Carl Kruger tape: 'Take it and enjoy it'
State Sen. Carl Kruger outside of FBI headquarters. (March 10, 2011) Credit: AP
'Take it and enjoy it."
The statement, which federal agents say in court papers they caught on tape, was remarkable for its timing.
On Dec. 28, federal agents recorded state Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) discussing pork-barrel money with the vice-president of a development company seeking state funding for projects in Brooklyn.
The conversation involved $500,000 still available from Kruger's discretionary legislative funds and another $4 million purportedly available on the say-so of another Senate leader, not yet identified. Kruger, of Brooklyn, was days away from losing the Finance Committee chairmanship, with Republicans set to recoup the Senate majority.
Kruger, 61, allegedly was speaking by phone with a longtime Democratic acquaintance from the Forest City Ratner company, who is not charged with wrongdoing. "The couple of bucks that I had," Kruger tells him, "I don't know what the hell to do with it anyhow. Take it. Come Monday, I won't have it. So take it and enjoy it."
Barely a week earlier, Senate Democrats canceled dozens of other grants for two Long Island districts worth millions -- because Republicans Jack Martins and Lee Zeldin had won those seats. The same thing was reported in upstate districts where Republicans ousted Democrats.
Kruger's private words contrast with what Austin Shafran, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, told Newsday last month about the lost Long Island funds: "Given the difficult fiscal times, sacrifices had to be made."
Kruger's private pork talk crops up in a 53-page complaint filed Thursday against Kruger and seven co-defendants, charging conspiracy, bribery, "honest-services" fraud and money laundering. Among others accused: Richard Lipsky, a business lobbyist; Assemb. William Boyland (D-Brooklyn); developer Aaron Malinsky, former vice chairman and chief development officer for A&P, and Michael Turano, a gynecologist, with whom Kruger and other Turano family members resided. The defendants pleaded not guilty.
NEW GIGS:Bruce Nyman, former Democratic Nassau legislator, former Long Beach city manager, and former aide to County Executive Thomas Suozzi, is joining Roslyn-based Gotham Government Relations. Michael Florio, who was a presidential campaign official for Hillary Clinton and an ex-Suozzi aide, will head alongside Nyman the firm's new public affairs and communications division.
