Reversing Thrust, Spitzer Will Pay For Private Jets

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As the state lobbying commission investigates whether a prominent casino developer violated lobbying laws by providing gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer discounted rides on a private jet, a campaign official for Mr. Spitzer said that going forward the candidate would pay the full cost of charter flights.

The Spitzer campaign stopped short of saying it would fully reimburse the developer, Richard Fields, for the private air travel, which the campaign paid for at a significantly cheaper, first-class commercial rate.

“The Spitzer campaign has followed the letter of the law when it comes to reimbursement for air travel,” a campaign spokeswoman, Christine Anderson, told the Associated Press. “What we did was correct and proper, however …going forward, if charter flights are used by the campaign we will reimburse for all costs and thereby go further than New York State and federal election law, which we have strictly followed to date.”

The front-runner in the governor’s race, Mr. Spitzer is retreating from his policy of paying commercial fares for private air travel after coming under sharp criticism from his campaign opponents, who accused him of engaging in the same sort of pay-to-play practices that Mr. Spitzer has vowed to combat as governor.

Mr. Fields, whose companies have reportedly donated $200,000 to Mr. Spitzer’s campaign, is a casino developer representing Indian tribes and a member of a consortium bidding on the state’s thoroughbred racing franchise.

A former associate of Donald Trump, Mr. Fields has a lot of money riding on decisions made by next year’s governor, who will likely have the final say on a compact that would allow Mr. Fields to build an Indian casino in the Catskills and on selecting the winner of the racing franchise.

Yesterday, the Republican nominee for governor, John Faso, and Mr. Spitzer’s Democratic primary opponent, Thomas Suozzi, said Mr. Spitzer’s policy change did not go far enough. They demanded that he reimburse Mr. Fields for the actual cost of the flights.

“Eliot Spitzer should reimburse Mr. Fields for the full cost of the flights from the $200,000 he gave Eliot Spitzer’s campaign,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Suozzi’s campaign, Kimberly Devlin, said in a statement.

At the urging of Mr. Faso, the lobby commission is investigating Mr. Spitzer’s use of the jet to determine whether Mr. Fields illegally undercharged him for the flights. Mr. Faso is alleging that Mr. Fields gave the attorney general an illegal gift by undercharging him for the flights by tens of thousands of dollars.

The Spitzer campaign paid a development company owned by Mr. Fields $4,301 for shuttling Mr. Spitzer and a campaign staffer to fund-raisers in Arizona and Ohio and back to New York City.

The lobby commission requires that lobbyists who provide public officials with private air transportation charge them at a charter rate if the plane is traveling between airports that do not service commercial airlines, according to the commission’s executive director, David Grandeau.

Mr. Spitzer himself is not under investigation. State ethics and election laws do not require public officials or candidates for office to reimburse for private air travel at charter rates. The policy has come under criticism from Albany watchdog groups that say the state shouldn’t allow public officials to receive subsidized air travel.

Representatives of Mr. Fields dispute Mr. Grandeau’s interpretation of the lobbying law and are contending that Mr. Fields charged the attorney general an appropriate amount.

Mr. Fields earlier this year was fined $9,000 for undercharging Mr. Spitzer’s running mate, David Paterson, a state senator of Harlem, for a charter flight to Albany from Westchester County airport. Mr. Paterson ended up paying Mr. Fields $4,500 for the flight after initially reimbursing him $178.

As part of a settlement with the lobby commission, Mr. Fields did not admit to any wrongdoing.

The developer’s fund-raising efforts have extended beyond New York and the Democratic Party. The Miami Herald earlier this month reported that his company, Coastal Development Corp., gave $100,000 to the Conservative Values Coalition, a third-party group that is backing the gubernatorial campaign of Florida’s attorney general, Charlie Crist. If elected governor, Mr. Crist will be in a position to green-light the expansion of gambling operations of an Indian tribe that Mr. Fields represents, the newspaper reported.


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