awarding Mr. Rosenthal $8.6 million in fees without requiring affidavits detailing the services he provided as required by law (Matter of Feinberg, D-69-08).

The Third Department found that Mr. Rosenthal had charged and collected "excessive fees" without following proper procedures (Matter of Rosenthal, D-68-08). In recommending Mr. Feinberg's removal, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct had found that Mr. Rosenthal consistently billed 2 percent more for his work than permitted, resulting in more than $2 million in excessive fees (Matter of Chepiga, D-70-08).

The Third Department decision appear on page 7 of the print edition of today's Law Journal.

Fabian G. Palomino, who represented both Mr. Feinberg and Mr. Rosenthal, did not return a request for comment. Mr. Rosenthal also did not return a request for comment, and Mr. Feinberg could not be located.

Mr. Chepiga's lawyer, Peter V. Coffey of Englert, Coffey, McHugh & Fantuzzi in Schenectady, said, "If you talk to anyone in the court system they will tell you that Mr. Chepiga is diligent, hardworking and a man of great integrity and truthfulness.

"He has unhesitatingly been retained in his position" as chief clerk, Mr. Coffey added.

All three decisions were issued per curiam by the same panel: Justices Thomas E. Mercure, Edward O. Spain, Robert S. Rose, Anthony T. Kane and Leslie E. Stein.

"The taint of favoritism is strong" in the relationship between Mr. Feinberg and Mr. Rosenthal, the Court of Appeals found in its removal opinion, Matter of Feinberg, 5 NY3d 206. The Court described Mr. Rosenthal as "a close personal friend and political supporter" of Mr. Feinberg whom the former surrogate appointed as counsel to the public administrator without considering any other candidates.

The counsel to the public administrator is responsible for handling Surrogate Court proceedings relating to people who died without wills and do not have close relatives to handle their affairs.

In disbarring Mr. Feinberg, who was Brooklyn's surrogate for eight years, the panel noted that an attorney may be charged with professional misconduct for the same acts for which he was disciplined as a judge.

Disbarment is necessary, the panel concluded, "to protect the public and preserve the reputation of the bar."

The principal Court of Appeals finding relied on by the Third Department that Mr. Feinberg had failed to familiarize himself with a 1993 amendment to the Surrogate Court's Procedure Act (SCPA), which requires the counsel to the public administrator to support his fee requests with affidavits detailing the services rendered, the time spent, and the method or basis upon which the compensation is computed.

Over five years and 475 proceedings, both the Court of Appeals and the Third Department had found that Mr. Feinberg had remained unaware of the 1993 amendment to SPCA §1108. That amendment had been enacted, the Third Department panel noted, after an investigation by the attorney general and comptroller had found abuses in the award of fees to public administrators' counsel.

The Court of Appeals had described Mr. Feinberg's "consistent disregard for fundamental statutory requirements of office" as demonstrating "an unacceptable incompetence in the law."

Counsel Suspended

With regard to Mr. Rosenthal, the Third Department found that he had collected "excessive fees" for his work by "regularly" requesting fees that reflected the same percentage amount of the total value of the estate he was handling.

In the conduct commissions ruling recommending Mr. Feinberg's removal, it had found that Mr. Rosenthal routinely requested fees pegged at 8 percent of the value of an estate.

The commission noted that surrogates in the city's other boroughs generally pegged compensation for counsel to the public administrator at 6 percent of the value of an estate.

In addition, the commission relied on agreement between the attorney general and Mr. Feinberg's predecessor, Surrogate Bernard Bloom, to limit compensation to 6 percent. The agreement was initially worked out in 1988 and renewed in 1994 (NYLJ, Feb. 15, 2005).

The Third Department also found that rather than submitting the required affidavits of service, Mr. Rosenthal had submitted his fee requests on Post-It notes affixed to formal decrees.

The practice did not change, the panel noted, until the Daily News in May 2002 published an exposé of Mr. Rosenthal's fees and the way they had been approved by the surrogate.

Even then, the panel wrote, Mr. Feinberg re-approved all of Mr. Rosenthal's fees after he retroactively submitted the required affidavits of service.

Clerk Censured

In censuring Mr. Chepiga, the Third Department found that, though he was aware of the agreement limiting fee awards in Brooklyn to 6 percent, he was "actively involved" in the process of approving awards set at 8 percent of estate value.

The panel described Mr. Chepiga's statement that he was unaware of the 1993 amendments requiring the filing of affidavits to support fee requests as being "somewhat disconcertin[g]."

But in deciding that a censure was the appropriate sanction, the panel cited his "unblemished disciplinary record" and letters attesting to his integrity submitted to the court by Kings County surrogates. Mr. Chepiga's lawyer, Mr. Coffey, identified the authors of the two letters as Surrogate Margarita López Torres and Justice Albert Tomei, a former interim surrogate who was appointed to fill in after Mr. Feinberg was removed.

Though jurisdiction over disciplinary matters normally lies in the department where an attorney has his principal business office, the Second Department issued an order transferring the three cases to the Third Department, said the court's clerk, Michael Novak.

Surrogate's Court And Why It Should Go
by Gary Tilzer, Gotham Gazette, 04 Jul 2005
LINK



Last week, Brooklyn Surrogate's Court Judge Michael Feinberg (pictured at right) was removed from the bench because he committed misconduct by improperly awarding nearly $9 million in fees to attorney Louis R. Rosenthal, his long-time friend. The fees in question were taken from the estates of Brooklyn's dead, their widows and orphans.

In a unanimous decision, the state's highest court upheld Feinberg's ouster by the Commission on Judicial Conduct and ruled that his actions "debased his office and eroded public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary."

Feinberg never denied he gave the money to his friend -- in fact he freely admits he did -- but said the payments were justified and in keeping with long-time practice in Brooklyn Surrogate's Court.

Surrogate Feinberg was among a small group of judges, lawyers and politicians who make their living from a court that for over 100 years has been at the center of judicial, legal and political corruption in New York City. Yet it has survived many attempts to eliminate it.

If anything, today's politicians are more shameless than ever. On June 24, the entire New York State government acted to ensure that the Brooklyn Surrogate's Court will continue to benefit politicians and politically connected lawyers. In the middle of the night, both houses of the legislature passed a bill to create 21 new judgeships throughout the state -- including a second Surrogate's Court judge in Brooklyn. The bill was submitted by Governor George Pataki and passed later the same day -- without any hearings or public discussion. Since the law will take effect August 1, after the filing date for the September primary, Brooklyn's political leaders -- the very same people who selected Feinberg -- will get to choose another judge.

This latest episode and the disclosure of Feinberg's abuses should serve as an impetus finally to eliminate the court that Senator Robert Kennedy called "a political toll booth exacting tribute from widows and orphans." Once informally known as "the widows and orphans court," the Surrogate's Court handles estates from people who die without a proper will. In doing this, it funnels millions of dollars a year to lawyers who serve as guardians.

The prospect of appointing lucrative guardianships has motivated generation after generation of machine politicians and establishment lawyers to capture a Surrogate spot for one of their trusted judges, who then spreads the largesse among the party faithful. Often the fees they charge eat up substantial assets. For example, reclusive tobacco heiress Doris Duke, who died in 1993, wanted her estate of $1.2 billion to go toward the improvement of humanity. But a dispute over the estate in Manhattan Surrogate's Court became what one lawyer called the "world series of litigation," with big name law firms vying for a piece of the pie.

Play Gotham Gazette's Judges Game!!

The political establishment and media seem to have lost past generations' moral outrage at the corruption there. Even the well-informed tend to see Surrogate Feinberg's misconduct and other similar incidents as isolated problems. This year three candidates are vying for a rare open seat on Manhattan Surrogate's Court, but the campaign has not featured any debate over the way the court works.

A CULTURE OF PATRONAGE AND SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION

Earlier this year, political consultant Norman Adler told the New York Observer that politicians cherish the court for "the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: That's where the money is."

And the well-connected ones get it. "The courts are so political that almost nothing is decided purely on the merits," wrote the late journalist Jack Newfield in 2001, one of the few consistently outraged critics of the court.

The examples establish a clear pattern.

The Commission on Judicial Conduct found that the attorney-friend appointed by Surrogate Feinberg was so entrenched that he prepared the Surrogate's decisions on fees awarded to attorneys in the form of Post-it notes.

