Cuomo Demands Pirro Response To Spencer Letter
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The Democratic candidate for attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, is demanding that his opponent, Jeanine Pirro, respond to allegations made against her by a man who is now another Republican candidate for statewide office, John Spencer, in a 2003 letter to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
In a rancorous debate yesterday between the two candidates, Mr. Cuomo highlighted a New York Sun article about corruption charges made by Mr. Spencer against Mrs. Pirro. The charges were contained in a letter that Mr. Spencer sent to Mr. Spitzer on June 26, 2003.
“A troubling issue was raised today in the newspapers, where Republican Senate candidate, John Spencer, who is running for the U.S. Senate on the Republican Party line, accused my opponent of using her prosecutor’s job to play politics in Westchester County and actually complained to Eliot Spitzer, who has an open investigation into the matter,” Mr. Cuomo said, according to a transcript of the debate that was provided by his campaign.
“That to me is a serious issue, because if the people of the state think that you’re playing politics with the prosecutor’s office, it erodes confidence in the very institution you’re trying to build.We have to restore the public trust, not tear it down,” he said.
In an interview with the Sun, Mr. Cuomo said the complaint was an “amazing revelation” and contained “damning allegations.”
Mrs. Pirro said she was not aware of the letter and accused Mr. Cuomo, a graduate of Albany Law School and the secretary of housing and urban development during President Clinton’s second term, of lacking a “basic fundamental understanding of the law.”
Mr. Spencer, who was mayor of Yonkers at the time he wrote the letter and is now the Republican nominee for Senate, accused Mrs.Pirro of relying on “outrageous” legal tactics and using her position as district attorney to shield corrupt officials from prosecution and retaliate against her political critics.
In the letter, which also raises allegations against state Senator Nicholas Spano, Mr. Spencer asks that Mr. Spitzer launch an investigation “to uncover the stranglehold that a few corrupt public officials have on the democratic process.”
The letter said: “Senator Nick Spano and DA Pirro continue to have the means to effectively eliminate serious opposition and to permanently punish those who attempt to exercise their constitutional rights.”
Law enforcement sources in Mr. Spitzer’s office said yesterday that the office’s public integrity unit is investigating “cronyism in the awarding of contracts in Westchester County,” and said Mrs. Pirro is not a specific target of the probe.
A spokesman for Mr. Spitzer’s office, Darren Dopp, said the office does not have a copy of Mr. Spencer’s letter, which was addressed to Mr. Spitzer and sent to a regional office of the attorney general, in White Plains.
The Cuomo campaign noted yesterday that Mrs. Pirro in 1999 sought to block Mr. Spitzer from establishing the public integrity unit of the Department of Law, accusing the attorney general of exceeding his legal authority and threatening to sue the office.
After the debate, a spokesman for the Pirro campaign, John Gallagher, questioned the timing of the news of the investigation, saying, “It’s ironic that the first time anybody hears about the investigation is three weeks before the election, even though they got the letter three years ago.”
He added: “This is the Cuomo campaign using surrogates to attack Jeanine Pirro. And it’s pathetic.”
Mr. Spencer’s complaint is composed of a one-page cover letter to Mr. Spitzer and a 14-page “chronology of events relating to the ‘political’ corruption, that I believe is systemic to the City of Yonkers and County of Westchester.”
Written months before Mr. Spencer stepped down from office, the letter portrays the Westchester political scene as a free-for-all in which shadowy deal-making and back-stabbing wreak havoc over the Democratic process.
Among several specific complaints against Mrs. Pirro, Mr. Spencer alleges that the district attorney sabotaged an investigation into alleged election fraud and ballot tampering by employees of the Westchester County Board of Elections.
He says Mrs. Pirro went out of her way to protect the chief of staff of Mr. Spano, Anthony Mangone, against criminal charges connected to the case. Mrs. Pirro instead went after political operative Dennis Wedra, who was accused of enrolling Hispanic residents in a minor party and tricking them into voting for Phil Werbel, a candidate for Yonkers City Court and a client of Mr. Wedra’s. Mr. Mangone, whom Mr. Spencer describes as the intermediary between Mr. Wedra and Mr. Spano, agreed to testify against Mr. Wedra in exchange for not being charged, Mr. Spencer wrote.
“The acquittal by the jury was not necessarily because they believed Wedra was innocent of the voter fraud, but because it was clear to the jury that Pirro’s tactics were outrageous and the real criminals were being protected by her,” Mr. Spencer wrote.
Mr. Mangone then got a job at the law firm that represented Mrs. Pirro’s husband, Al Pirro, in his federal tax fraud case.
The firm has a connection to a federal investigation, which was reported by the New York Post, into whether Jeanine Pirro’s office gave favorable plea bargains to defendants who agreed to hire Michael Santangelo, a lawyer in the firm who represented Mr. Pirro, who was convicted of tax fraud.
