Vadim Yarmolinets has been a reporter for the Russian-language daily newspaper Novoye Russkoye Slovo for 14 years.

He came to America because he was disgusted by all the political censorship on newspapers in the former Soviet Union.

Now, he says, he is being censored on his own paper in America because of a story he wrote on the Adele Cohen – Inna Kaminsky Democratic primary in Brighton Beach.

The backdrop to all this is Brooklyn machine politics, where there are often a few dirty tricks in the final days of an election. In 1989, the district attorney campaign of Dan Feldman gave out literature in Borough Park smearing Joe Hynes as the candidate of the gays. In the 2001 run-off for mayor, Mark Green’s campaign gave out racially divisive fliers to make Fernando Ferrer look like the puppet of Al Sharpton.

This year’s dirty trick is the killing of a story damaging to incumbent Assemblywoman Adele Cohen.

Last week, Mr. Yarmolinets was interviewing Ms. Cohen for a story. He taped the interview and says he still has the tape.

It was an aggressive interview. Mr. Yarmolinets asked Ms. Cohen about the suppression of immigrant Russian voters in Brighton Beach. He asked about changing polling places to make seniors walk great distances, the firing of Russian-speaking inspectors, the gerrymandering of the City Council district to dilute the voting power of the Russian-Jewish immigrants, and the removal of Anatoly Eisenberg from the ballot last year by a clubhouse judge.

He also asked Ms. Cohen about the homicide rate in Coney Island.

Ms. Cohen denied knowledge of everything, even though she wrote letters to the Board of Elections in 2002 asking for the switch of specific polling locations. The New York Sun has copies of this correspondence.

Then, according to a translation of the spiked story, Ms. Cohen said, “I am ashamed of you, and I’m ashamed of your community.”

The reporter took this as a slur on Russian immigrants.

Then Ms. Cohen said, “I’m finished with you. You can go now.”

Mr. Yarmolinets wrote his story at his paper’s Manhattan office. The story did not run the next day, or the next, or the next. There was internal debate, he says, but nothing was published, although he still has a small hope his story might be published before the primary next Tuesday. Mr. Yarmolinets’s paper is regarded as by far the best of the city’s 11 Russian language papers.

Mr. Yarmolinets suspects his story may not have run because of an unusual conflict of interest revolving around a woman named Marina Kovalyova. She is a paid press consultant to Ms. Cohen and an advertising consultant with the paper. She is frequently in the newspaper’s office.

In an interview with the Sun, Ms. Kovalyova acknowledged she was paid commissions by advertisers in the paper, and that she placed positive stories in the paper for clients. She admitted she also simultaneously works for Ms. Cohen but refused to say how much she was paid on the state payroll as a press consultant to Ms. Cohen, advising her on the Russian media.

Sources within the Russian media say she has threatened to withhold advertising from Russian papers if her clients did not receive favorable coverage. They said this practice is an unspoken understanding that flows from Ms. Kovalyova’s dual role as a power broker in both politics and advertising.

Ms. Kovalyova denied any role in spiking the story before abruptly hanging up the telephone.

Ms. Cohen did not respond to an interview request.

The editor (and former owner) of the paper, Larry Weinberg, told the Sun, “I have not read Vadim’s story yet. But it cannot run the way it is. I will read it. And if we can take some of the emotion out of it, I may publish it before the election.”

The history of the Brooklyn Democratic machine disenfranchising the Russian community is substantial and shameful.

In 2000, Russian-American businessman Alec Brook-Krasny ran against Ms. Cohen but was thrown off the ballot by a clubhouse judge, responding to lawyers for Ms. Cohen. He then ran as a write-in candidate and got an astonishing 1,500 votes.

In 2002, Ms. Cohen got voting sites changed, forcing Russian seniors to walk five blocks to vote, while non-Russian seniors could vote in their own high-rises. Russian-American inspectors were fired, and Ms. Cohen was allowed to address a class for new inspectors.

Four Russian seniors were arrested for giving out palm cards at a polling site. Still, Ms. Cohen won re-election by less than 100 votes against Susan Lasher, who was backed by the Russian community.

In 2003, Anatoly Eisenberg was thrown off the ballot by a clubhouse judge. He was trying to run in a gerrymandered City Council district, where half the Russian-Americans had been moved into an adjacent district to dilute their influence.

This year, Adele Cohen’s lawyers tried to remove Inna Kaminsky from the ballot but failed.

Now this conflict of interest has contributed to the supression of a legitimate news story on the eve of the Democratic primary.

Russian immigrants came to America to breathe the air of democracy. Vadim Yarmalimets came to America to enjoy a free press.

They didn’t expect that politics in Brooklyn could be just like politics in the former Soviet Union.