Between 1997 and 2001, according to Newfield, the law firm of Queens Democratic Party leader Tom Manton received more than $400,000 in court patronage.

In 1987 a government investigation accused the Public Administrator for Manhattan Surrogate Renee Roth of using the court as a racketeering enterprise. The administrator resigned after he was accused of stealing $1 million from three clients. And a 1998 bar association report found that about two-thirds of Roth's guardianship appointments went to campaign contributors or to lawyers who worked for firms that contributed.

Some of the abuses have been even more blatant. In 1987, Surrogate's Court investigators were captured on videotape stealing valuables from the apartments of the deceased; they had been hired to inventory the property.

The state regulates all aspects of Surrogate's Court -- except the public administrator that every Surrogate's Court judge appoints, who is under the city's purview. This dual control has provided a convenient way out for auditors. In 2002, the Daily News reported that, during his eight-year tenure, State Comptroller Carl McCall never audited the Brooklyn Surrogate's Court's Public Administrator. McCall's office insisted he never took a look because then-city Comptroller Alan Hevesi was already auditing the Brooklyn court. Hevesi did -- but never discovered that Judge Michael Feinberg was awarding excessive fees without proper documentation to his friend Louis Rosenthal.

The problems with Surrogate's Court go beyond individual instances of corruption; they are systemic.

UNNECESSARY AND INVULNERABLE

There is absolutely no reason to maintain a separate Surrogate's Court. Under the New York State Constitution, the State Supreme Court already shares jurisdiction on anything the Surrogate's Court might handle -- estates, appointments of guardians and conservators, and adoptions. And so, abolishing the Surrogate would not leave a sudden void in our judicial system.

In Supreme Court and Family Court, cases are randomly assigned to a stable of judges. But there is only one Surrogate each for Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Manhattan has two, and now so will Brooklyn. Putting the management of millions of dollars in assets under the purview of just one or two judges creates a recipe for patronage and corruption. Abolishing the court, and dispersing its functions and cases among the many Supreme Court and Family Court judges in each county would go a long way toward breaking up the patronage mill. But because of the big money involved and the powerful people who benefit from the court, every attempt to abolish or reform it in the past has ended in failure.

EFFORTS TO ELIMINATE THE COURT

In the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia called Surrogate's Court "the most expensive undertaking establishment in the world." He believed it was control of the Surrogate's Court of New York County, more than any other factor, that kept the Tammany Hall political machine alive through the lean years when he deprived it of city jobs and President Franklin Roosevelt denied it federal jobs.

In 1938, the New York Bar Association called for the merger of the Surrogate's Court and the Supreme Court to eliminate corruption. In 1948, the Americans for Democratic Action called for a legislative campaign to reduce the patronage in the Surrogate Court. In the 1950s a commission put together to end the abuses of Tammany Hall urged the elimination of the Surrogate's Court by merging its functions with the Supreme Court. These recommendations came to naught.

The movement to abolish the court reached its peak in the 1960s. Citizens Union urged the system of appointing special guardians be abolished and replaced by a staff of salaried public officials who could act for minors, widows and incompetents. Robert Kennedy endorsed this idea, saying the salaried public guardians "would eliminate patronage from the Surrogate's Courts and dry up a major source of sustenance for the worst elements in our political parties." But, almost as soon as Kennedy made the proposal, representatives of the bar association and many of the city's Surrogate judges attacked it. And the senior Manhattan surrogate at the time, Samuel DiFalco, who had been elected with the help of the Manhattan Democratic machine, blocked reforms.

Ironically, calls for the elimination of the Surrogate's Court disappeared as reformers assumed power in the city. In 1977, Edward Koch ran for mayor, attacking the Democratic machine. Soon after his election, though, Koch did what most reform politicians do after defeating a machine: make a deal with it. Though Koch set up panels to screen candidates for judgeships, presumably based on merit, as time went on, the erstwhile reformers became more and more dependent on contributions and support from the machine politicians and the law firms that benefit from Surrogate patronage. Since then, Koch himself – along with other prominent politicians, including former Governor Mario Cuomo -- has been the beneficiary of the Surrogate's Court. Koch, for example, received $77,000 for a guardianship in 2001 and 2002, according to the New York Observer. "I'm on the list of people who are qualified," Koch told the Observer. "They're very careful to prevent [the court] from being used as a trough."

Today, every candidate who runs for Surrogate pledges to make "reforms" and end the court's patronage. Once elected, they do nothing. This is so widespread that it hardly even counts as irony that a New York Times editorial in 1996 endorsed the now-fired Surrogate Feinberg with the words: "Justice Feinberg has promised reforms ranging from a panel to screen appointments and recommend changes in how the place is run, down to keeping the office open at lunchtime as a convenience to the public."

THE BROOKLYN COURT

With Feinberg's removal, people interested in running for his seat will have two weeks to try to collect the 4,000 signatures to get on the ballot. If two or more candidates qualify as Democratic candidates, there would be a primary contest for Feinberg's seat.

But this would not be the case for the second Surrogate's post the state government created last month. Even veteran political observers were astounded by the addition of a second Surrogate's Court in Brooklyn in the middle of the removal process for the current Surrogate -- without giving citizens the right to vote in a primary.

That's right, there will be no primary for the new position. Albany in effect gave Brooklyn Democratic leader Clarence Norman a big role in picking who will select the new Surrogate for that borough. Norman awaits trial for extorting money from past judicial candidates and supported Feinberg for Surrogate's Court in 1998. And whomever Norman and his cronies choose is virtually guaranteed to win the November general election, and serve 14 years before they have to run again.

The only chance of derailing this seems to lie in Washington. Because Brooklyn comes under the federal voting rights act, the plan for a second Surrogate's judge might need Justice Department approval.

Ten years before Feinberg's removal, the same State Commission on Judicial Conduct that removed him censured his predecessor, Bernard Bloom. Bloom's censure was one step short of removal. Then the political machine that picked Bloom selected Feinberg. Now that very same machine that chose the two discredited judges is likely to select at least one—and perhaps two - more Surrogates.

In setting the stage for this, Albany once again has provided evidence that, in a legislature where almost every incumbent gets re-elected, there are no consequences for taking the low road. The government's action also sends the message that politics still trumps justice in New York.

Gary Tilzer is a political consultant whose articles have appeared in the New York Sun, the Village Voice and other local publications.

Editor's Note 8/9/05: Gary Tilzer began work June 30th, 2005 on the campaign of Margarita Lopez Torres, a candidate to replace Feinberg as Brooklyn Surrogate's Court Judge

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POL BIGS BACK FEINBERG FOR COURT POST
By TARA GEORGE, Wednesday, August 21th 1996
LINK

Powerful Jewish leaders yesterday threw their political weight behind Supreme Court Justice Michael Feinberg's bid for the coveted Brooklyn Surrogate Court judge position.

In a press conference on the steps of City Hall, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden, Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Borough Park) and Councilman Ken Fisher (D,L-Brooklyn Heights) endorsed Feinberg as the perfect "mensch" for the job.

Feinberg, a Supreme Court judge for nearly six years and a former Civil Court supervising judge, is the favorite of four candidates competing for the Democratic Party nomination in the Sept. 10 primary. He has the support of the Brooklyn Democratic chairman, Assemblyman Clarence Norman (D,L-Crown Heights.)

A dissident faction of the party, headed by Brooklyn Assemblyman Anthony Genovesi (D-Canarsie), is backing Civil Court Judge Lila Gold. She also has the support of former Mayor Ed Koch and former Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo.

The other two candidates in the closely watched race are Civil Court Judge Ferne Goldstein and City Councilman Howard Lasher (D-L Coney Island).

The Surrogate Court judgeship is a powerful $113,000-a-year post with a 14-year term. Judges process adoptions and wills, and appoint guardians and trustees.

Feinberg and Gold have been bending over backwards to court the Jewish vote. Both candidates ran advertisements in the Jewish Press this month citing their Jewish credentials.

Hikind yesterday criticized Gold's supporters for seeking to discredit Feinberg by playing the race card.

Hikind accused Gold's operatives of saying "behind the scenes" that Norman Feinberg's chief sponsor, who is black is unpopular with many Jews in Crown Heights following the race riots in the neighborhood five years ago.

