RUDY VERITAS

SENATE DAYS - Part I

I'm sitting in the Artists and Writers Cafe in Belgrade sharing Turkish coffee with a senior man from the foreign ministry.  It is 1989, shortly before war will engulf this country.  The smoke from our cigarettes wafts up and mingles with the cloud hanging thick in the air.  Serbia is a land of smokers.  Me and the Man from the Foreign Ministry (MFM) are talking war and nothing else tonight.  War with Croatia and war over Kosovo.  MFM is a friend of my father's.  He was the Consul-General in New York from Yugoslavia and is now back at the foreign ministry.  

While in New York it came up in conversation one night at dinner that he had once been posted to Albania.  I was fascinated by that as Albania - a rigidly communist country and much akin back then to North Korea in its insularity and poverty - was an interest of mine.  What do you remember about that posting, I had asked him.  Expecting some insider take on the repressive Hoxha regime or life in a capitol that had virtually no cars, I was surprised when he said, "the best ice cream I have ever had was in Tirana."

I had amassed a ton of frequent flier miles during a special promotion period using the Pan Am Shuttle flying back and forth from Washington to New York while working for Senator Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY).
The promotion gave me a free ticket to Europe but a short window in which to use it.  I decided to go back to the homeland once again, Yugoslavia.

Back at the cafe, MFM explained to me that the Croats were going to cause this war and that the Serbs were doing everything to prevent it.  He knew I was a Croat and thought for some reason he could persuade me to be understanding of his position.  It seemed so logical to him.  I merely nodded politely.

Earlier that evening at dinner he had gone to great pains to shoo away the strolling violinist at every turn while I was happy to throw the guy a few bucks. "Filthy Gypsy," MFM said.  "I think he plays very well," I said, "let me just give him a few Dinars."  "No, no, then he'll keep playing for us and we'll never be rid of him - filthy Gypsy.  Belgrade is full of them - Gypsies and Albanians, they are the worst."  It was becoming clearer throughout the evening how this country was soon to tear itself apart.

MFM went on to talk of war over Kosovo.  "Of course Serbia," he had already started to speak of himself as a Serb and no longer as a Yugoslav, "was going to protect its rights."  His point about Kosovo I happened to agree with, but his reference to himself as a Serb saddened me.  I had been raised by my father and grandfather to believe in the dream of Yugoslavia.  I thought of myself as of Yugoslav descent rather than Croatian heritage.  This coming civil war therefore troubled me greatly.

The rest of the evening was spent smoking and talking of war.  Heady stuff for a 23 year old junior Senate staffer.  I had toured the foreign ministry earlier that day and met with some very senior people.  My hosts clearly thought I had a much more senior position with the Senator then I in fact did.  It was a little comical but I don't think I got it at the time.  The MFM dropped me off at the Inter-Continental Hotel.  I entered a lobby that only months later would become the meeting ground to some of the greatest war criminals of our time.  I left the next day by train to visit my cousins in Zagreb.  They told me that Serbs would bring this country to civil war.  The only thing both sides seemed to agree on was Kosovo and that Albanians were scum.

Returning back to D.C. and my job with the Senator I feel into the routine I had known for the prior two years.  I didn't know it then but my days in the office were coming to an end too.  I was one of three Legislative Correspondents (LC) for Al D'Amato.  I answered mail, wrote floor statements, occasionally met with constituent groups, supervised interns and drafted form letters.  As a first job out of college on Capitol Hill it was heaven.  I lived in a studio apartment in Dupont Circle.  To make extra money I data processed by inputting names from the back-logged mail in the office.  My base pay was $12,000 a year.  I was told I was very lucky to get that as people were lined up to do this job for free.  Prior LCs had only made $11,000 a year.  I was stunned at how bad the pay was on Capitol Hill and at how many staffers had to have second jobs, usually in catering. 

The office manager, Claudia Breggia - an attractive woman, short, tanned, with blond highlights in her 30's - took care of every facet of the Senator's day to day  life.  She oversaw his Washington office as well as the various district offices back in New York, the office budget and procurement, and additionally, managed all his personal affairs.  She shopped for his groceries, did his dirty laundry and along with his secretary, made sure the Senator's array of girlfriends were always kept happy (Sen. D'Amato by that time had been separated from his wife for a number of years.  However when he went back to Long Island he did sleep on the couch in the living room of the family home according to a number of staffers).  She was a tough cookie and no one in that office screwed with her.  Well, I mean that figuratively because literally a number of people did.  Claudia was the highest paid office manager on the Hill and she took great pride in that.  She was my immediate boss and I would become one of her favorite employees.  That had its benefits as I'll explain later.

I was one of the few political hires in the office.  Contract hires were usually reserved for the district offices or for internships.  Although D'Amato's staff could never have been called stellar, they were 100% loyal to him and that was what he valued most.  I had gotten my job through the recommendation of the New York County Republican Chairman, Roy Goodman, heir to the Ex-Lax fortune and a very patrician man.

The main task of an LC is to answer the huge amount of mail that comes into a senator's office daily; especially one from a state as large as New York.  There is a mailroom within the office that processes the letters and they are sorted by issue; each LC having his own areas of expertise.  People are usually surprised when I explain the process of responding to constituent mail and how little involvement the Senator had.  I know as a fact, because I was friendly with staff from other offices, that his disinterest was the norm, not the exception. 

Part of an LC's job is to create a catalog of form responses to nearly every conceivable issue of the day that might illicit a letter to his boss.  For each issue you need a pro and con response.  If the letter is in agreement with the Senator's position you can go into a great deal of detail about where he stands on the subject, his long leadership championing the matter and thank the writer for their support. 

If the writer opposes the Senator's position, you restate the argument that the writer probably outlined on that issue and thank him for their thoughts.  They can't tell from the letter where the Senator stands or whether he's agreed or not.  You'd be amazed by how many people get con letters and think they're being agreed with.  But in writing the responses this way, the Senator hasn't lost a vote unless they already knew his position.  When a new issue generates enough mail an LC will create a new form letter and get it approved.  Usually the Senator will have very little involvement in this; his Legislative Director or even a Legislative Assistant will approve the final draft.

If the letter happens to be on some obscure topic that isn't covered by the form responses the catalog takes that eventuality into account as well.  The LC uses a special form to create a custom letter.  Sometimes phrases and paragraphs have numbers assigned to them as well as whole letters.  So on this special form there may appear just this:

1309                                                                                                                                

1425   your recent trip to Burma and your husband being eaten by tigers.

2304

1309 might be a paragraph thanking the writer for taking the time to contact the office.  1425 would be a generic paragraph with a space to enter the constituents main point or concern. And 2304 would be a generic closing.  There you have a letter that is not actually responsive nor from what you can tell, computer generated; it has your very specific concern.  I staple the form to the original letter and off it goes.  All this mail is sent to the back of the office where the women of CMS sit and where all mail hits the end of the line.  We had three women whose full time job was to plug in these numbers and type a name and address.  Their CMS (Correspondence Management System) computers were networked into a huge complex in the bowels of the Capitol where mail is generated, auto penned, stuffed and sent out to the post office.  It's a remarkably efficient system.

No mail is ever seen by the Senator.  Now I am sure, in fact I know, that some members of Congress do look at their mail. The exception in our office was when there was a major issue in debate.  The first one for me was the Bork nomination which was happening just as I arrived in the office.  D'Amato wanted the percentages of how the mail was breaking.  But in terms of everyday constituent mail?  Never.  

We worked in the Hart Building, named for Sen. Philip Hart (D-MI), often referred to as the 'Conscience of the Senate.'  You would not believe how many tourists I would hear grousing over the federal government naming this beautiful building for that philanderer Gary Hart.  Most senators in Hart have offices on two floors connected by an internal staircase.  LCs were upstairs, low rent, but also free to come and go as we pleased and we liked it that way.

On my third day my phone rang and the Senator's secretary told me that he wanted to see me in his office.  This seemed natural to me as he would want to welcome me aboard, newest member of the staff, that sort of thing.  The mouths of everyone around me just dropped.  "What is it?" I said.  "He's just welcoming me to his staff."  No one said a word.  I got up and started to walk down the stairs past starring eyes and agape mouths .  "Honestly, what else could it be?  I haven't done anything, it's just my third day.  I haven't had time to screw up yet."  It was obvious from their reactions that D'Amato didn't meet with junior staff and that this was unprecedented.

