Cuomo Seeks New Powers After Scandal

Attorney General Cuomo is seeking to use the state police scandal surrounding Governor Spitzer as a springboard to increase his powers to investigate public corruption at the highest levels of state government, including the executive chamber.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who is widely believed to be eyeing the governorship in 2010, is urging lawmakers to approve legislation granting his office broad jurisdiction and subpoena powers, enabling it to launch criminal investigations of the governor, his staff, and other state officials.

A top aide to Mr. Cuomo issued the request during a Senate committee meeting yesterday that Republicans convened to uncover more details about the recent investigations into allegations that Spitzer administration officials improperly used state police to gather potentially damaging information about the governor's chief political foe, the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno.

Mr. Cuomo's chief of staff, Steven Cohen, whose office conducted an investigation into the scheme, testified that the scandal would have been quickly resolved had the attorney general's office been armed with subpoena power.

Mr. Cuomo's office was unable to interview key figures in the administration about the allegations or subpoena e-mails, provoking an outcry from Senate Republicans that has led to the launch of two more investigations by the New York State Ethics Commission and by the Albany County district attorney, David Soares.

"If we had subpoena power, the investigation would be over," Mr. Cohen said, arguing that the state needed a "single investigative body" to deal with public malfeasance.

As a candidate, Mr. Cuomo last year said he would aggressively pursue public corruption cases, shaking up the priorities of his predecessor, Mr. Spitzer, who chiefly focused on targeting Wall Street abuses.

The pledge has been borne out in Mr. Cuomo's seven months in office.

Aside from his role in investigating the Spitzer scandal, Mr. Cuomo also launched a probe of conflicts of interest in the comptroller's office that could lead to a dramatic reduction in the power of the comptroller over the state pension fund. His office has also inspected thousands of legislative pork grants to verify their legality.

Lawmakers yesterday said they were receptive to granting Mr. Cuomo more power. "The question we have to answer is whether district attorneys are not adequately prosecuting public corruptions cases," a Democratic assemblyman of Westchester, Richard Brodsky, said. "It's worth thinking about."

Republicans are preparing legislation that would grant Mr. Cuomo subpoena power only in cases involving the governor's office. The bill would force the governor-appointed state inspector general, which investigates fraud, corruption, and criminal activity in state agencies, to refer corruption cases involving the governor's staff to the attorney general, empowering the office to subpoena the governor, Republicans said.

Under Mr. Spitzer, the attorney general's office spearheaded investigations into Wall Street malfeasance that greatly raised its national profile. Its criminal jurisdiction, however, is one of the weakest in the country. In Alaska, for instance, the attorney general has statewide jurisdiction for all crimes.

Aside from a few areas, including securities and anti-trust cases, New York's attorney general cannot initiate criminal cases without a referral from a state agency or permission from the governor.

Historically, local district attorneys in New York have jealously guarded their authority. When Mr. Spitzer created the public integrity unit in 1999, he was sharply criticized by Westchester County's district attorney at the time, Jeanine Pirro, who accused Mr. Spitzer of stepping on the toes of local prosecutors.

Enlarging the power of Mr. Cuomo could potentially sideline Mr. Soares, who ran for office on a platform of going after public corruption in Albany.

"In theory, it's good to have an attorney general with a broad ability to investigate corruption," a Columbia Law School professor, Daniel Richman, said. "The attorney general is politically accountable to the electorate of the state in a way the district attorney of Albany is not."

Mr. Richman questioned whether the Spitzer administration scandal provided any justification for handing Mr. Cuomo more authority. "This is an odd occasion to be focusing on the need for more power. From an observer's perspective, we're presented with not even a hint of criminality," he said.

Last month, Mr. Cuomo released a report faulting two high-level aides to the governor — the communications director, Darren Dopp, and the liaison to state police, William Howard, for scheming against Mr. Bruno with the help of state police. The report found no evidence that a crime had been committed. The inspector general, Kristine Hamann, a Spitzer appointee who led a parallel probe, concurred with the findings without issuing a report.

Republicans said that lacking subpoena power, the attorney general's office was unable to conduct a complete investigation. They noted that two key figures in the scandal — Mr. Dopp and Mr. Spitzer's chief of staff, Richard Baum — declined to be interviewed by Mr. Cuomo's office.

Republicans also dismissed as worthless the conclusions reached by Ms. Hamann, who reports directly to Mr. Baum.

The counsel to Ms. Hamann, Nelson Sheingold, testified in yesterday's committee meeting that the inspector general's office aborted its inquiry after it determined that Mr. Baum was a "factor" in the case. Such a conflict of interest would have undermined any independent findings by the office, he said. "We realized that going forward was a waste of time for us," he said.

Mr. Sheingold said the office chose not to refer its inquiry to the attorney general's office for prosecution after Mr. Cuomo concluded there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. He declined to comment on his office's findings regarding Mr. Baum.