A Gold spokeswoman denied the candidate or her backers had done so.

NYC Comptroller William Thompson Audits The Brooklyn Public Adminitrator

Stanley K. Schlein, the "Fixer", According to Tom Robbins, Helps in Picking Judges

Schlein the Lawyer Making Bronx Judges -- Again
By Tom Robbins, The Village Voice, Sept. 29, 2009
LINK

​Bronx lawyer and Democratic Party fixer Stanley Schlein is really back in the saddle. On Thursday, reports the Daily News' Bob Kappstatter, Schlein ran the Bronx judicial convention at which new judges were selected by Democratic leaders. That's an interesting job for Schlein who was barred in 2006 from receiving court appointments after court administrators slapped him for careless mismanagement of his aging and ailing clients. That same year, Schlein was booted as head of a city civil service panel for using the city office for his private law practice.

But there was Schlein last week, helping to nominate the same judges who make the lucrative appointments he and his party pals have dined out on for years. Schlein is also back in the game as an election lawyer, working for a slew of campaigns. Even Bill de Blasio, who's promoting himself as the "independent" candidate in today's runoff race for Public Advocate, hired Schlein in August, paying him $4,000 for unspecified services; the lawyer pulled in another $17,500 from his friend Melinda Katz's comptroller campaign, and $8,000 from the much-investigated Bronx councilmember Maria Arroyo. He also took in $5,500 from the campaign of Fernando Cabrera, who squeaked past incumbent Maria Baez. In Queens, Paul Vallone paid him $7,500 in his losing bid for a Bayside council seat. Earlier this year, Schlein worked for new Bronx boro president Rubin Diaz Jr., receiving $15,000 for work on the special April election.

At the judicial convention last week, among the judges Schlein helped promote for new 14-year terms on Supreme Court was Lucindo Suarez, who gave Schlein six separate and lucrative appointments from the bench. Schlein's handling of his court-appointed caseload produced so many complaints that he was booted from the approved list of court-appointed fiduciaries in February, 2006. As the Voice detailed later that year, Schlein caused one family to lose a home to foreclosure and another's property to be listed as abandoned. He ignored pleas from the family of an 87-year old retired Irish domestic worker to set aside funds so that her last surviving friend could pay for car service to visit her at a Bronx nursing home. At the same time, Schlein kept the woman's entire $240,000 savings in a one-percent savings account at a bank owned by one of his other clients.

Exiled briefly from Bronx Democratic politics after a dispute with former party leader Jose Rivera, Schlein rode back to power with new Bronx leader Assemblyman Carl Heastie. (pictured at left) Schlein hasn't shown up yet as one of Mayor Bloomberg's massive reelection expenditures, but not because the mayor doesn't remember him fondly.

As Joyce Purnick reveals in her new political bio, Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics, Schlein was working the phones in Bloomberg's midtown hotel suite on election night in 2001, counting votes alongside Bloomberg pollster Doug Schoen as the Republican businessman vanquished Schlein's Democratic party that night. A couple of years later, the mayor named Schlein as the $63,000 part-time chairman of the Civil Service Commission. Schlein was later fined $15,000 after a Conflicts of Interest Board investigation found that he'd used the office and its staff for his private law practice.

Tussle mars Bronx Democratic convention to nominate judicial candidates
By Bob Kappstatter, DAILY NEWS BRONX BUREAU CHIEF, September 24th 2009,
LINK

The chairman of the Bronx Democratic Party and a local assemblyman got into an in-your-face blowup Thursday night at what was supposed to be a relatively scripted convention to nominate judicial candidates.

Yelling and jabbing his finger, Assemblyman Peter Rivera (pictured at right) had to be held back from Assemblyman and Party Boss Carl Heastie.

Rivera has been orchestrating political moves by party dissidents loyal to deposed leader Assemblyman Jose Rivera, no relation.

After Peter Rivera's faction of delegates lost their fight to nominate their own judge candidate, the two exchanged words in the back of the room at the Villa Barone catering hall.

Suddenly, Rivera was lunging at Heastie and other members were jumping in to keep them separated.

A member of Rivera's camp, Sigfredo Gonzalez, a staffer of State Sen. Pedro Espada, shoved and blocked a reporter trying to take a photo of the melee.

Heastie later told the delegates he had extended the olive branch a number of times to Rivera to participate in party affairs.

"How many times can I be slapped in the face before I say enough is enough," he told them.

Thursday night's convention was held almost a year after the raucous Sept. 28 party convention that saw Jose Rivera nominated by a mixed audience of delegates, supporters and confused invited seniors.

The Rivera camp later pulled the plug on the loudspeakers and walked out, leaving Heastie delegates to run a by-the-book nomination.

A judge later upheld the vote for Heastie.

Stanley Schlein Rides Again
A Bronx fixer's scandalous history doesn't bother Yankees or Democrats
By Tom Robbins, The Village Voice, December 24, 2008
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A smart lawyer with good connections is a handy person to have around, no matter his pedigree. That's why, despite his steadily outrageous scofflaw behavior, the services of Bronx attorney and powerbroker Stanley K. Schlein remain in strong demand.

That Schlein, 60, is still at the top of his game was clear this month when he sat down at the elegant University Club in midtown across from Governor David Paterson and Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith. Schlein was there representing the three renegade Democratic senators who are demanding a fat share of the spoils before they agree to give their own party its long-sought majority in the state senate. He was holding all the aces.

The deal that Schlein helped win was so shockingly favorable to the so-called Gang of Three—awarding them committee chairmanships and leadership posts—that the rest of the Democratic caucus erupted in furor, forcing Smith to welsh on his handshake agreement with Schlein and his clients.

"Schlein is a very skillful negotiator," said a Democratic legislator who sat in on portions of the meeting. "He outmaneuvered Smith and his own lawyer."

Another delighted client happy to overlook his foibles is the New York Yankees, who keep Schlein on retainer as lobbyist, lawyer, and all-around fixer for issues dealing with city government. Public records show that Schlein has collected some $150,000 from the team over the past two years in legal and lobbying fees as he helped win political approvals for the new taxpayer-funded stadium that now stands where a wonderful public park once stood. Schlein's remuneration is undoubtedly much more because he and his client don't have to disclose his earnings from the local litigation he handles for the team when it needs a lawyer to appear in the Bronx courts.

Schlein remains the best man for this job because he has been in the Bronx judge-making business for decades. He is so revered in the courthouses on 161st Street that when he walks into court, the judges stand up for him—instead of the other way around. He earned this love and respect by being the leading point man for the Bronx Democratic organization, which picks most of the borough's jurists.

Schlein's political career was briefly interrupted when he and former Bronx Democratic party chairman José Rivera had a falling-out, leading Rivera to boot Schlein last year from his party posts. This is also why Rivera is now the "former" chairman. Schlein took his services to a group of party malcontents who quickly succeeded in ousting Rivera and his team from party power.

The new Bronx Democratic party chairman is a genial state assemblyman named Carl Heastie, who last week explained that he is delighted to have Schlein as his legal adviser. "Stanley is a very good election lawyer," he said. "That's what's important to me."

These well-tended clients make a point of knowing as little as possible about the rest of Stanley Schlein's career, including the scandals that have surrounded him in recent years. For starters, there was his removal in 2006 as chairman of a panel overseeing civil service disputes. Schlein had enjoyed a post on the city's Civil Service Commission as a patronage plum dating back to the early 1980s. Mayor Bloomberg was so pleased with Schlein that he named him chairman of the panel in 2003, a part-time job that paid $63,000 a year.

This ended when City Hall quietly let it be known that Schlein would not be re-nominated. No one was so impolite to say exactly why, but in January of this year, the city's Conflicts of Interest Board announced that Schlein had agreed to pay a $15,000 fine for "misusing city resources."

What he had done, Schlein acknowledged in a signed statement, was basically use the commission and its employees as his private law office. He had the office manager use computers, telephones, copiers, and fax machines to handle his legal work. He had her type and mail correspondence, prepare invoices, and even sit with clients to go over documents. Another office assistant delivered packages, greeted clients, and fetched materials from his car.