I knocked on his door and a "Yea!" came back.  He was on the phone and he pointed to a seat in front of his desk.  It was a very large office with a couch/chair set up against a back wall and his desk and some guest chairs on the other.  The usual trophies of photos, plaques, honors and awards were arrayed on the walls.  I sat down and waited for him to finish his call.  "How are things going so far?" He said.  Was he talking to me?  He wasn't looking at me.  I didn't dare answer in case he was talking to his caller.  Finally, he unmistakably  turned towards me and stared.  "Oh, it's great.  The job is great.  I am very grateful, Senator. Thank you for the opportunity," I said. 

"You're getting a lot of mail on Bork," he stated, not asked.  "Yes, we're inundated with it," I said.   "How's it running?"  "It's overwhelmingly negative, Senator."  "Yes, I know," he said. And seemed troubled by this.  The whole conversation seemed strange.  After a long pause he then asked, "how do you think I should vote on this?"   I was shocked by the question.  I responded, "Senator, I wouldn't presume to tell you how to cast a vote on a Supreme Court nomination having been here three days."  "But I am asking you," he said. 

As a matter of fact I had given this a great deal of thought.  The Republican in me wanted very much to support Bork.  But the libertarian side was repulsed.  What cinched it for me was when I heard his views on right to privacy.  "Well, if you're asking," I said, "I couldn't vote to send any man to the Supreme Court who can't find a justification for Griswold. Robert Bork scares me. He's a brilliant guy, no question about that.  But I couldn't vote for him and I couldn't advise you to.  If you're asking me."   He thought for a moment, all the while still on the phone with someone, and then said, "well the old man told me he needs me." 

Right above his head was a picture of himself walking along the colonnade behind the oval office and the Rose Garden with Reagan.  "I understand, Senator," I said.  The guy on the other end of the phone came back to life and D'Amato started talking.  He turned to me and said, "Do a good job, work hard for me and listen to Mike and Claudia."  I responded, "Thank you for your time, Senator." I think I actually walked out backwards like when you're with the Queen.  When I went back upstairs they pumped me for info and I realized how weird this all was.  I should have lied but I did not know this had never happened before. 

He did it because I was Ray Harding's kid and he was trying to be correct. The guys I worked with didn't know I was a political hire; I made sure not to tell them.  This exposed that.  Alfonse didn't even know the names of most of his staff.  If you were a male you were 'Big Guy' and if your were a female, 'Honey', 'Babe' or 'Sweetheart'.

Sometime later I went out to lunch with Mike Kinsella, his AA/Chief of Staff, to whom I relayed the Bork story.  He told me this story in return.  He asked, "did you see that picture of the Senator and Reagan above his desk walking on the colonnade?"  "Yes, I did," I responded.  "That was early on in his Senate career," Kinsella went on,  "when he still dressed in cheap polyester suits and many of his colleagues wouldn't show him a lot of respect because they believed he was just a product of the Hempstead (Long Island), Joe Margiotta machine.  Not to mention he had just beaten Javitz (Jacob Javitz, a liberal Republican revered by his colleagues whom D'Amato had beaten in a very dirty campaign). But Ronald Reagan treated him like a full member of the U.S. Senate from his first day and never treated him like anything else.  Al D'Amato always, always remembered that.  He refers to him as the 'Old Man' and means it with the highest regard.  He can't say no to him."  And he couldn't say no on Bork.

Working in the Senate has a lot of perks, from cheap haircuts in the Senate barbershop to access to the great Credit Union.  But the best perk was having the opportunity to see and meet institutions of the body.  I struck up an odd friendship with one of them.  A dying lion of the Senate, Senator John Stennis (D-MS). 

Besides the famed Senator's Dining Room, where Mike Kinsella had taken me, there are a number of eating choices in the Capitol complex.  On the Senate side, the cafeteria is considered to have good food and a great variety with lots of  different food stations.  On my first day I sought it out and found in the Hart basement what I believed to be it.  It looked like a snack bar with a small counter and a fairly limited menu.  There were a few tables and chairs in addition to some vending machines.  I was very disappointed but got my food and went to find a seat.

Seated at one of the tables, in fact the only one seated at any of the few tables, was Sen. Stennis along with his aide/man servant.  By this time - August 1987 - Stennis was in his twilight, confined to a wheelchair, hard of hearing, halting in speech, with one leg amputated from cancer, but with a very sharp mind still.  He and his aide were alone at one table and I sat at another.  For some reason, he invited me to sit with him.  For the next two and half weeks I ate lunch nearly every day with the Senator.  The aide never said much and never sat.  Choosing instead to stand behind the wheelchair.  He was of another time, in fact they both were.  The aide was a very dark skinned black man, very correct in his manner in an old southern sort of way.  Senator Stennis was always dressed impeccably in a dark blue suit and red tie.  I enjoyed talking with Stennis very much.  I would have loved to talk of really substantive things like segregation or the plan to listen to the Watergate tapes or a hundred other things in a career spanning forty years in the Senate but we talked instead about Senate Navy Bean soup and Ronald Reagan (he liked the Gipper a lot). We talked about New York and Europe, of Defense matters - he had been Chair of Armed Services for many years - and also of some major projects in Mississippi and New York that were before Appropriations of which he was currently Chair.  He seemed to like Alfonse a lot; found him kind of a hoot.

I assumed that since a senior senator like Stennis was eating here daily that this must be the Senate cafeteria.  It never dawned on me to ask my fellow LCs where they were going for lunch every day.  Finally, in my third week of work one of them asked me to go to the cafeteria for breakfast shortly after hitting my desk.  As we walked out of the office I headed to the elevators in Hart that would take us to the place I had been eating lunch every day.  He headed in the opposite direction towards the back elevators, up a flight of stairs, that takes you to the Dirksen basement.  I was smart enough to correct course and tag along.  Upon exiting the elevator I discovered the whole underground world that exists below Dirksen, but especially the cavernous cafeteria.  The cafeteria was indeed large and had distinct areas for breakfast foods, mexican, salads, burgers and pretty much anything else you could want.  Also a smoking section which was awesome.

I never returned to the snack bar and my lunches with Sen. Stennis after that.  In my youthful ignorance I had traded rare time with one of history's greatest segregationists and a Senate institution for made-to-order omelettes and taco salads.

*Next week - Senate Days -Part II or "How Come Dan Rostenkowski Went to Prison for Stuff We Were Doing Every Week?"*

Cast of Characters

Rudy Giuliani (RWG)         

Mayor of New York City (1994-2001)

Currently married to Judith Giuliani nee Nathan

Formerly married to Donna Hanover-Giuliani

Formerly married to Reginia Peruggi (marriage annulled - second cousins)

Estranged father to Andrew and Caroline

 

     Peter J. Powers (PJP)      

First Deputy Mayor, City of New York (1994-1996)

Campaign Manager 1993 & 1989

Tax Attorney by training

Longtime friend of RWG - attended HS & college together

Engaged in futile power struggle with RWG Chief of Staff Mastro

 

Ray Harding                      

Father of Russell & Robert Harding
Married to Liz Harding
Senior political advisor to RWG
Head of NYS LIberal Party 1976-2002

 

Tony Carbonetti

Chief of Staff to the Mayor                                    
Director, Mayor's Office of Appointments
Field Staff, RWG Mayoral Campaign - 1993
Founding Partner - Giuliani Partners 2002-2009

Hedge Fund Lobbyist - 2009-Present
Roommate and friend to Vinny LaPadula
Close friend and confidante to RAH
Married to Carol Carbonetti nee Dorian

 

Beth Petrone

Admin. Asst to RWG for 20+ years.
Friend of RAH
Widow of 9/11 firefighter Terry Hatton

      Randy Mastro
      Chief of Staff to the Mayor 1994-1996
      Deputy Mayor 1996-1998

      Therese McManus
      Director of Scheduling and Advance 1994-1996

Todd Ciaravino
RWG Personal Aide (bodyman) 89 campaign, 93 campaign
Office of the Mayor 1994-1998

      Cristyne F. Lategano
      Director of Communications 1995-1999
      Press Secretary 1994-1995

Dennison (Denny) Young
Counsel to the Mayor 1994-2001
Longtime RWG associate - US Attorney's Office, White & Case, Anderson, Kill

Peter Vallone (D)

Speaker, NYC Council during RWG term
Represented heavily Irish and Italian district
Helpful in passing major RWG initiatives

 

Luke Cusack                     

RAH protégé & friend
Sr. VP - NYC HDC (1998-2002)
V.P. - NYC EDC (1996-1998)
Chief of Staff - Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Office of the                     
    Mayor (1995-1996)      

Cooperating Government witness against RAH.

