Looking to boost his long-shot bid for governor, Thomas Suozzi is charging Eliot Spitzer with applying a “hypocritical” double standard as state attorney general.

Mr. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive challenging Mr. Spitzer for the Democratic nomination, yesterday chastised Mr. Spitzer for not targeting an upstate Indian tribe with the same zeal that earned him a reputation as the “sheriff of Wall Street.”

Mr. Spitzer has avoided trying to shut down the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, N.Y., despite recent court rulings that the Oneida Indian Nation is operating the casino illegally. Citing the potential loss of thousands of jobs, Mr. Spitzer said he would not immediately move to close the business before fully exploring the legal issues involved.

“This is the height of hypocrisy,” Mr. Suozzi told reporters at his Manhattan campaign office. “We saw that the attorney general would move after businesses, would go after companies, would go after individuals, regardless of the impact on people’s jobs.”

Mr. Suozzi pointed to Mr. Spitzer’s investigation of insurance broker Marsh and McLennan in 2004, noting that the probe caused a sharp drop in stock price and led the company to cut 5,500 jobs. “Why is it that there’s a different standard in this instance than there was in the instances he pursued here in New York City?” Mr. Suozzi asked.

In Buffalo, Mr. Spitzer disputed his rival’s claims, saying: “It would be poor prosecutorial discretion to step in and close it down instantaneously, without permitting this careful investigation of options to determine what wise public policy would be.”

Governor Pataki has said the casino falls under federal jurisdiction and wants the National Indian Gaming Commission to review the case.

Mr. Suozzi’s attack on Mr. Spitzer was his second this week. On Monday, he assailed the attorney general for proposals that Mr. Suozzi said would amount to a spending spree of $32 billion and require Mr. Spitzer to raise taxes.

The charges come as part of an increasingly aggressive effort by Mr. Suozzi to engage the attorney general and make a dent in his lofty poll numbers. The Nassau County leader has launched a petition drive to get on a September primary ballot after Democratic delegates last week unanimously approved Mr. Spitzer as the party’s official designee.

Mr. Suozzi suggested the attorney general is going easy on the Oneidas because a lobbyist for the tribe, Patricia Lynch, is also a top fund-raiser for Mr. Spitzer.

“I’m not going to descend to the gutter talk of implicating motivation,” Mr. Spitzer said in Buffalo, when asked about Mr. Suozzi’s comments about Ms. Lynch. “I’m just not going to do it.”

Mr. Suozzi acknowledged his own contentious history with Ms. Lynch, who is among Albany’s most powerful lobbyists. Mr. Suozzi hired her to help win influence with state lawmakers after he became county executive in 2002. But Ms. Lynch terminated their contract in 2003 – shortly after Mr. Suozzi began ruffling feathers by pushing for widespread reform in Albany and criticizing the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver. Ms. Lynch was Mr. Silver’s top aide until just a few days before she opened her lucrative lobbying business.

“She fired me as her client because I had the temerity to say that Albany is broken, and the Democrats are as much to blame as the Republicans,” Mr. Suozzi said yesterday.

Ms. Lynch did not return calls seeking comment.

Recent polls indicate Mr. Suozzi has made little headway in his race against Mr. Spitzer and trails by more than 50 percentage points. Mr. Suozzi shrugged off the poll numbers yesterday, saying, “The real issue is most people don’t know who I am yet.”

He also dismissed a call by the chairman of the state Democratic committee, Herman “Denny” Farrell Jr., for him to drop out of the race. Mr. Suozzi said Mr. Farrell was part of the “Albany insider all-star team” that has discouraged him from running all along.