Lawyers need telephones, and the Conflicts Board found when it examined just two years of Schlein's phone usage at the commission that he had made more than 2,000 calls for what the board delicately referred to as "non-city related matters." The board refused to share those bills, but these calls were apparently easy to identify since many were long-distance, to Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

A less-charitable interpretation of this practice might have been theft of services, fraud, or even grand larceny. Just last week, days before Christmas, the city's Department of Investigation found it necessary to arrest a Bronx woman on charges of concealing the presence of another income-earner in her subsidized apartment, thus defrauding the city Housing Authority of $19,000. This terrible crime prompted an entire paragraph of felonies, the worst of which is punishable by seven years in prison. In Schlein's case, he was allowed to sign a stipulation, pay a fine, and continue on his way.

There was also no punishment handed out, other than his being told he couldn't do it anymore, after the city's court administrators found in 2006 that Schlein had mishandled several guardianship cases awarded to him by some of those Bronx judges that so admire him. Schlein was dropped from a list of eligible attorneys to receive such appointments, and that was that.

In fact, a Voice investigation that year into those musty folders in Bronx civil court found that "mishandled" was another polite euphemism. In a dozen cases, Schlein had repeatedly ignored the desperate pleas of family members and loved ones. There was the construction worker, brain-damaged from an accident, whose family could never get hold of Schlein when they needed him so that they could spend money from a lawsuit settlement to buy a wheelchair and clothes. Schlein somehow let a condo the victim owned go into foreclosure and be sold at auction. At the same time, he steered legal work from the estate to his friends in the Democratic Party.

There was the elderly incapacitated woman whose taxes Schlein never got around to filing and whose valuable stock certificates were allowed to expire. And there was Mary Johnson, 87, retired Irish domestic servant and devoted Catholic, whose life savings Schlein put in an account earning 1 percent at a bank where he was a major stockholder and which he also represented. Johnson was in a nursing home on Gun Hill Road, just minutes from Schlein's home on City Island, but nurses never saw the lawyer at Mary's side. Her family's one request—that money be set aside so that her last surviving friend, another elderly retired domestic, could use a car service to visit her—went ignored as well.

When the article appeared, several lawyers commented that the court's attorney disciplinary panel would be obligated to investigate. If so, no findings were ever issued.

Stanley Schlein remains a lawyer in good standing, negotiating with governors and senators. When the Voice asked for permission to use a photograph of Schlein from a recent charitable dinner for Easter Seals, the group's vice president called to praise him. "This is the guy who makes Christmas happen," said John McGrath. "He brings the kids toys from the Yankees, raises tons of money. This is an amazing human being." Which is what the family of Mary Johnson thought as well.


ATT'Y IN BRONX DEM WAR IS A PARKING CHEATER
By SALLY GOLDENBERG, NY POST, November 17, 2008
LINK

A well-known attorney involved in a battle for leadership of the Bronx Democratic Party used a bogus firefighter placard to park illegally, The Post has learned.

Lawyer Stanley Schlein was spotted parked in a crosswalk outside the Bronx Supreme Courthouse twice earlier this month, with a Uniformed Firefighters Association placard displayed on his dashboard, according to photos obtained by The Post.

He got away with the infraction once, but a source close to Schlein said the lawyer ended up receiving a $115 violation during one of the courthouse visits.

The placard reads "Active Firefighter," but Schlein is not a firefighter. He received it from a friend at the union because "he is a strong supporter of the UFA," the source said, declining to be identified.

The city's Department of Transportation does not honor parking placards distributed by law-enforcement unions - only those given out by Mayor Bloomberg - but police often turn a blind eye to illegally parked cars with fire- or police-union cards on the dashboards.

When contacted by a Post reporter, Schlein said he was jogging and could not talk on the phone. He did not return later calls for comment.

He formerly worked for Assemblyman José Rivera, who led the party until an election in October, when he was challenged by Assemblyman Carl Heastie, who belongs to a group that calls itself the Rainbow Rebels. The results of the election are still being disputed in court.

Schlein had a major argument with Rivera earlier this year and now works as Heastie's lawyer.

Heastie and Rivera battled for leadership of the party in September, and both declared himself the winner.

As the issue makes its way through court, with a decision expected before Thanksgiving, the warring factions have continued to attack each other.

Rivera and Schlein reportedly had a verbal fight during the annual Somos el Futuro conference for New York legislators in Puerto Rico earlier this month.

sally.goldenberg@nypost.com

January 23, 2008, 6:23 pm
Prominent Lawyer Is Fined by Ethics Board
By Jonathan P. Hicks, City Room
LINK



The New York City Conflicts of Interest Board has fined Stanley K. Schlein, a prominent political lawyer, lobbyist and former chairman of the New York City Civil Service Commission, $15,000 for misusing city resources and personnel to perform work for his private law practice.

The fine, the third-highest in the board’s history, was part of a settlement with Mr. Schlein, who admitted wrongdoing in an affidavit that was released by the board.

The board said that Mr. Schlein acknowledged using workers at the Civil Service Commission to perform “non-city tasks” for him while on city time. The statement said that workers used computers, telephones and various machines to do work related to Mr. Schlein’s private law practice. The board said that Mr. Schlein had workers making more than 2,000 calls for matters unrelated to the commission from January 2004 to September 2006.

Mr. Schlein has long been a notable figure in New York City politics. For years he has been counsel on critical matters to the Bronx Democratic Party organization, defending incumbents and helping to get insurgent candidates kicked off the ballot.

In recent years, he assisted the Yankees in their longtime goal of starting a new baseball stadium in the Bronx. He was an election lawyer to the former Bronx borough president, Fernando Ferrer, during his unsuccessful challenge to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2005. And he has represented politicians in the Bronx in the city’s plans to build a water-filtration plant under Van Cortlandt Park. He was named chairman of the Civil Service Commission by Mayor Bloomberg.

For a time, officials of the Bloomberg administration, which appointed him chairman of the commission, said that they did not consider Mr. Schlein’s political activities and résumé a conflict. But there have been a few blemishes in Mr. Schlein’s legal career over the years and, in 2006, Mr. Bloomberg decided not to reappoint Mr. Schlein to the commission on which he had held a seat since 1982.

Mr. Schlein did not respond to messages left on his cellphone. But a spokesman, George Arzt, said, “Mr. Schlein decided to settle this matter on an expeditious basis and has agreed to the stipulated payment called for in the settlement.”

In his affidavit, Mr. Schlein stated that, during his time as chairman of the commission: “I asked a principal administrative associate to perform non-city tasks for me on city time, which tasks he did perform for me on city time. These non-city tasks related to my private law practice and included but are not limited to: delivering packages, retrieving and sending facsimiles, greeting visitors and retrieving materials from my car on a number of occasions.”

Mr. Schlein is a graduate of New York University and Brooklyn Law School. He became an important figure in the Bronx Democratic organization in the early 1970s.

At one point, he was top aide to Thomas J. Cuite, a Brooklyn Democrat who was the City Council’s majority leader from 1969 to 1985. Mr. Schlein was also close to Stanley M. Friedman, the onetime Bronx party leader, and Stanley Simon, the Bronx borough president. Both men were driven from office and jailed in municipal corruption scandals. There was never any indication that Mr. Schlein was part of those scandals.

The Bronx Bomber
While rooting the Yankees to a new home, Democratic political fixer Stanley Schlein failed his other clients
Tom Robbins, The Village Voice, April 25, 2006
LINK

It is April 5, a big day for the Yankees, and they have sent one of their stars up to bat. He is the tall man in business-suit pinstripes in the corner of the crowded hearing room upstairs at City Hall. He is watching closely as City Council members cast their votes on whether or not to approve a new billion-dollar stadium for the Bronx ball club. His name is Stanley Kalmon Schlein, and although he has never run for elective office and most people don't know his name, he is to politics in the Bronx what Randy Johnson is to baseball in the Bronx: a crafty veteran with a wicked fastball who can throw over the plate or at your head depending on what the situation demands.

In the hearing room, Schlein is listening to every word as intently as Joe Torre watches his players, alert for the slightest flaws. It is not a shutout. One Bronx councilmember has dissented, criticizing the new ballpark because it will snatch 22 acres of parkland from the green-starved South Bronx with too little in return. But this was expected. A Brooklyn councilman has also voted no, denouncing George Steinbrenner, principal owner of baseball's wealthiest club, for rampant greed. But the councilman is a renegade, a member of no one's team, and this, too, was expected. The committee hearing is a warm-up for the vote an hour later by the full council. The tally there is a lopsided 45-2. The Yankees win. The Yankees win.

