Candidate O'Connor asks Suffolk DA for new look at county IT

The Republican candidate for Suffolk County executive, James O'Connor, last week formally asked Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota to reopen his probe of county information technology contracts and determine what County Executive Steve Bellone may have known about his aide's wrongdoing.

But O'Connor and Donna Cumella, a county Internet technology employee and GOP legislative candidate, also asked prosecutors to probe whether that was an conflict of interest involved in the handling of a county contract with a firm called Universal Management Solutions, which they claim made large donations to Bellone's campaign.

In their letter to Spota, the candidates claim that Deputy County Attorney Janet Ford, who was directly involved in approving UMS contracts, was married to a former UMS executive. Bellone aides did not return calls for comment.

Spota earlier prosecuted former IT Commissioner Donald Rodgers last year who resigned his $150,000 a year job and pleaded guilty to second degree filing of a false instrument, a misdemeanor, in a plea deal over a controversial $5 million contract with Dell and Microsoft, which the legislature never funded.