Ex-State Police Head Upset Over Spitzer Probe Records Release

ALBANY — More than 8,500 pages of interviews, e-mails, and documents released today include the angry testimony of the former state police superintendent who compiled specific travel records on Governor Spitzer’s chief political enemy but said he never intended the records to become public.The testimony of the former Acting Superintendent, Preston Felton, made a year ago behind closed doors to the Albany County prosecutor, shows the state police veteran was angry the records he provided at the request of top Spitzer aides were released to a newspaper. The records showed exactly where then-Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was traveling in New York City when he used state aircraft.Mr. Felton, who now faces an ethics charge for his role in the scandal that paralyzed New York’s government for a year, testified that a key Spitzer public safety aide, William Howard, ordered him in 2007 to create the synopsis of Mr. Bruno’s travels. The details went beyond what state police in previous administrations would release publicly about a politician’s travels, Mr. Felton said. Those details are usually kept quiet as a security precaution.“I will say this to you, when they brought to my attention that those materials were in the newspaper, they had to scrape me off the roof because that’s not why, you know, those were given to him (Mr. Howard) and it was made plain and clear to him that that’s not why they were given to him,” Mr. Felton said. “My recollection is it wasn’t a pleasant situation.”Mr. Felton faces an ethics charge by the state Public Integrity Commission that could result in a $10,000 fine for his role in the scandal. Now retired, Mr. Felton has refused to comment publicly.“We’re kind of stuck in the middle of this thing,” Mr. Felton testified a year ago. “You know, provide transportation, don’t provide transportation. They, you know, stick us in the middle, and we shouldn’t be in the middle, basically.”The Public Integrity Commission, in its report issued July 24 of this year, accused Mr. Felton of “knowingly and intentionally” violating ethics law for compiling travel data “that he believed would be provided to the media by the executive chamber.”Mr. Felton said Mr. Howard was his boss and that he, as head of the state police, worked for Mr. Spitzer.“We’re part of the executive department, we have to live with that,” Mr. Felton testified in the August 2007 interview with the Albany County District Attorney, P. David Soares. “They changed a lot of things from the old way of doing business. We had to live with that. You know, it’s just a fact of life.”The Spitzer Communications Director, Darren Dopp, turned the state police records over to a newspaper reporter who wrote a July 2007 article that was critical of Mr. Bruno and, Spitzer aides said internally, might expose Mr. Bruno to greater attention by the FBI that was already investigating him. The records were released under the state Freedom of Information Law, often referred to as FOIL.“What I made clear was this is not a FOILable document,” Mr. Felton testified.Mr. Howard accepted a lesser ethics charge by the Public Integrity Commission that carries no penalty. Mr. Dopp also faces a possible $10,000 fine by the Public Integrity Commission if the ethics charge against him is proven. Mr. Dopp has told Mr. Soares that Mr. Spitzer played a larger role in the release of records in the scandal than he and his lawyers have acknowledged.The Public Integrity Commission also picked up a copy of the Mr. Soares documents today.As for Mr. Spitzer, the governor was asked in his voluntary, unsworn interview if he ever ordered “any type of surveillance by anyone on Senator Bruno.”“Absolutely not,” Mr. Spitzer stated.The Democrat also said he was unaware of any change in policy for the release of state records.But internal e-mails, in which he identifies himself only by his middle name “Laurence,” shows Mr. Spitzer was angry at Mr. Bruno. On June 22, 2007, “Laurence” said he wanted to reach out to other senators in part because “it will further undermine Bruno if we go around him.” A May 16, 2007, e-mail with typos and sentence fragments from Laurence also says of Mr. Bruno: “I want to punch back at him. He is making personal attacks and i am going really go after him at some point.”E-mails exchanged the day the Bruno story ran in the Albany newspaper, showed Spitzer aides sought to capitalize.“How does it look?” Mr. Spitzer wrote early that day.“Gotta see to believe,” Mr. Dopp responded. “Think we need to move quickly to refer it to proper authorities.”“Wow. He’s got a problem,” Mr. Dopp e-mailed the Secretary to the Governor, Rich Baum. “Ground him and refer to IG?” he also wrote, referring to the state Inspector General’s Office.“Exactly,” Mr. Baum wrote.In other records released Tuesday, a top Spitzer aide said the governor approved the decision to have aides submit written statements instead of personally testifying in the attorney general’s initial investigation into the dirty tricks scandal that followed the newspaper article.Mr. Spitzer’s approval came even as the governor was saying publicly that he and his administration would fully cooperate with the probe.The records also show some statements provided by the governor’s office were handled in a way that they ended up being “perjury proof” and that two top aides at the center of the travel scandal differed in their recollection. The DA’s report did not conclude if the statements by Messrs. Dopp and Baum were intentionally made perjury-proof. In his testimony, the governor’s counsel, David Nocenti, “emphatically denied” he intentionally orchestrated the aides’ statements in such a way that Messrs. Dopp and Baum couldn’t face perjury charges.After first concluding there was no plot, Mr. Soares later issued a report in which Mr. Dopp accused the governor of ordering the release of the travel records.There was no immediate comment today from Mr. Spitzer’s spokeswoman. He resigned March 17 after he was named in a federal prostitution investigation.“Thousands of hours have been expended over the past year to uncover that no laws were broken and that politicians will always attempt to undermine their political enemies,” Mr. Soares said.

Ex-State Police Head Upset Over Spitzer Probe Records Release

Ex-State Police Head Upset Over Spitzer Probe Records Release

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