Stanley Schlein walks quickly from the hearing room, his BlackBerry to his ear. He is speaking in a low voice to Yankees president Randy Levine, the Giuliani-era deputy mayor who hired Schlein at $450 an hour to help guide the team to this moment. Standing in the City Hall rotunda, the cell phone still glued to his cheek, Schlein accepts congratulations from council aides, other lobbyists, reporters.

He is 58 years old, handsome with thinning brown hair and hooded eyes that have been watching power traded in this building as long as anyone. His first lessons came years ago from the Bronx's wily Democratic Party boss, a man named Pat Cunningham, who also served as a Steinbrenner counselor. When Cunningham went to prison, Schlein worked just as hard for the new party chief, a goateed cigar chomper named Stanley Friedman. Schlein carried out the laborious election-law chores, maneuvering allies onto the ballot, knocking foes off of it.

He held City Hall jobs as well, first as a top adviser to the council's leader, then as an aide to Mayor Ed Koch, who named him to an obscure patronage-filled body called the Civil Service Commission. Schlein has remained on the panel ever since, reappointed by Democrats and Republicans alike. When Friedman was later convicted of bribery and racketeering, Schlein suddenly was the last man standing, the party's political bulwark. As such, he helped to school a new generation of leaders who came out of the borough's now dominant Puerto Rican political clubs.

The current Bronx Democratic Party chairman, Assemblyman Jos� Rivera, stands in the rotunda a few feet away from Schlein. Rivera wears a grizzled white beard and a baseball cap, and carries his ever present video camera, with which he obsessively records every event. His title is not to be confused with decision-making power. Rivera's key contribution here is his progeny. His 26-year-old son, Joel Rivera, is the council's majority leader and the chief of the borough's delegation pushing for the Yankees' plan. But Schlein is clearly the shepherd. He has guided Bronx Democrats to an arrangement with Steinbrenner's team under which the lost parkland will be replaced with new open space and public ball fields, albeit constructed with synthetic turf atop new parking garages.

The local community board hated the scheme, voting 2-to-1 against it, citing high asthma rates and increased traffic. But their vote doesn't count. More important to sealing the deal is a commitment by the Yankees to supply $800,000 a year in grants that Bronx pols can dispense at will. Also included are thousands of free game tickets, as good as cash in New York. This is the deal Schlein has successfully packaged and sold.

That he is on both sides of the negotiation by virtue of his power within the Bronx Democratic Party and his Yankees lobbying retainer is a problem only for ethics watchdogs and spoilsports. "It's as though he sat in a room alone and negotiated with himself," remarked one dissident Bronx Democrat, one of many who have long marveled at Schlein's staying power.

Even those who look askance at the wheeler-dealer's behavior have long acknowledged his rascally charm. "Did I hear the word 'indictment'?" he said with wide eyes and a broad grin as he approached a group of reporters chatting in a City Hall corridor a few weeks ago. He has always been a good quote, a patient and courteous handler of an often ill-informed media. He has a tendency to speak in the staccato cadences of another of his mentors, former Liberal Party boss Raymond Harding, who helped keep Schlein in the fold during the Giuliani years and won him a midnight reappointment to his Civil Service Commission post in Giuliani's last week in office.



He doesn't lack for fans. Former Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer, (pictured above) who used Schlein's legal talents for his mayoral campaigns and even the real estate closing on his home, calls him "a lawyer of extraordinary skill. He is a careful guy. An ethical guy."

But that talent and charisma have had zero effect on some of those who have encountered him in his role as a court-appointed guardian for those unable to care for themselves. His charm has been lost on the families of an injured Bronx construction worker, an ailing elderly Manhattan woman, and an aging Irish domestic servant, all of whom depended on Schlein to guard the well-being of their loved ones. If he attended to every little detail for his Yankee employers with a hawk-like intensity, he has been deaf to these other clients.

A few weeks before he guided the Yankees to their victory at City Hall, some of those complaints, many of them years old, finally caught up with Schlein. They came in the form of a brief letter from Ann T. Pfau, one of the state's top administrative judges. The February 22 letter informed Schlein that he was being removed from the list of those qualified to serve as court-appointed fiduciaries�those named by the court to handle large sums of other people's money and oversee their property.

Such appointments are the stock-in-trade of every political organization. They are part of the portfolio of perks, patronage slots, and handsome lobbying fees that come with a strong party and the successful exercise of power. Judges, elevated to the bench with the party's approval, routinely name attorneys with clubhouse ties to serve as guardians, receivers, or referees. Many of the appointments are on behalf of the elderly or the infirm, those who have become incapacitated for one reason or another and are deemed no longer capable of managing their own affairs. The positions are highly prized because they usually offer a light workload and a virtually guaranteed payday that can range from a few hundred dollars to many thousands for each case.

As befitting his years of service to the Bronx Democrats, Schlein has long been a key recipient of appointments from judges who come out of the borough's political machine. Since 2000 he has received some $125,000 in fees. But that gravy train came to an abrupt halt with Pfau's letter. While offering no specifics, the judge cited his mishandling of property in two cases, that of a Bronx construction worker named Vincent Robinson, who lapsed into a coma after a construction accident, and an elderly Manhattan woman named Sylvia Friedland, who was institutionalized due to dementia.

"Accordingly, you will be removed from the list of qualified applicants by the Court as of the date of this letter," Pfau wrote.

Schlein refused to comment publicly about his handling of either case, or several others where complaints were lodged about his performance. "I am not going to talk about client matters," he told the Voice repeatedly during three lengthy talks conducted from his cell phone. "It's just not appropriate."

There had been occasions, he acknowledged, when he had failed to file required documents in a timely manner. "Mea culpa. I apologize," he said. "I take responsibility for that." But aside from those occasional lapses, he insisted that his wards had always received the appropriate care and attention. Moreover, he said that his attorney who represented him on the investigation had been told that if he chose, he could apply for reinstatement. Yet he had decided not to do so. "I said it is not worth it to me. I don't make a living out of this thing. It is not the core of my profession. I don't need the aggravation."

His real problem, he suggested, was a heightened sensitivity among judicial overseers to suggestions of political influence in the courts. "I know the county I come from," he said. "Other people may have conducted themselves differently. As for me, I have done everything I can to be a person of honor and ethics."

The family of Vincent Robinson, however, was unconvinced. Stanley Schlein entered their lives in 1998, eight years after an electric saw Robinson was using on a roofing job severed the femoral artery in his leg, causing massive blood loss and ensuing brain damage. Robinson's family received $2.4 million from a civil lawsuit. The family went to court to ask that a guardianship be created to allow them to make decisions about his finances. A Bronx Supreme Court judge named Anne Targum, who came out of the Bronx Democratic organization, appointed Schlein as an "evaluator" to determine if a guardian was warranted. When Schlein reported back that a guardian was indeed necessary, the judge promptly named Schlein to that post as well, allowing him to fully oversee Robinson's property and finances. It was one of 16 such appointments that Targum, who left the bench last year, gave to Schlein in the past decade.

Robinson's wife and adult children objected. Through their attorney, Brian Heitner, the family insisted that they were capable, with the help of professional advisers they would enlist, of handling the finances themselves. One of the things the family said they wanted to do was to build a new home that would accommodate Vincent Robinson so that they could take him out of the nursing home where he had been kept since the accident. There, he would be cared for by his wife, Esther, a nurse who had spent the prior seven years commuting daily to the Westchester facility to care for her husband's personal needs.

The judge, a transcript of that May 1998 session shows, adamantly opposed the idea. "We have this all the time, where the family seeks to invade the incapacitated person's funds and benefit themselves. I would never allow that, sir," said Targum.

Heitner, the family's attorney, said that the judge was "misconstruing" their intentions and pointed out that Vincent's daughter, Veronica, had been handling her father's finances since the accident, and that his son, Patrick, was a college graduate who would help as well.

The judge responded that the earlier finances had been "minimal. Now you're dealing with millions of dollars." The new assets, the judge said, "should be handled very professionally." The Robinsons "are not versed in property management," she said, "and have no possible background in that particular field." On the other hand, the judge said she was "fully satisfied with Mr. Schlein's competency, his conduct and everything else."