                                         

NYC Housing Development Corporation

501(c)3 not-for-profit that financed most of the low and all of the middle-income housing in NYC.  RAH President (1998-2002)  

 

NYC Economic Development Corporation

NYC's main agency for retaining and attracting business.  Owns large industrial parks and vacant land among other functions. RAH was Exec V.P, Corporate Communication from 1996-1998.

 

Irwin Rochman

Criminal defense attorney.  Represented RAH in first 8 weeks of case.  Good friend of RBH.    Previously represented RBH and Tony Carbonetti.

 

Gerald Shargel 

Criminal defense attorney. Represented RAH from 5/02-8/05.

Along with Bruce Cutler represented John Gotti for many years.  

Famously derided by Gotti on a secret tape for the huge amounts in fees he took to represent them.

 

Henry Mazurek 

Co-Counsel along with Shargel in representing RAH from 5/02-8/05

 

George Artz                       

Longtime NY Post reporter.  Founder of eponymous P.R. firm.

Hired by RBH ostensibly to do P.R. for RAH.

 

Vinny LaPadula                 

Friend of RAH & roommate of Tony Carbonetti.  Senior Advisor to Mayor Bloomberg. Chief of Staff - DOITT, Asst. Comm. - DEP  

 

Richard Roberts

Commissioner NYC Housing & Preservation Dept.

Ex-Officio Chairman NYCHDC

Plead guilty to felony charge of perjury.

      Friend of RAH
      Board member, REMIC (HDC subsidiary)
      Son-in-law of Vernon Jordan      

      Jerilyn Perrin
      Successor to R. Roberts as HPD Comm.
      Brought NYC DOI into HDC investigation

     

Chuck Brass

      Longtime HDC VP for Development
      Succeeded RAH as HDC President
      Provided FOIL documents to Tom Robbins

 Tom Robbins

Longtime hater of Harding family.  Along with Fred Sawyers fabricated hundreds of pages of chats purportedly between RAH & Sawyers. Provided background material and ideas to Sawyers for fabricated chats.  Phony chats were used as basis for a series of sensational articles for the Village Voice on RAH

Judge Jeffrey Cohen

Westchester County Judge.  Presided over RAH's SORA hearing.  Former public defender, turned pro-prosecution judge.  Using tough SORA rulings to impress court superiors and local Democratic party officials in hopes of higher judicial office.

Michelle Lopez

Assistant DA in Westchester County.  Works in DA's sex crimes division. 

J'ACCUSE - Part III

As Tony left that night after demonstrating how Fred had fabricated the chats, he strongly urged that I should hire some private investigators to look into Fred.  I hadn't thought of this and considered it a good idea.  I could show that he had been committed to a mental institution and had several suicide attempts, thereby refuting his credibility.  Tony recommended a firm headed by a Rudy protege named Bart Schwartz.  Tony told me that given the closeness of Schwartz to Rudy this could be comped.  I said great, let's do it, but I need to talk to Irwin (my lawyer) first. 

I saw Irwin a day or two later.  When I told him of Tony's idea he hit the roof.  Irwin had said many times that he would control all aspects of this case and I was not to do anything without consulting him first.  I explained that nothing had gone past the discussion stage and that no one had been contacted.  "What firm is this?  Irwin asked. "I don't know the name but the main partner is a former Rudy guy named Bart Schwartz," I answered.  "Oh, I know that firm, they're good.  They're called Decision Strategies.  Yes, that is a good idea.  I'll call Bart Schwartz."  A day or two later I was back in Irwin's office and we had Bart Schwartz on a conference call. 

I remember it was the beginning of a weekend.  Schwartz said there would be no problem getting background on Fred.  I emphasized that he should focus on the suicide attempts and his commitment.  I said that there must be public records of these things.  Schwartz asked if I wanted to have Fred tailed that weekend.  He explained that they would have to hire someone local in Indianapolis and this I would have to pay for. I thought out loud to Irwin and Schwartz, "what would be the point?  It's not like we know he's going to do something this weekend.  No, I don't think so."   Schwartz and an associate then asked me a series of questions about Fred and I endeavored to provide as much background as I knew.  That was the beginning and end of my involvement or any involvement during this case with Decision Strategies.  No contract was ever signed by me as this was all going to be on the cuff.  {I mention this as a year later Bart Schwartz would contact me with a past due bill for $23,000. I was flabbergasted.  The net product of Decision Strategies investigation of Fred was that he had a Visa Card and a drivers license.  The report they gave us I could have gotten off the internet for $30.  It was worth what I thought we had payed for it which was nothing.  Included in the bill Bart Schwartz would present me with were such items as $150/hr for reading Village Voice articles.  More about that bill later.  But suffice to say, Decision Strategies are ganefs; yiddish for crooks.}

Let me step back a moment.  From the time I first heard of this investigation I had contacted Luke, who was still a Sr. VP at HDC.  He and I met on a few occasions to go over the expenses. Many of the trips under scrutiny we had been on together.  At first he was his usual calm, collected self.   But as the days wore on, Luke started to lose his grip.   HDC was ordering him  to cooperate with DOI. Moreover, it was starting to become clear that Deputy Mayor Doctoroff had taken a big hand in this and was a driving force behind this investigation. One day Luke called to tell me that Doctorff had ordered that Luke cooperate or else.  Luke said he was going to march over to the bullpen at City Hall and tell off Doctoroff.  I had never heard Luke this angry about anything.  This was of course madness.  Dan Doctoroff had no idea who Luke Cusack was, other than being my right hand.  Furthermore, he probably would have had Luke arrested, if Luke had managed to make it to the second floor cubicles at all.  Cops let me pass routinely.  They would not have done that for Luke.  I told him very calmly that this was a dumb idea and that it would probably be wiser for him to quit HDC.   He resisted that suggestion until he hired an attorney who advised him to do the same thing.  Luke and I had an agreement since the start of this whole thing; if our interests were no longer aligned in this matter, we would say so frankly and not attempt to harm the other.  One day Luke told me his attorney thought that we should no longer speak to each other. I was sad naturally, but understood completely. 

Since I had hired Irwin to represent me I had assumed that his advice and counsel was geared solely towards my interests.  One of the first things he told me to do was to reexamine my expenses from HDC.  He instructed me to review any expenditures that might seem, not illegitimate, but lavish, which is different.  If I stayed in a very nice hotel on a business trip, for example, Irwin suggested that I calculate the difference between the nightly rate there with that of a Holiday Inn or Motel 6 and refund the difference to HDC.  I thought this completely idiotic.  I was the president of a multi-billion dollar corporation, not a city agency.  Even city commissioners didn't stay in Holiday Inns.  Moreover, this struck me as some sort of admission of guilt; that I was acknowledging having done something unethical or illegal.  Irwin and his law partner repeatedly assured me this was not an admission of guilt.  We must have discussed this particular point a dozen times.  During the first weeks of this, prior to DOI even entering the picture, I ended up paying $57,000 for these types of things as well as trips and some meals that had only a marginal business purpose or none at all.  (Gerald Shargel, my second attorney would later tell me that those repayments were suicidal from a legal perspective.  He said he had never heard of a criminal defense attorney advising a client on the verge of a possible criminal investigation to do something that injurious.  He also revealed to me that it was those repayments that first interested the U.S. Attorney's Office in me when they read of them in the newspaper.)

Tom Robbins was soon to start reporting on my expenses in the Village Voice.  Apparently they wanted a current photo to go along with the piece.  The doorman in my apartment building tipped me off that someone was watching the building and he thought it was a reporter or a photographer.  He was absolutely right.  I decided that I couldn't remain a prisoner in my home and drove to my parents house upstate.  It was during this trip that I realized for the first time that my father, rather than helping me or at least not harming me, was actually intending to sacrifice me and my legal defense in the name of his own political interests. 

