Witnesses question Suffolk Ethics Commission's independence

In detailed and sometimes technical testimony, the first two witnesses appearing before the special legislative committee investigating the Suffolk Ethics Commission questioned the commission's independence and its refusal to release certain records.

Suffolk County Comptroller Joseph Sawicki was one of the first two witnesses to appear Tuesday before the four-member committee. The other was Anton Borovina, a former assistant county attorney who in 1978 helped draft the county's financial disclosure law, which he said was the first such law in the state.

"How do we know that the Ethics Commission is doing their job?" Comptroller Joseph Sawicki testified.

Last week, the committee subpoenaed a range of commission records, including decisions made and requests made to the commission under the Freedom of Information Law.

The legislative committee began its probe after Newsday reported that Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy had been filing a state financial disclosure form, rather than the county form required of roughly 650 county employees. Borovina and Sawicki testified that the county form is more extensive than the state form and that county law does not allow substitutions.

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, Levy disputed that, arguing that state law supersedes county law and that Borovina misinterpreted state law.

Sawicki accused Levy, a fellow Republican, of using financial disclosures maintained by the Ethics Commission as a "political weapon."

Sawicki said he was notified in August that a Freedom of Information request had been filed for his financial disclosure form. He said it was the first time in the 22 years he has filed his form that such a request had been made. On his form, Sawicki said he asked that his wife's workplace be redacted out of concern for her safety.

Then, he testified, Levy publicized that fact as though Sawicki were trying to hide something. "I don't think our disclosure forms were ever intended to be used as political weapons," Sawicki said.

In his statement, Levy said, "Mr. Sawicki is sore because the County Executive called him a hypocrite, by saying that the executive was hiding something when it was Mr. Sawicki, in fact, who asked for his family's source of income to be hidden from the public."

The commission's special counsel, Steven Leventhal, did not appear at the meeting; a call to the commission for comment was not returned Tuesday.