A few weeks after Schlein's appointment, the Robinsons and their attorney complained to the judge that they could never get in touch with Schlein and that he was refusing to return their messages. The family then moved in court to appeal the appointment. Two years later, a five-judge panel on the appellate division unanimously agreed, ordering that Schlein be removed, and that Robinson's daughter and son replace him. The judges ruled that there was "no evidence" that Schlein, "other than through his status as an attorney, was any better suited to manage large sums of money than a layman."

But the Robinsons had already learned that the hard way. Despite repeated warnings, Schlein had somehow allowed a Florida condominium that had been bought by Vincent Robinson for $72,500 to be sold at a foreclosure action by a bank that held a mortgage on it. In a motion to Judge Targum objecting to fees being demanded by Schlein, Heitner said that his firm had served notice frequently over several months on Schlein about the pending foreclosure, to no avail.

Nor was the condo foreclosure the only problem, the family said. Because they hadn't been able to reach the guardian, they'd also been unable to obtain the necessary funds to buy clothes for Vincent Robinson, pay for a personal-care assistant to help him at the nursing home, and even to make payment for a wheelchair they'd sought to buy.

Schlein termed those charges "ludicrous" in a blast back in his own court filings, in which he insisted no one had ever told him that a wheelchair was needed. He also accused the family of having purposely abandoned the condo in order to "blame me for the loss," as he wrote. He then went on to seek court approval to pay himself $35,000 in fees from Vincent Robinson's holdings for the work he said he had done on the matter.

There were others from the Bronx Democratic organization with their hands out as well. Schlein also asked the judge to approve $4,750 for his friend Gerald Sheiowitz, the treasurer of the Bronx Democratic Party, who had served as Schlein's accountant and attorney in the matter. In addition, he sought $5,000 to pay Flora Edwards, another attorney friend who is a former law partner of a top Bronx Democrat now a judge. Edwards's role, Schlein said, had been to review the appeals motions made by the family seeking his removal as guardian. In effect, he wanted the family to pay the court costs even though they'd won the case.

Finally, Schlein also presented a bill for $4,500 for the services of a lawyer named Alberto Torres, at the time a law partner of then Bronx Democratic boss Roberto Ramirez. Torres's role had been to examine the objections raised by the family concerning Schlein's conduct. Torres punted on that question, never offering his own opinion on Schlein's performance. But he did note in his own filing that, under one interpretation of the statutes governing guardian compensation, Schlein could be entitled to $10,000 more than he'd requested.

Ultimately, the Robinsons decided to drop their objections. Schlein and the other Democratic lawyers all got what they sought. "When push came to shove, the family decided they just wanted to put it all behind them and get Schlein out of their lives," said Heitner. A few months later, in September 2001, Vincent Robinson died. He was 68.

The Robinson family's problems with Stanley Schlein would likely have been buried forever in a Bronx court file if not for a feisty freelance magazine editor named Lisa Goldstein, who waged her own dogged pro se battle against Schlein after her 90-year-old aunt, Sylvia Friedland, became institutionalized and unable to handle her affairs.

Here, too, the incapacitated person, as they are called in guardianship-speak, was loaded. Friedland had about $2.5 million in cash, stocks, and bonds when Schlein was named by Judge Lucindo Suarez, a Bronx Democrat then sitting on a Manhattan bench. It was one of six times Suarez chose Schlein to handle cases.

Because Lisa Goldstein insisted she wanted to share the responsibilities for her aunt's care, Suarez allowed her to be Schlein's co-guardian. To qualify, Goldstein took a required course in court fiduciary procedures.

But the joint arrangement quickly fell apart amid mutual nasty accusations. In a series of letters to the court and various disciplinary panels, Goldstein complained that after she and Schlein were appointed, she was unable to get in touch with him for months at a time. She said that she had had to compile the court-required filings on her own, with no help from Schlein.

"Mr. Schlein just didn't seem to have the time for the guardianship," Goldstein said at a hearing last year on the matter. "Any number of times, I called him, paged him, tried him at his office." She had even asked the judge's clerk to track him down for her.

"I was always available, your honor," Schlein responded.

But Goldstein pointed out that there had been real consequences from the communications gap. Her aunt, already advancing into senility, had failed to file taxes for the two years prior to the guardianship. Interest and penalties were piling up. Goldstein said that she appealed to Schlein for help in getting the taxes up-to-date, but that he was unconcerned. Goldstein wrote to the appellate court disciplinary panel that Schlein had told her that "he felt no compulsion" to file new tax returns since her aunt was already behind in prior years and the interest could be waived. She said that Schlein insisted a special accountant, his friend Gerald Sheiowitz, the Democratic Party treasurer, would be recruited to handle the task. But when Schlein made no move to prepare the filings, Goldstein hired her own accountant.

Goldstein said that she had also entrusted Schlein with some $500,000 in expired stock and bond certificates that her aunt had held in a safety deposit box. The certificates were out of date, either no longer earning dividends or in need of exchange for new forms. Goldstein said that Schlein insisted he would handle the task. But as Schlein acknowledged in the court hearing, his only effort was to call an acquaintance at the state comptroller's office to ask how the expired bonds should be handled. In the meantime, a half-dozen corporations sent her aunt's stock holdings to state offices as abandoned property.

An exasperated Goldstein finally got Schlein to return the certificates so that she could handle the matter. She said Schlein, whose law practice is conducted from his cell phone and his home on City Island, had her pick up the documents from an office manager at the Civil Service Commission's offices in the Municipal Building. There, she said, she sat patiently with the clerk while they went over a list of serial numbers to make sure she had them all.

Schlein scoffed at that account, in- sisting that he had never used the city offices for his private work. But others dispute that. The commission's former general counsel, a Bronx woman named Willena Nanton, said that she and others were often asked to assist Schlein with his own legal chores. "I remember that there was a niece of a woman for whom Stanley was the guardian and that she had complained about him," Nanton told the Voice. "He had the office manager xerox all the stocks for her and then meet with her there."

Nanton, who worked at the commission for seven years, shouldn't be believed, Schlein said, since she is currently suing him and the commission in federal court for racial discrimination in her termination from her post. But two other people who used to work at the commission and are not involved in the lawsuit also said that Schlein used the office and its assistants for private tasks, ranging from filing motions in election law cases to meeting with lobbying clients.

"It's absolutely not true," Schlein responded. "I do civil service work there, not business. If I ever met a client there it was to go out to lunch."

He said that in Goldstein's case, her animus against him had been sparked because she coveted her aunt's fortune. "Ms. Goldstein's only concern," he wrote in an oddly worded letter to the court disciplinary panel, "was preserving estate assets to the detriment of her aunt. My dwarfing her efforts exposed me to her ire." He added that he had intended to seek Goldstein's removal as a co- guardian but that, "sadly, Sylvia Friedland died shortly thereafter, rendering any motion I may have had to remove her moot."

A few days after Schlein leveled those charges in his letter, Goldstein fired back a response, saying that she had never considered herself her aunt's potential beneficiary, since her father was still living. Schlein's accusations, she wrote, were "a fruitless attempt to deflect attention from his own inaction as a guardian."

Goldstein also decided to find out if other people had run into similar problems with the attorney. She went to the Bronx Supreme Court clerk's offices and read through all the files where Schlein had been appointed as guardian. She found four cases where family members had complained to the appointing judge about Schlein, including the Robinsons'. Goldstein then sent letters to several authorities asking for an investigation. Among those she wrote to, she said, were Judge John Buckley, the presiding appellate justice in Manhattan and the Bronx; state chief judge Judith Kaye; the Commission on Judicial Conduct; and the attorneys' disciplinary committee.

Eventually she wrote directly to the inspector general for the state's court system. It was an investigation by that office that resulted in Schlein's removal last February.

Up on Gun Hill Road, on the other side of the Bronx from where the Yankees will soon start building their new temple, resides another of Stanley Schlein's wards. Mary E. Johnson, 87, resides in Kings Harbor Multicare Center, and according to her closest friend from childhood she is happy and well cared for, even though she has been largely unaware of her surroundings since 1997, when she fainted at her residence in Manhattan and was found to be suffering from dementia.