Ray called a meeting in his office with Irwin, Artz, and me by telephone upstate.  Ray & Artz wanted to have me put out a statement.  I said fine. Let me have 15 minutes and I would call them back with a statement written.  The statement I wrote said basically that I do not believe I had done anything wrong, was proud of my record in creating affordable housing, but that if the Board of HDC had a question about any expense during my tenure there I would repay it the next day.  When I read this to the group, Ray and Artz were not pleased.  "The press isn't going to like that statement," Artz said.  "You can't say that," agreed Ray.  I noticed Irwin wasn't saying anything.  Finally, I said, " I want to hear what my lawyer has to say."  Irwin mumbled something but was extremely passive.  "You're my lawyer," I yelled, "say something."  Artz then read something he had written which basically had me admitting a crime and apologizing for it.  "You would let me say that?" I asked sharply to Irwin over the phone.  "Uhhh, no...we should tone it down somewhat," he said quietly.  I told them I would never agree to that statement.  What they wanted me to say wasn't true and I was not going to say it.  Ray then crafted something more moderate and in an attempt to guilt me into compliance, mentioned how harmful this was to him with the press.  He then turned everyone's attention to what statement Artz would release from Ray.  I told him that I didn't want him issuing a statement especially the one he had in mind.  His statement was so bleak and ponderous.  It clearly gave the impression that he believed something seriously wrong was going on - another admission of guilt.  You have to bear in mind there wasn't the slightest suggestion at that time or ever that Ray was somehow involved in my spending at HDC.  His actions that day had no legal significance for himself, they were completely self-serving to his PR and political objectives.  What do I mean by this?

2002 was an important election year for Ray.  The party he lead, the NYS LIberal Party, needed 50,000 votes in the election in order to survive another 4 years (all political parties in NYS are required to obtain 50,000 votes in every gubernatorial election in order to be considered a permanent party).  He was promoting Andrew Cuomo for Governor that year and needed all other distractions put aside.  Ray's lifeblood was his relationship with the press.  With my troubles only starting and possibly increasing, no reporter was going to let Ray sell his story of that election season.  They were going to hammer him about his son and HDC.  Ray calculated early on that the only way to get himself back in front of the press was to remove the news value from this matter even at the expense of the legal strategy.  You see Ray was behind Irwin Rochman's urging me to make repayments and Ray was behind Artz's admission of guilt statement.  If I am admitting guilt and making repayments, the press may still be very interested in me but what could they say to my father?  Ray needed desperately to have me admitting guilt and point to those repayments so when he went back on NY-1 or chatted with a New York Times reporter he could say, "I have nothing to say,  Russell has admitted his misdeeds and is making restitution."  And he was right.  What could a reporter say to the father after that? Nothing.  Anything else would just be overkill.  You cannot visit sins and he is not my keeper.

Had I steadfastly maintained my innocence then the reporters could have dragged out all sorts of examples of spending and asked my father did he think they were justified.  He never would have focused them on his message - a Cuomo candidacy.  But once Ray removed that obstacle, the press had nothing more to say to him about me.  Consider this: the first indication of any trouble was around the second week of February.  I didn't let Ray know about it until maybe 10 days after that. He was back on NY-1 giving a live interview - in studio- less than 4 weeks after this started.  Remarkable.  He had orchestrated this whole thing: my hiring Irwin as my attorney, hiring Artz as my publicist, the repayments and the statements; all to get himself back on TV in record time.  And it worked.  After that first somewhat uncomfortable night in the studio with Dominic Carter, Ray was back to being a regular guest.  The reporters were calling again about politics, not about me.  Once again Ray had masterfully controlled events to his advantage.  I would find out later that a few weeks following that conference call and the release of those statements Ray would make a secret payment to Irwin Rochman, my attorney, of $25,000.  I was not short of cash at the time and had Irwin needed more money - hardly likely since he never came close to expending the $50,000 - I would have provided it.  Why did Ray pay this money to my lawyer and why was it kept a secret from me at the time?  I have no definitive answers but a whole lot of suspicions.

But make no mistake, those actions taken in the first weeks still revurbarate today and caused me irreperable harm. For any chance I ever had to defend myself fully was clouded by those decisons in the early weeks.  If you think Ray's actions cold, calculating and self-serving, all I can say is that they are nothing - less than nothing - compared to what he would do to me later on.  I would come to know my father as a malevolent force, such that I could never imagine.

My state of mind during this period started to deteriorate.  The NYC Department of Investigations was by all accounts from Irwin, Artz and the numerous HDC employees who contacted me, all over HDC.

 Every day would bring another phone call from Irwin with some new revelation.  This began my vigil of 9-5 hysteria.  From 5PM till 9AM I was in basically OK shape.  But come 9AM I was a total wreck.  I didn't want to leave the house in case the phone rang but at the same time I was in dread fear of the next call.  Since all business is done between 9-5 I knew that reaching  the end of day without bad news meant I could relax for the evening until the next morning.  Those months living like that were in many ways worse than prison.  Hard for many of you to believe, I know.

This hysteria also started to affect my judgment.  I couldn't see clearly anymore who was friend and who was foe; I was constantly grasping at straws.  During this period of time Artz, the publicist/friend of Ray's, was getting info from City Hall and Robbins.  It appeared that the person behind all this was Dan Doctoroff.  He had some sort of irrational hatred of the Hardings according to Vinny LaPadula.  He tried, in a meeting Vinny attended, to get Bob Harding kicked off the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to which Rudy had appointed him.  Bloomberg wouldn't acquiesce and it apparently enraged Doctoroff. 

Jerrilyn Perrine - Richard Robert's handpicked successor as City Housing Commissioner - and I had always gotten along badly during my time at HDC.  As Ray's son and Tony's best friend she knew however that there was only so far she could push me.  We pretended to like each other except on 2 occasions where screaming and cursing ensued.  But at the end of the day I knew she hated my guts.  But knowing this full well I reached out to her for assistance.  She was extremely sympathetic and placed all the blame on HPD's General Counsel, whom she said, was driving this train.  She said this so often that I foolishly believed it.  I mentioned this to Tony who told me that the General Counsel, Matt something (I forget) was a McManus guy.  "Why arent' you telling Ray this?"  Tony asked.  Jim McManus was the leader of the last vestiges of the Tammany Hall Democratic machine in Manhattan.  He and Ray had developed a very good working relationship over the years.  Tony, who always knew where every body was buried in City government and who was whose rabbi, instantly knew that the General Counsel owed McManus his job and McManus would not be happy that he was endeavoring to harm me. I told Ray all this and Ray reached out to McManus.  McManus reported back that he had called Matt in to read him the riot act but that the General Counsel swore that Jerrilyn was making him do this.  He had tried to slow it down or minimize the matter but Jerrilyn was on him constantly to ratchet this up.  He said it was Jerrilyn who had asked Doctoroff for permission to call in DOI.  DOI was her idea.   It seemed clear that the General Counsel was telling the truth. 

My second severe mistake in judgment was to reach out to Chuck Brass, my successor.  It was no secret since the time I joined HDC that Chuck couldn't stand me.  He did not do much to hide it, but he was probably the smartest housing guy in New York City, so I overlooked it.  I knew HDC was lucky to have him.  Chuck viewed me as an idiot, political hack and disdained me as such.  Over time his dislike of me changed in character.  He no longer loathed me for being a putz, rather he loathed me for turning the place around so successfully and earning the respect of the staff.  I was proving myself and Chuck deeply resented that this man who knew nothing about housing or finance was making such a good go at running the place.  It was known by everybody that Chuck desperately wanted to be President of HDC and it was his ultimate ambition.  In the Spring of 2000 Chuck accepted the post of President of the NYC Housing Partnership under Richard Kiley and left HDC.

