Spencer Once Derided Pirro As Prosecutor

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The New York Sun

In his last year as mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer wrote a scathing 15-page letter to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that accused the Westchester district attorney, Jeanine Pirro, of using her position to protect corrupt officials and punish her political enemies.

In the letter, which is dated June 26, 2003, Mr. Spencer thanked Mr. Spitzer for meeting with him a month earlier and urged him to investigate what he describes as widespread corruption in Westchester County.

“No genuine political corruption is investigated by the Westchester DA,” Mr. Spencer wrote. “Instead, she protects the corrupt officials, punishes the weak people caught in the corrupt web and insures that they are not in a position to point fingers. She uses her immense discretionary prosecutorial powers and the grand jury process, with its key advantage: secrecy, which prevents victims and the public from knowing the truth, to punish her enemies.”

He continued: “What is needed is a wholesale investigation by competent non-partisan authorities to take testimony and review documents to uncover the stranglehold that a few corrupt public officials have on the democratic process.”

Now, Mr. Spencer and Ms. Pirro are both Republican nominees for statewide office. Mr. Spencer is running for Senate against Senator Clinton. And Mr. Spitzer is the Democratic candidate for governor.

Mr. Spencer’s letter could become a liability for the Pirro campaign, which is chipping away at Democratic attorney general candidate Andrew Cuomo’s lead in the polls. It offers Mr. Cuomo, who has been quick to focus attention on the fact that Mrs. Pirro is a focus in a criminal investigation into her alleged attempts to wiretap her husband, more ammunition to attack his opponent’s ethics.

The letter could also cause new problems for a state Republican Party that is struggling to put up a united front in November. Showing a rift between two of the four statewide Republican candidates, the letter is essentially a story of a Republican turning to a Democrat, Mr. Spitzer, for help in prosecuting other Republicans.

The Spencer campaign yesterday all but disavowed the letter. A spokesman for Mr. Spencer, Robert Ryan, called it a “non-story,” saying, “That was then. This is now.”

Asked about the charges against Mrs. Pirro discussed in the letter, Mr. Ryan said, “Jeanine Pirro was a great district attorney for the people of Westchester, and she’ll be an even better attorney general for the people of New York.

A spokesman for the Pirro campaign, John Gallagher, said Mrs. Pirro has “successfully prosecuted more than 200 corrupt public officials.” The letter, he said, was “written in anger, and obviously John Spencer thinks Jeanine Pirro is the only candidate with the qualifications, experience, and record necessary to be New York’s next attorney general.”

Mr. Spencer wrote to Mr. Spitzer when he wrapping up his second and final term as mayor of Yonkers and backing the candidacy of one of his closet allies, a deputy mayor in his administration, Phil Amicone, who was running against state assemblyman Michael Spano, the brother of state Senator Nick Spano.

Tensions between the Spencer administration and the Spano family often ran high during Mr. Spencer’s administration, which blamed the senator for helping to defeat a ballot referendum that would have eliminated mayoral term limits in Yonkers.

The letter outlines several incidents dealing with cases of voter fraud and cronyism that focus on Mrs. Pirro and Mr. Spano and suggest a murky intertwining of political interests.

In one instance, Mr. Spencer alleges that Mrs. Pirro squelched an investigation into alleged election fraud by employees of the Westchester County Board of Elections. He accuses her of making a deal with the chief of staff of Mr. Spano, Anthony Mangone, that shielded Mr. Mangone and Mr. Spano from criminal charges connected to the case.

“And then, either she or Spano or both arranged for Mangone to get a job” at the law firm that represented Mrs. Pirro’s husband, Al Pirro, in his federal tax fraud case, Mr. Spencer wrote.

In anther case, Mr. Spencer says Mrs. Pirro buried an investigation into a case of voter fraud in 2001 when Mr. Spencer was backing a referendum that would repeal term limits. A number of Yonkers voters received a call from a recorded voice that urged them to oppose the referendum and strongly implied that Mr. Spencer authorized the message. Mr. Spencer says Mrs. Pirro buried the investigation into the calls after learning that they originated from a communications firm that did work for Mr. Spano.

Mr. Spencer also accuses Mrs. Pirro of using her prosecutorial powers to retaliate against a deputy county executive, Jay Hashmall, after he hosted a fund-raiser for her campaign opponent, Anthony Castro.

The letter says Mrs. Pirro and the Democratic county executive of Westchester, Andrew Spano, who is not related to the other Spanos, had a “non-aggression pact.” Mr. Spencer said Mrs. Pirro punished Mr. Hashmall for violating the pact by leaking to the Journal News that she had begun a grand jury investigation into whether Mr. Hashmall steered a no-bid county contract to an associate. Mr. Hashmall, who left his job in disgrace, was never charged.

An official in Mr. Spitzer’s attorney general office, Darren Dopp, said the office took Mr. Spencer’s “concerns”seriously, saying that they “are the subject of continuing review.”

A Siena College poll released yesterday showed that Mrs. Pirro is closing the gap in her race against Mr. Cuomo. Mr. Cuomo now leads Ms. Pirro by 13 points, down from 17 a month ago.


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