An immigrant from County Kerry in Ireland, Johnson came to America as a young woman and worked as a domestic servant for wealthy families. An ardent Catholic, she was a member of the Blue Army of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an organization of laypeople devoted to promoting Christian values. She never married, but she kept close to her few friends and saw her family when they visited from the other side. Her needs were few and she had a substantial sum, about $400,000 in savings, when she was admitted to the nursing home.

The original plan of Johnson's three nephews in Ireland and a niece who lives in Florida was to have their aunt relocated back to the old country, to live in a comfortable seniors' residence near her family. But while she was uncertain about many things, Johnson expressed herself clearly in her desire to stay in New York. "She considers herself a New Yorker now," said one of the attorneys who interviewed her.

The matter of her guardianship landed in the court of Judge Anne Targum, the same judge who handled the Robinson case. An attorney representing the family, Elaine Harrison, suggested that one of the nephews was willing to make regular visits from Ireland and could serve as guardian. But when Targum said she couldn't appoint someone who lived outside the country, the family offered no strong objections.

The one specific request attorney Harrison made of Schlein�memorialized in a December 19, 1997, letter to the judge�was that he use Johnson's finances to pay for car service so that Johnson's oldest and sole surviving friend in America, a woman named Catherine O'Neill, could visit from her home on Webster Avenue in the north Bronx. Harrison even asked that such a provision be included in the judge's order. "It will be very beneficial for Ms. Johnson," she wrote, "if her friend is able to visit her regularly."

But as in the Robinson and Friedland cases, friends and family reported problems soon after Schlein's appointment. Catherine O'Neill, who grew up with Johnson in County Kerry, wrote Judge Targum in the fall of 1998 to state that "Stanley K. Schlein has not performed his duty." No one can reach him, she said, "and many of the things that Miss Johnson needs are being neglected, for example warm clothes." In addition, she said that she had never heard from Schlein about the cab fare. Winter was approaching, she said, and "being that I am 74 years old I fear walking the 18 blocks round trip to the nursing home from the closest bus stop in the ice and snow. Please do not deny Mary the only person in this world she recognizes, and that visits her on a weekly basis."

Catherine Vitanyi, Johnson's niece in Florida, also wrote to the judge that she had tried repeatedly but failed to get in contact with Schlein in order to arrange a meeting with nursing home staff when she visited her aunt. "As far as I know, none of the family has had any communication from him," she wrote. "The social worker at Kings Harbor also said that they have not met him nor has he met Miss Johnson."

Harrison, the family attorney, also wrote Judge Targum about the matter. Harrison said the staff from Kings Harbor had called her recently seeking permission to buy Johnson some winter clothes. "When I suggested that they contact Mr. Schlein, I was informed that the home was unable to reach him by phone because there is no answering machine. Thus, the only way to reach Mr. Schlein is by letter." She also reminded the judge about the order requiring that Catherine O'Neill's car fare be provided. "I doubt that this has been done," she stated.

Harrison's letter, which sits in the court file of the Matter of Mary E. Johnson, is accompanied by two unsigned, handwritten notes by court staff. Both suggest that Schlein was treated with deference in the judge's chambers. One reads: "On November 13, I spoke w/ Stanley. He stated that he gave her his pager and telephone . He will go to nursing home. I told him that I would call Ms. Harrison and tell her to 'cc' him if she is going to write letters about him." A second note appended to the letter, dated November 16, 1998, states: "I spoke w/ Elaine Harrison. I told her to page Mr. Schlein if she needed to speak w/ him and to write to him if she had anything to say to him."

According to rules governing court-appointed guardians, Schlein is obligated to visit his wards at least four times a year, and to file annual accounts of their finances. But records show that Schlein made no such filings for Johnson until 2002, five years after his appointment. He then submitted so-called "annual inventory and account" filings for years 1998 through 2001. For this, Schlein requested and received a total of $16,358 from Johnson's holdings.

There were no further filings until late 2005 and early this year when Schlein submitted more late reports covering the years 2002, 2003, and 2004. He sought and received permission, this time from Judge Bertram Katz, who took over the case after Targum stepped down, to receive $12,655 for the work. To assist him with the filings, he retained Hillary Sheiowitz, the daughter of Gerald Sheiowitz, who worked with Schlein on the Robinson and Friedland cases.

Like her father, Hillary Sheiowitz is also active in the Bronx Democratic Party, serving as treasurer of Bronx Young Democrats, as well as other political committees. She was awarded $2,250 for assisting Schlein. There was one more legal layer applied to Johnson's finances. An independent court-appointed attorney received $2,955 for examining the accountings to make sure they were properly compiled.

The Mary E. Johnson case was not one of those cited by Judge Pfau in removing Schlein from court-appointment eligibility. But despite the close scrutiny it was supposed to have already received, a review of Johnson's file suggests there are a few important questions that could be raised.

Back when Harrison, the family's attorney, was involved with Mary Johnson's case, she had written to the state comptroller's office of unclaimed funds to see if any of Johnson's assets had gone astray. She received a letter back listing several accounts and stocks that appeared to belong to Mary Johnson. One of the accounts was with Republic National Bank of New York and was supposed to contain about $38,000. Harrison then forwarded the state comptroller's letter to Judge Targum with a note suggesting that the new guardian should seek to obtain the funds, a practice known in the field as "marshaling the assets."

But Schlein never acquired the accounts. Instead, state comptroller records show that the office sent a July 2001 letter to Schlein's City Island home address stating that since it had not heard from him in over a year it was rendering Johnson's request file "inactive." The state representative then provided instructions to be followed if Schlein decided to "re-establish" his claim.

A spokesman for State Comptroller Alan Hevesi said last week that the funds were still being held as unclaimed property.

Asked about the matter, Schlein said his recollection was that he had been told that there were no assets to be claimed.

But the slipshod handling of the finances isn't the only question raised by the filings. After Schlein took charge of Johnson's funds, he merged most of her money into a large savings account at Doral Bank of New York that currently holds more than $240,000. Yet records show that the funds are barely earning any interest. In 2003, the Doral account earned just over $2,200�about 1 percent. In 2004, the account brought in just $1,200, about 0.5 percent. The bank's rate listings show that its highest deposit rate is 4.6 percent for a three-year CD. Its lowest is 0.5 percent. That's for its Christmas and vacation clubs.

Schlein, maintaining that it would be improper to discuss his client's affairs, suggested that he had deliberately kept the earnings on the account low because Johnson faced the likelihood that her assets would be taken in a Medicaid repayment action. He declined to provide specifics, and his filings contain no reference to a potential Medicaid problem.

But Doral, a Puerto Rico�based bank, appears in Schlein's own personal financial disclosure statements, which he is required to file with the city's Conflicts of Interest Board. Those records show that Schlein holds 22,500 shares of stock in Doral Financial Corporation. In 2004, he listed the stock as worth more than $500,000 and indicated that he earned more than $30,000 in dividends from it.

Did he know Doral officials?

"I did a litigation and a lease for them," he said. "About $35,000 worth of legal work. And I bought their stock. They are the largest bank in the Caribbean. They are a growing bank here in New York, and I think they are a good bank that services the community. The financial investments are appropriate."

As for his elderly ward Mary Johnson, Schlein insisted he had visited her "periodically"�as required under guardianship regulations. He said he hadn't heard from any of the relatives or from Catherine O'Neill, Johnson's friend, but he denied that anyone had had trouble contacting him. "I am never missing in action," he told the Voice. "You know that."

In Florida, Catherine Vitanyi, whose mother was Johnson's sister, said last week that she had been able to make just that one trip north back in 1998 to visit her aged aunt, a circumstance she regretted. "The last thing my mother said was 'Take care of Mary.' And I am in this situation where this man doesn't even want to talk to anyone, so it makes it kind of difficult. He wouldn't cooperate to even send a Christmas card. Easter, I have always sent a plant to her. I have never gotten any acknowledgment back. I asked Mrs. O'Neill one time about a poinsettia plant I sent. She said there was none there."

Officials at the nursing home said they were not allowed, under federal privacy rules, to comment on whether or not Schlein has been to see his ward, Mary Johnson. Catherine O'Neill, however, said she's never met him.

"I visit Mary all the time. I can't tell you anything about him. I never heard from him. I never saw him." She said her visits had been interrupted last fall when she underwent a hip replacement. "But I do keep in touch with the social worker there."