I threw him a fancy going away party and heaped lavish praise on him.  He had insulted me by not informing me that he was interviewing for the job.  I found out from someone else shortly before he accepted.  He went further and hired at the Partnership someone I had fired at HDC.  But again, I overlooked all this and only wished him well and stayed in contact.  A year later the person I had hired to replace Chuck left HDC and the position was again vacant.  I received a call from Chuck asking me to meet for drinks at the American Cafe in Battery Park City, near his office.  There he informed me that in the wake of Richard Kiley's departure to London Kiley's successor, Kathy Wilde, was planning on firing him.  I hadn't known before then that Kathy Wilde disliked Chuck and certainly not to the extent that she couldn't stand to have him around for even a minute during her tenure.  It had hit Chuck hard and he started to get emotional.  Neither of us wanted to see that.  I quickly changed the subject so that he could compose himself.  He asked to come back to HDC in his old job.  I knew this was hard for him; hard to be fired and hard to ask me for something, especially something as big as this.

I told him I would think about it.  I had made up my mind to promote the General Counsel, David Boccio, to the Development job.  This threw a new wrinkle into that.  I thought about it for a day and decided to bring Chuck back.  During his year away HDC had continued to thrive and our revenue was at record levels but I thought then he would still add a depth of experience that Boccio couldn't bring.

I knew the staff would not like this.  Chuck believed himself beloved by the staff notwithstanding his curmudgeon ways.  I was shocked to learn after he had left the depth of relief at his departure. Senior people, people Chuck considered close friends, were very glad to see him go.  Those people recognized that I was trying to bring HDC into the 21st Century: technologically, programmatically and managerially.  They resented that Chuck made no bones about the fact that he considered my efforts at change to be a total waste of time.  But, as I have said, he was probably the smartest housing guy in NYC and I believed the corporation would still benefit by his expertise.  I could handle Chuck's obstinacy.  When I broke the news to the staff they were crestfallen.  I really hadn't expected the reaction to be as bad as it was. 

Although Chuck had not asked, I decided to bring him back at a higher title.  I knew how humiliating this was for him and I tried to soften the blow for public consumption.  His only request had been to bring back his secretary whom he had taken with him from HDC.  I had hoped the experience would soften Chuck somewhat.  All it did apparently was harden his existing feelings for me.  He hated that he had had to ask me for this.  Rather than be grateful it embittered him even more.  That part I didn't know.

When I found out about the FOIL I called Chuck and asked why he didn't tell me.  He was brusque.  Like a petulant child he kept saying over and over that he didn't have to tell me.  I said in a soft voice that I was aware of that.  He told me he knew that I had made other FOILs disappear and was not going to let it happen again.  I explained that being out of HDC there was nothing I could do and didn't he owe me the common courtesy of a phone call as a heads up?   You see, I had spent my last month there doing nothing but trying to get Chuck the job as HDC president once I had decided to leave.

The main contenders for the job were Shaun Donovan and Deborah VanAmerongen.  I had encountered Donovan a few times when he was at HUD and took an instant dislike to him.  He was an arrogant, snotty kid and I knew that he would not be a good fit for HDC. The serious morale problem at HPD during his tenure there confirmed my view.   Deborah VanAmerongen had headed the NY HUD office.  We at HDC all knew her to be a total incompetent; made worse by the fact that she was very taken with her own abilities.   She was the butt of many a joke at the Corporation.  I was absolutely not going to let her be President of HDC.  So that left Chuck.  I consoled myself with the fact that he knew the place and I believed in his heart cared for HDC as much as I did.  So I moved heaven and earth to see that he would be my successor.  And he was.  I had worked very hard with Vinny - who by this time was Senior Advisor to the Mayor - to push Chuck's name at City Hall with Bloomberg.

But as soon as I left, I started to receive calls, e-mails and letters from HDC employees all complaining about Chuck.  He had apparently become completely obsessed with me.  Contrary to the now popular view that I was unpopular during my tenure, the staff were generally angry with me for leaving.  They were concerned about what would happen to HDC once I left.  They knew they had never had anyone champion the Corporation as I had.  Not to mention how I had markedly improved many of their lives professionally and personally.  I had meeting after meeting before I left assuring people that Chuck was going to be OK.  He would rise to the challenge and curtail his negative character traits now that he was going to have the top job, I had told them.

Now they were telling me that Chuck was invoking my name constantly.  If a memo didn't arrive on his desk in the amount of time he thought proper his response was, "you would never have had this in late if Russell were still here."  If a junior staff member spoke to him in a less than deferential manner his response was, "you would never dare speak that way to Russell ."  Chuck had fundamentally misunderstood what had made me respected by the staff, especially the junior staff.  It wasn't fear but comity.  Over three dozen staff members contacted me after I left to relate stories like these.  These same staff members would tell me later that the troubles that befell me and by extension HDC, they all blamed on Chuck not me.  Chuck had turned over the records that Robbins had FOIL'd.  What made this not only unusual but perhaps unprecedented in FOIL history is that the records didn't exist in the corporation.  I had removed them long before.  The fundamental principle of FOIL is you are not obligated to turn over anything that does not exist.  In my eight years dealing with FOILs I had never heard of a single instance where documents were created in order to comply.  It simply never happened.  But Chuck had all these documents reproduced.  It was then that I realized that Chuck suffered from what we in my family call 'Mario Cuomo Syndrome'. 

In 1982 Ray was instrumental in Mario getting the nomination in the Democratic Party after getting a huge lift in attaining the Liberal Party nomination.  Ray along with Andrew were the brain trust on that campaign.  Ray had deemed it good strategy to open up the Liberal Party nomination and invited many candidates to apply for the Party's endorsement.  He knew he was going to give it to Mario but deemed, correctly, that its value would be heightened if all the others were seen seeking it as well.  Unbeknownst to Ray, Mario resented that Ray hadn't just anointed him with the endorsement but rather, in Mario's view, made him work for it.  That coupled with the many favorable stories after the Cuomo victory crediting Ray with the win, gnawed at Mario to such a degree that he turned on Ray completely.  He threatened Ray's law firm, Shea & Gould, with the loss of all state business unless he was fired.  He attempted successfully, for a time, to wrest leadership control of the Liberal Party away from Ray.  The man who believes himself self-made can only be so if no one exists to prove otherwise.  Ray's mere existence would forever put a lie to Mario's contention that this was all his own doing.  He had to destroy him.  Mario's weird, Bush like relationship with Andrew stems from this as well.

Chuck was trying, in his own way, not only to destroy me but to destroy my legacy as a good HDC president.   He could not come to terms with the fact that I was instrumental in his getting the job as president. 

Two federal judges and numerous former Asst. US Attorneys told me during this time that there would have been nothing improper in the Corporation reviewing any spending with me privately and asking for reimbursements as it saw fit.  As I said, many employees of HDC blamed Chuck rather than me for what happened to HDC.  The millions of dollars that the US Attorney and DOI would force HDC to spend in this investigation could have gone towards housing but was spent pointlessly as a result of Chuck having initiated all this.  This could have all been handled by HDC internally. The problem was, and I could have told Chuck this, he was a smart housing guy but when it came to politics he hadn't a clue.  When you create a whirlwind you have to be the adept wizard to control it otherwise it will destroy everything in its path.  Chuck was never that wizard and it did just that.  And because Chuck thought he was smarter than he actually was the whirlwind would consume him as well.


 

J'ACCUSE - Part II

(Start with J'ACCUSE - PART I)

I received a number of e-mails after I posted J'Accuse Part I asking me to talk more about HDC and my tenure there.  I hesitated originally because I did not think people would be all that interested.  But I am happy to recount those years briefly.  I am very proud of them.

Richard Roberts, the former HPD Commissioner and HDC Chairman perjured himself when he described how I became HDC President.  As he was desperate to save himself from prison I guess it's understandable, but still not an honorable thing.  I was at EDC seriously looking for a job in the private sector come the Spring of 1998. I was talking to headhunters and sending out resumes.  I had no intention of staying in the administration.  Then one day at work in April, Richard Roberts, a friend from City Hall days, calls to ask me to consider taking the job of HDC President.  I knew HDC only a little.  Richard explained that he had removed the president and given her a position at his agency.  She wasn't measuring up.  He further told me that the semi-permanent head of HDC, its Executive Vice President, was blocking all of his attempts at new projects.  HPD, you see, had the muscle but HDC had the cash.  And Richard needed money to fund his legacy projects in Harlem.  Because of the Exec VP's  pull with certain orthodox Jewish leaders close to City Hall, unless Richard found a heavyweight for the job of president it would go to the Exec VP.  I told him I wasn't interested and said so on about two more occasions. Richard lobbied me hard.  We wound up finally agreeing on this during a 1AM phone call at home.  Richard's version to a grand jury was that Ray Harding pressured him and Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro to get me this job.  That story is completely false.  But it made Richard a victim in that I am supposed to have been foisted upon him against his will. 