Up until the operation, she said, she had made all of her visits to the facility on the bus, walking the 18 blocks back and forth from the bus stop because the promised car service money had never been provided. "I take the bus," she said. "The cab fare they don't give at the nursing home, and I can't afford it."

July 26, 2005
Bronx Lawyer Is a Power Behind Several Thrones
By SAM ROBERTS, NY TIMES

There he was, advising the Rev. Al Sharpton during last year's presidential primaries. This spring, he joined the legal team promoting the Jets' proposed West Side stadium. Now he is navigating government bureaucracy for the Yankees and also counseling Fernando Ferrer about mayoral campaign arcana.

His name is Stanley K. Schlein, and he has a hand in some of the city's biggest projects and political campaigns. But few people outside the city's intimate political world have ever heard of him.

"I'm a guy who's always been low-profile," he says.

In the patois of New York politics, Mr. Schlein is a process broker. He is a man typically found, Zelig-like, in the background of photographs celebrating the announcement of a new project or a declared candidacy. People gravitate to him because, as a result of his political connections and legal expertise, he has a reputation for getting things done.

"I'm definitely steeped in politics up to my eyeballs," Mr. Schlein says. "But I'm not a politician. I'm a technician."

For years he has been a vital cog in the Bronx Democratic machine, defending incumbents and knocking insurgents from the ballot in the merciless tradition of city politics. This background makes it all the more remarkable that he also serves as chairman of the commission charged with protecting the city's civil service system, and its hundreds of thousands of municipal jobs, from the spread of partisan politics. Though the Civil Service Commission is considered "the guardian of the merit system," he does not consider his role an anomaly.

"I've been involved in organized Democratic politics for my whole life," Mr. Schlein says. "I talk to Democrats. I talk to Republicans. I'd like to think that people get beyond the party label."

Officials of the Bloomberg administration, which appointed him to the chairmanship, say they also do not consider his political activities a conflict. (As of March, Mr. Schlein's term expired and he technically became a holdover awaiting reappointment.)

"He knows how to survive and be successful," said Peter J. Madonia, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's chief of staff and a neighbor from the Bronx. "He knows how to separate politics from government."

Using the same explanation, the administration also seems not to mind that its appointee as chairman of the Civil Service Commission is working for Mr. Ferrer, who hopes to replace Mr. Bloomberg as mayor.

"He is a longtime member of the Civil Service Commission through several administrations, and we're confident he can separate government from politics," said Edward Skyler, the mayor's communications director. (In 1989, as an appointee of Mayor Edward I. Koch, Mr. Schlein supported the mayor's rival, David N. Dinkins, and probably would not have been reappointed if Mr. Koch had been re-elected. )

Mr. Schlein was born in the Bronx and has lived there for all of his 57 years. By most measures, he is a successful "technician."

He made $68,385 last year as the chairman of the Civil Service Commission, working, he says, "a considerable amount" in a part-time position that pays $352 a day. He collected $35,742 on the legislative payroll of Assemblyman Jose Rivera, the Bronx Democratic chairman.

He also practices law privately, ostensibly out of his home on City Island and from his leased Mercedes, and made more than $250,000 in legal fees last year, according to city records. (The Jets paid him $450 an hour, Mr. Schlein said, and he is negotiating a retainer with the Yankees.) So far this year, he has also been paid $38,600 as a court-appointed guardian and evaluator, according to court records, named by judges in the Bronx, Manhattan and Westchester County. "Maybe I get introduced to a client or an opportunity because of my political involvement," he says. "Certainly any power I have is because an elected official allows me to talk to them and share my recommendations."

One relationship raised a few eyebrows, even in the Bronx. Mr. Schlein was married to Maria Echaveste, who, before heading the White House public liaison office for President Bill Clinton, was the Bronx Democratic member and the president of the city Board of Elections. (The two have since divorced.) Mr. Schlein helped write parts of the current state election law, which the board enforces, as counsel to a legislative committee.

In 1999, Mr. Schlein successfully defended Robert T. Johnson, the Bronx district attorney, against accusations that he actually lived in Westchester. Last year, he also defended his decision to back Assemblyman Rivera's daughter, Naomi Rivera, for an open Assembly seat, declaring: "We are upholding the tradition of the Roosevelts, Kennedys and Cuomos in supporting competent and qualified siblings for elected office." (Ms. Rivera's brother, Joel Rivera, is the City Council's majority leader.) He has been Mr. Ferrer's personal lawyer, handling the sale of his house and the purchase of his apartment.

In 1982, he filled in for John LoCicero, Mayor Koch's patronage dispenser and political liaison. When Mr. LoCicero returned to city government from Mr. Koch's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, the Koch administration tried to find another job for Mr. Schlein. "We looked around and saw what was available," Mr. LoCicero recalled, "and there was an opening on Civil Service."

Mark D. Lebow, who was the Civil Service Commission chairman then, said Mr. Schlein "did a fine job. I agreed with almost all of his decisions. I have no idea who yanked his chain, who tried to blow in his ear, but I never saw any evidence of that. I'm aware he was the election lawyer for the Bronx Democratic Party, but that's one of those specialties you get to use about one month a year."

Mr. Schlein was reappointed by Mr. Dinkins, whom he also served as campaign counsel, and by Rudolph W. Giuliani. He was named chairman by Mr. Bloomberg.

Mr. Schlein was introduced to the Jets through Robert Harding, their counsel and a former deputy mayor, whose father, Raymond B. Harding, was the head of the Liberal Party. He was recruited by the Yankees president, Randy Levine, also a former deputy mayor, whom he knew from the Giuliani administration.

He has also done legal work or lobbying for DaimlerChrysler (which persuaded him, when the lease on his Jaguar expired, to lease a Mercedes). He has also worked for clients seeking to obtain a city contract for delivering frozen meals to the elderly, or hoping to develop a Staten Island pier for vessels that would ferry gamblers to international waters, or opposing stricter limits on billboards. Always, he mined his contacts in government to gain an audience and make his case within the system.

"I'm not an iconoclast," he says.

Mr. Schlein was raised in Parkchester, where his father, who ran a liquor store and fancied himself a man of business like Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, enrolled as a Republican. Stanley Schlein attended Brooklyn Technical High School and New York University, then decided to enter Brooklyn Law School, in part to avoid the Vietnam draft and also because he liked Perry Mason.

He began hanging around political clubhouses in the Bronx, becoming a protégé of Patrick J. Cunningham, the wily Democratic county chairman.

"Pat screamed 'Stanley' and five guys came running," Mr. Schlein recalled.

One of the others, Stanley M. Friedman, would succeed Mr. Cunningham and also become a mentor to Mr. Schlein. Mr. Schlein would eventually succeed Mr. Friedman as chief of staff to Thomas J. Cuite, the City Council majority leader.

"I gave him advice," said Mr. Friedman of Mr. Schlein. "Be honest."

Mr. Schlein was unscathed when Mr. Friedman and other Bronx officials were charged in the municipal corruption scandals of the 1980's. "People said I was either too stupid to be corrupt, or, 'he's the most honest guy in the world,' " Mr. Schlein recalled.

"I sleep at night," he said. "I don't need to take the last dollar off the table."

Mr. Friedman said another trait that distinguished his protégé was Mr. Schlein's willingness to say no. "His instincts are what's doable," Mr. Friedman said. "People rather pay you for a 'no' answer, a negative answer, than being strung along."

Mr. Levine of the Yankees said of Mr. Schlein's role in winning approval of the team's new stadium: "He knows his way around. He was instrumental in helping us frame the issues in getting our legislation through and dealing with the community."

Even one of Mr. Schlein's political rivals in the Bronx, Vincent A. Marchiselli, a former assemblyman and former member of the Civil Service Commission, said: "He'd always have a connection to protect himself. He was a judge-maker, a kingmaker. He was able to protect the organization's candidates in terms of the technicalities of the election law. He was always the guy to see when you had a problem. But I can't say he was dishonest."

Mr. Schlein does not deny his influence. "Do I recommend people for jobs? Certainly," he said. But he insists that he knows when to draw the line. "I turned down clients because they came to me to fix something or said, 'I want you to sit in the courthouse next to my lawyer.' "