I found HDC to be completely moribund.  I had never seen anything quite so mismanaged.  No organizational system, no long-term or short-term goals, dreadful morale and a total lack of leadership.  When I came aboard, the President, Exec VP and General Counsel had all just left.  To my way of thinking that was a blessing.  HDC's problem, as I soon discovered, was that it had atrophied.  It had incredibly talented staff: knowledgeable, hardworking, loyal & dedicated. But that was also part of the problem.  In an era where people move jobs every few years the pattern at HDC was that no one ever left.  I called them 'lifers.'  It didn't encourage new thinking and broader visions. The answer to every process question I asked was answered with, "we've always done it that way."

This was 1998 and almost no one had a computer on their desk.  No email, no voice mail, absolutely no internet access and the place was a deathtrap.  On one of the upper floors, which was stacked floor to ceiling with paper, had there been a fire, everyone would have died.  Most astonishingly, no one but the president had a direct telephone line.  All calls had to go through a central switchboard.  1998!!!!! 

The corporation was badly understaffed although it wasn't producing much housing at that point so it didn't matter much.  I did what I always do when I take over a group of people; I tried to get to know them.  That was nearly impossible at HDC.  When I walked around the office chatting with staff, one after the other would say the same thing, "I've been here 10 years and no President has ever spoken to me before."  I initiated brown bag lunch days by dept. so I could meet them and they could see me.  I asked - begged - them to speak their minds and tell me what was good and bad about the place.  I soon learned that the model HDC president before me was someone who never left their office, didn't speak to staff, and let the former Exec VP run the place.  Staff were freaked by the president and didn't know what to do when I spoke to them.  Many absolutely refused to call me by my first name. It was creepy. HDC had had glory years but they were clearly just a memory when I showed up.

I quickly set an ambitious agenda.  The former Exec VP had become happy with the corporation making money in any manner that guaranteed the highest return.  At that time it meant government investments, not housing.  The misconception throughout my entire case, fostered by my prosecutor and perpetuated by my judge, was that HDC is a City agency.  It was not.  It was a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation.  In fact it was a multi-billion dollar corporation.  It had no official ties to New York City and it did more business with Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns than it did with the City's Department of Housing and Preservation. 

In one instance, shortly after arriving I asked the NYC Law Dept if it was alright if we used the City seal on some materials.  I received an opinion back that we absolutely could not, we were not a City agency.  HDC made its money three ways: through the fees that it charged developers, through in-house investment of its reserves and through various fees and contracts in which we charged third-parties.  The corporation took no city tax dollars other than those we charged HPD for investing some of their funds. We didn't like doing this so we charged them a high rate.   We did nothing for free.  We also had a contract with HUD that I will talk about later.  It was popular during my case to talk of fleecing the city or taxpayers money.  No city, state or federal tax monies were misspent by me.  We made increasing profits every year I was there and that money came primarily from our investments and fees.

My motto was, "the H stands for for housing."  As I said, the previous regime had been happy getting 8% return from our investments in government bonds and treasury notes, as they were higher than mortgage rates.  I stopped that.  We were going to invest in housing and a lot of it, whether or not it paid the higher return.  It was our mission.  I immediately expanded the middle-income housing program and devoted a lot more cash to its subsidies.  I expanded the low-income program and saw the creation of 4 new programs.  I began the process of modernizing the corporation.  I negotiated a long term lease in good Class-B space for below market rent.  I set about an entire reorganization of HDC.  Overseen by my chief of staff the whole place was reorganized so that there were now clear lines of authority and that 12 people didn't have the title 'Assistant Treasurer' when half had nothing to do with finance.  I created a Workouts unit to help our financially distressed properties.  I signed a ground-breaking contract with the Oracle Corp. to create a state of the art system for our entire financial side (we used a Wang operating system so antiquated that Wang refused to service it and no replacement parts existed). The Oracle VP told me that he had never seen a contract like ours approved by their General Counsel's office.  I insisted that any overruns in time or money be borne by them.  We wanted this delivered shortly after we moved and if it was not I was not going to pay the daily rate of $2,000 per person to keep their programmers and consultants around.  This had never been approved by them before. They made a lot of their money from overruns.  I insisted on this provision knowing the value they placed on producing this software so as to go after the rest of the state housing finance industry.  That provision turned out to be a savings of over $1 million dollars to HDC.

I expanded the staff and increased salaries and benefits.  All the while working with the CFO to find ways to increase revenue.  We had one record year after the next in terms of our bottom line.  Also, and this was very important to me, HDC oversaw for HUD 70 Section 8 projects with over 7,000 units of housing.  As soon as I started the job I told my staff I wanted to visit and inspect every project.  We set aside Wednesday mornings and accompanied by one of our on-staff engineers I would tour 2-3 projects. I learned about boilers, roof ponding, elevator motors and fire safety issues.  I would knock on a few doors and sit down with residents to discuss their concerns.  

It seemed the natural and responsible thing to do. I was absolutely astonished to learn that no HDC president before me had done this.  How could you possibly get a sense of the condition of the properties we were ultimately responsible for if you didn't go and take a look?  By reading reports?  It was just another bizarre aspect regarding HDC that I was determined to change.  In my 3 1/2 years as president we tripled the number of projects and doubled the number of units financed over the prior five years.  It is not popular, but also no exaggeration, to say that 1,000s of people in this city have a roof over their heads today  because at a particular moment in time, I was President of HDC.  It is also beyond dispute that  had I not invested the time and money in turning the corporation around, HDC could not have been the financing engine it has become post 9/11.  It was simply imploding in on itself when I arrived.  The corporation I inherited could never have functioned to produce the housing it has in the last 7 years.  It's just a fact.

But back to my case.  Where were we?  Yes, I had received the threatening letter from Fred co-written by Village Voice reporter Tom Robbins.  After I sent back a threatening response I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  Now it gets weirder.  A few days later I receive on my HDC Blackberry an e-mail from an anonymous person telling me that on a political website, I had never heard of, someone had posted a request relating to me.  When I went to the office I discovered that on this website was a request from Fred, by name, seeking the name of a good political reporter and claiming he had damaging info on me.  This was all a cover.  Robbins had gotten my HDC e-mail address and Fred had sent me the tip to look at the website.  Fred had been with Robbins for some time by this point.  Who knows why he did it or sent me that anonymous e-mail telling me about it.  But it gets more bizarre.  I would next receive a series of anonymous e-mails from someone who claimed to be a staffer at the Village Voice who wanted to be of help to me.  This person - it was of course Fred - would send me frequent reports about what Robbins was doing and his meetings with his "informant in the mid-west."  The information was always correct as it naturally would be coming from Fred.  I don't believe Robbins was aware Fred was doing this.  I think Fred had just become completely unhinged at this point and had a serious love/hate thing going on with me (the prosecution eventually had all these e-mails I am referencing). My last days at HDC were less than the pleasant goodbyes I had hoped for.  In the back of my mind were these e-mails.   In the main I tried to pretend that this wasn't something big. To make the point that I didn't consider this to be anything serious, I continued charging items through vouchers or credit card and being reimbursed by HDC.  Mainly items relating to moving my possessions and storing them.  These items of course could be subject to outside scrutiny after I left.  I always made the point later that had I thought I was doing something illegal I certainly would never have left the extraordinary paper trail that I did.

Having now left HDC I learned through the helpful 'Voice staffer' e-mails that my expense records had been FOIL'd by Robbins at HDC.  I learned this around February 7th, I left HDC February 1st.  In the last seven years since I left HDC I have had one carefree, pleasant week.  Since Feb. 7th it has all been downhill. The e-mails informed me that HDC was turning over all my expenses to Robbins . 

**Point of full disclosure - during my tenure I had caused to go missing some credit card records that Robbins had FOIL'd.  In addition - and he never knew this - some records relating to our move.  I did this not because I ever believed anything was illegal but rather to avoid embarrassment in the papers about my spending.  Yes, when traveling I stayed at nice hotels and ate at nice restaurants.  While at EDC The New York Observer had FOIL'd me and rather than having my travels and expenses revealed I paid them back the entire amount, $3,000.  With the exception of a train trip to Baltimore, all those expenses were 100% legit relating to the large marketing research EDC was doing.  We had paid Wirthlin Woldwide $1,000,000 to do the research and we were testing ideas, commercials and slogans across the country with key company decision makers in order to figure out what worked best in attracting new business and those businesses that were looking towards expansion.  The money spent paid off handsomely as our marketing was now dead-on and the results at EDC's Business Retention and New Business units attested.  I thought $3,000 a small price to pay in order not to have to go through the ordeal that had transpired the year before when Robbins staked me out in the EDC lobby for a week in order to get a picture for a 3/4 page story in the Daily News about a $3,000 annual bonus I had received.  My picture took up most of the page.  Bonuses at EDC  that year ranged from $1500-$10,000.  But naturally I was singled out.  Having paid the $3,000 to EDC the story in the Observer was avoided and was totally worth it.**

For a few weeks I worried about this whole thing privately but finally told my father.  He immediately suggested I hire a friend of his, Irwin Rochman, a noted criminal defense attorney.  This has never been revealed before but when Tony Carbonetti was being investigated criminally for his role in the HANAC scandal Irwin Rochman represented him.  That part is public record.  Not known is that my father paid Irwin's $50,000 fee on behalf of Tony.  I believe it was with this in mind that when at my house one night a few weeks into my matter, Tony said he was leaving and as he did so placed a very nice check on my coffee table.  It wasn't $50,000 but an extremely nice gesture.  I wasn't in need of money at the time but I thought then that this was his way of paying back Ray in some measure.  He never spoke of that again, which I thought a very classy thing.

As HDC turned over the documents to Robbins I also got word that the New York City Dept of Investigation had become involved.  {See my thoughts elsewhere on my views of DOI and my history with them.}  I spoke to Irwin a few times while he was in London handling a case and then we met at his office.  He asked for and received a $50,000 retainer.  I didn't know it then but he was violating recent rules passed down by the State Bar.  He never offered me a retainer agreement.  It was absolutely required that any new client sign a retainer agreement the second money changed hands.  I never signed one with him for the 8 weeks he was my attorney.  Irwin told me repeatedly that he would handle my case however long it took and even through trial for $50,000.  I told him that was ridiculous.  I certainly didn't expect this matter to reach trial or even a plea but if it did $50,000 couldn't cover a small fraction of that cost.  But strangely he kept insisting all he would take is $50,000.  Finally I let it pass as I thought it such a silly thing to say and it was, I supposed, some attempt at a goodwill gesture because of his friendship with my father. 

I believed at that time that Irwin would be the right lawyer.  He had saved Tony from possible indictment and gotten Ray out of a bad scrape over back taxes.  I soon grew very disenchanted with him.  He treated me like Ray's kid and never like a client, although I was the one paying him.  He kept me waiting in his lobby while he met with my father or Tony alone.  He reported all developments in the case to Ray before he did to me.  Ray always knew more than I did and between he and Irwin decided what I should and shouldn't know.  Ray also hired an old friend to do public relations, George Artz.  I didn't realize it then but George was there to do Ray's PR not mine.  I met with Artz for an hour in Irwin's office to tell him the background.  Ray reported back to me that George didn't like me.  He didn't feel that I was concerned enough about how this was hurting my father because I had relayed the story of this case too dispassionately.  This was ironic since anyone who had heard the recitation of this case from me always heard the intense emotion spew forth from my retelling.  

Artz had a good relationship with Robbins.  I think they bonded further in their dislike of me.  Great thing to have in someone whose supposedly handling your PR.  Robbins said he had chats between me and Fred.  He said they covered a wide range of sexual topics, including children and also illegal activity by me at HDC.  I was worried because Fred and I had indeed had chats about kids, but illegal activity at HDC?  What the fuck was that about?  It was then that it started to dawn on me that whatever Fred had given Robbins - I had no idea at that time that Robbins was actively helping Fred write the chats - was fabricated.  What person, sane or otherwise, kept printed copies of chats from five years earlier?  Fred and I were on good terms then, why would he keep them?  I posed this question to Tony.  He's the one who showed me how it was done. 

Now if you take nothing else away from this whole story please pay attention to this next part.  This has ramifications for anyone who uses any instant message program, young or old.  Tony was at my house one night.  I was perplexed at how Fred could have done this.  He apparently had my real screename attached to all these chats where I am saying things I never said.  Tony asked if I had a laptop.  Sure, I said.  We set up in my den a connection so that we were chatting on his AOL account on the laptop and mine on my desktop.  We chatted for a few minutes and he told me to save the chat on my computer .  He then sat at my computer and opened the saved chat in Microsoft Word.  There was the chat just as it had appeared on AOL.  Except now you could erase all the text following the screename.  Anyone who has ever chatted knows that each time a person types a message it is preceded by their screename so that the participants know who is saying what.  On AOL you cannot edit what is said, only scroll back and read it.  Once saved in Word you retain all the screename breaks but the text following it can be edited at will.  An innocent chat about the weather in seconds could be converted into a terrorist plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty. You print it and to an unsuspecting eye it looks genuine.  

I'll get into this at much greater length later, but imagine that Tony Carbonetti, self admittedly no rocket scientist in computer matters, figured this out but senior U.S. Customs Agents, and the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District couldn't piece this together.  Or more accurately didn't want to.  I'll get into that later too.

POSTSCRIPT:

If you're wondering how I know that Fred and Tom Robbins collaborated on fabricating the chats, Fred told me.  I will write in more detail how and when I came to learn that precisely in the weeks ahead.

NOTE:

Apologies for this being less than I had promised.  I hadn't planned last week to write about my tenure at HDC so it cut into the amount devoted to the case I wanted to put up this week.  I will make up for everything next week with J'ACCUSE - Part III.

CONTACT ME

YOU CAN CONTACT ME AT rudyveritas@gmail.com

THE MAJOR & THE MAYOR

“It’s Beth,” Mabel, my very trusted and very large Puerto Rican secretary, bellowed. She was letting me know that Mayor Giuliani’s executive assistant and my friend, Beth Petrone, was on the phone. “Yes M’am,” I answered. “I loved your briefing,” she purred. I chuckled. “You say that about all my briefings,” I said. “I always enjoy reading yours, they’re my favorites. But this one for John Major, might be your best,” she complimented. “Well, he never travels and I love foreign policy and never get to use my talents so this is as close as I’m getting. I’m really looking forward to this meeting and the photo-op.  Is he going to be on-time today?”  I asked. “I’ll do my best. But we should be OK. It’s a light morning,” Beth answered. “OK, thanks. Alistair is supposed is to call me later and update me on their end,” I informed her.

This was a big morning for me. I was going to meet the Prime Minister of Great Britain, John Major. Alistair was Alistair Hunter, the British Consul General in New York with whom I had become friendly in a prior job and arranged this meeting. Alistair had told me many times what a Rudy fan P.M. Major was and how he looked forward to discussing NYC’s crime reduction and workfare program initiatives with Giuliani should the opportunity present itself either on their side of the Atlantic or ours.

It was really surprising to me in the weeks preceding the meeting in what emphatic tones Alistair would speak when talking of P.M. Major’s eagerness to sit down with Rudy. At one point I said in a very New York way, “Hey Alistair, the meeting’s scheduled, you don’t have to sell this.” “No, no,” he said, “he really is extremely anxious for this meeting to take place; the Foreign Office mentions it repeatedly.” OK, I guess Major really wants to meet Giuliani.

Part of my job required that when the Mayor met with any major elected official, national leader, business tycoon, or foreign leader I was the one in the Mayor’s Office who wrote the briefing. Sometimes I was not made aware of this until the briefing book was being put together; minutes before he left for the evening. But Beth knew she could always count on me to produce something at least sensibly informative off the top of my head with little notice on some disparate topic. Bear in mind this was before Google and the internet.  I had written his briefings for his first meetings with Clinton, McCain, Forbes, Dole, even Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle.

 
I hadn’t written a long briefing. This really was going to be mostly Rudy doing what Rudy loved doing which was talking about the City’s rebirth: Compstat, his plans for Times Square, his ideas on workfare and welfare reform, quality of life initiatives. P.M. Major seemed by all accounts just happy to drink it all in.

 
Although mayors regularly meet with foreign leaders in their hotel suites, Major had offered to come to City Hall. At around 10:00 AM Alistair called to say that the Prime Minister had gotten very backed up.  He had four back to back meetings and had more planned that afternoon. Would it be possible for the mayor to meet with him in his suite at the Waldorf?  I then made what would be a disastrous mistake and become a life-learning moment. “I don’t see why not,” I said.  I had my copy of Rudy’s schedule. I knew he could easily go uptown. We were talking about the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Alistair was profusely apologetic, “I don’t know how the day got this bad. He is very upset about this; I want you to know that Russell. I want the Mayor to know that, too. The Prime Minister wants this meeting to happen very much. He is anxious to meet Mayor Giuliani.”

I responded, “I’ll call you back, Alistair, after I call City Hall.” I dialed Beth and explained what had transpired. She said she’d talk to him. I had a bad feeling. “It’s Beth,” Mabel hollered. “He say’s they have to come here, he’s not going to the Waldorf,” Beth informed me. “This can’t be a scheduling thing, he’s free, I have the schedule in front of me.  Is it a protocol matter? He’s visited foreign dignitaries in hotels before.” “He didn’t say,” she replied. I then asked, “Is he free? I’m coming over.” “Come on over,” she said.

I was pissed, nervous and embarrassed all at the same time. He was being bad, petulant, Rudy - I knew that. That pissed me off. I was nervous because I was pissed off and confronting him at the same time he was pissed - a bad mix. I had to calm down. And I was embarrassed because I had made it sound to Alistair like this could be easily worked out.

When I went into his office he was in his easy chair next to his couch reading a folder. “Mayor, I need to talk to you about this John Major meeting,” I said. “Yea, he needs to come here,” Rudy said. “Mayor, did you read my briefing? He is a huge Giuliani fan. The British Consul General is a friend and tells me that the Foreign Office sends him cables on your crime reduction program and workfare and he has been looking forward to this meeting for weeks. He just got really jammed up this morning and is apparently pissed off at his staff that they fucked up this meeting so it has to move uptown. He wants you to know how anxious he is to meet you. His staff mishandled this,” I said trying to appeal to his managerial side.

“The meeting was scheduled for City Hall, I’m not going to the Waldorf,” Rudy replied. I tried one more tack - applying my own love and interest of foreign policy hopefully to him. “Mayor, the Prime Minister has just spent the last few weeks meeting with Chancellor Kohl, President Mitterrand, Clinton, the President of China, and a dozen other world leaders. Wouldn’t you be interested to pick this guy’s brain as to what’s happening on the world stage in real time with a major player and someone who’s a fan of yours? Someone you could strike up a friendship with. Someone you could bounce ideas off of in the years to come if we ever get a foreign travel schedule together? I really don’t think he can get down here today.” 

I had given it my best shot. Rudy looked up. He was pissed and exasperated. “I am not going to this meeting. That’s my last word on this.” I started walking out and said, as always, “Thank you, Mayor.” As I exited to the outer office Beth asked what he had said. I informed her and told her to do nothing until she heard from me.

 
I skulked back to my office thinking all the while, “Was I being a disloyal aide?” Should I have told Major’s people “Hey, get your limey asses down here and stop with your lame excuses!” My days are filled with being 100% true blue to Rudy Giuliani; telling the rest of the world to buzz off if they don’t like what he’s done or how we’re handling something.

And moreover I’m one of the chief enforcers of keeping the agencies on-agenda doctrine wise. Everyone knows my reputation is that of a total prick in defense of the Mayor at all times. But this just doesn’t feel like that. The Prime Minister screwed up his schedule, is pissed about it, and is essentially asking Rudy for a favor. We portray ourselves as the Capitol City of the World and were telling a world leader to “Fuck Off.”

Yea, I wish it were Margaret Thatcher instead of John Major. But I really didn’t think that was the point of the argument and I did not think that was what was in Rudy’s head about this whole matter.

 
Wouldn’t he want to sit down with him regardless of the inconvenience or the perceived snub? Jesus, I would. How can you in any civil way say no to a man of Major’s stature who is asking you for a favor? They weren’t playing us. For Christ’s sake, I know the difference.

As I got back to my office the immediate issue became could I really make the call and tell them that Giuliani would not go to his hotel? I lit a cigarette, told Mabel to order me an early lunch, and started to pick up the phone to call the Consulate. It was 11am.

At just that moment someone rushed in and told me to put on the TV in my conference room. There had been a shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge. I immediately put on NY 1, the local all news channel. They were reporting that someone had gunned down a van full of young Orthodox Jews on the Bridge. It was being reported that one might already be dead. “YES!!” I screamed.

Knowing Rudy Giuliani, I immediately called over to the Mayor’s Office and got Beth. “Where is he?”  I asked. “He ran out to St. Vincent’s where they took the survivors from the bridge shooting,” Beth informed me. I knew it. “We’re in agreement he can’t go to the Waldorf and I’m telling Alistair that?” I asked her. “No way is he going anywhere,” she agreed.  “Thank you, Beth.”

I called Alistair immediately, but he was out. His executive assistant, Pauline Weppler picked up. I began to explain about the emergency but she was watching NY 1 and cut me off. “Of course, of course, Mr. Harding, this is terrible. The Prime Minister will be terribly disappointed but we’re watching this tragedy right now. Naturally the Mayor had to go to this.” “Thank you for understanding,” I said.

 
We would learn that the dead boy on the Brooklyn Bridge that day was Ari Halberstam. He was the victim of a madman named Rashid Baz who claimed to be acting out against Jews due to an incident that had happened a week prior on the West Bank.

After my very inappropriate first reaction, where I was thinking exclusively of my own predicament, I would be reminded of Ari Halberstam’s death and the grave events of that day, every day, for the next eight years. The exit I took every morning to work was the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall exit, off of the FDR Drive.  It was subsequently renamed for Ari Halberstam.

 
The larger lesson for me that day was one I would come to learn again and again over the next eight years. Amidst the tremendous triumphs and the remarkable accomplishments, I worked for a man who could be petty, parochial and churlish. Given the chance to sit down and survey the world landscape with someone currently shaping it, not to mention gain insight from his meetings with every other major world leader, wouldn’t a serious, well rounded, person leap at such a chance?

It’s just typical Rudy Giuliani.  The one no one ever sees.  He would rather hang out with his gang, go to a Yankee game, a cigar bar, or in later years, take off one day a week of work as Mayor (Fridays) to play golf. And his favorite; sit on the porch of Gracie and smoke cigars. He will never have any interest in the foreign affairs of this country. In eight years in and around the man I never heard of him having a serious discussion on foreign policy. And no, I do not consider throwing Arafat out of Lincoln Center a serious foreign policy engagement. It was Giuliani petulance, first and last. It had nothing to do with foreign policy. He was an uninvited guest and a terrorist.  I supported that decision then and now.  But it’s not dispositive of some great vision. 

Just as he has no interest in foreign policy he also has no energy policy, farm policy, fiscal policy, environmental policy, or monetary policy. During the presidential campaign look at any survey sent out by a newspaper or an interest group and look at the Giuliani answers. There either were none or were as vague and nondescript as to be pabulum. He has no views on most issues and doesn’t care to. The national press gave him a completely free ride on this because of 9/11. In ‘93’ we would have been crucified by the NY press had we filled out surveys like this. It would have generated news stories in and of itself.

It was the meeting with John Major in microcosm. It did not rise to any level of importance to him. He would have rather sat in that club chair, done paperwork, eaten lunch at his desk with Cristyne Lategano and handle another day as Mayor. Same as every day.  Meeting an ideological kindred spirit, bonding with another leader, possibly making a friend for the city - and for himself down the road - never occurred to him. And most importantly, expanding his world view meant nothing. The point is not what became of John Major - it might have been Tony Blair or Nicholas Sarkozy - the point is a closed mind and few interests beyond the self interest. Incidents like this go a long way towards explaining all that money spent and just a single delegate.