Former Met Council Leader, Wm. Rapfogel, Enters Guilty Plea in Corruption Case

Following guilty plea convictions of Rapfogel and Cohen, Attorney General's investigation into public corruption continues.

William Rapfogel, the former leader of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, pled guilty today in state court to charges of "grand larceny, money laundering, tax fraud," and filing false documents with the city's campaign finance regulatory authority, the Campaign Finance Board, The New York Times reported today, adding that the guilty plea followed Mr. Rapfogel's arrest last September on charges of "grand larceny, money laundering, conspiracy and other crimes in a criminal complaint filed by the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman."

Mr. Rapfogel's predecessor, David Cohen, entered into his own guilty pleas to charges of grand larceny and conspiracy. Both men laundered some of their illicit gains into campaign contributions with the intention of manipulating the public matching dollar system of the city's Campaign Finance Board. "Mr. Cohen said he and Mr. Rapfogel also funneled some of the illicit money to candidates running for office, asking Mr. Ross to make contributions not only in his name but also in the names of straw donors," The New York Times report added. A press release from the Attorney General's office noted that, "These campaign contributions were made to politicians whom Rapfogel and Cohen believed could help Met Council."

• RELATED : William Rapfogel Pleads Guilty in Scheme to Loot New York Charity (The New York Times)
• RELATED : The $25,000 Century Coverage William Rapfogel Donations Christine Quinn Wants To Return Not Listed On Campaign Finance Board (No Third Term Blog)

Mere hours after bloggers had noted on August 12 of last year that Mr. Rapfogel's charity had received discretionary funding from former Council Speaker Christine Quinn's slush fund, former Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign announced that her campaign was returning $25,000 in campaign donations at the center of the William Rapfogel scandal.

The Attorney General's press release of today concluded that, "These convictions are a result of an ongoing investigation by the Attorney General’s Office in conjunction with New York State Comptroller DiNapoli, as part of the Joint Task Force on Public Integrity. The joint investigation by the Attorney General’s and Comptroller’s offices continues."

Let's hope former Speaker Quinn has a good defense attorney.

William Rapfogel : Another corrupt bundler of campaign contributions exploiting the @NYCCFB matching dollar system. http://t.co/es6EFlwAc8

— Louis Flores (@maslowsneeds) April 23, 2014

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has said that a "show me the money" culture pervades all of New York government, and many bloggers and government reform activists agree. Last year, the political blogger and YouTube producer Suzannah B. Troy confronted New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has had a decades-long close association with Mr. Rapfogel, and she asked Speaker Silver, "Are you part of the corruption ?"

The Committee To Frack New York ?

Update #2 : My blog post below was written independently last night, but I just found a more detailed investigation posted on the Internet with the same title : Shift by Cuomo on Gas Drilling Prompts Both Anger and Praise (Revised : Monday 1 Oct 2012 6:20 a.m.)

Update #1 : My blog post below was written independently last night, but I just found a more detailed investigation posted on the Internet with the same title : The Committee to Frack New York ? (Revised : Sunday 16 Sept 2012 8:20 a.m.)

Shady Pro-Cuomo Lobby Group Allowed to Hide Donor Names

Are there any "straw donors," who gave money to the Committee To Save New York ? Are there any donors, who are fracking lobbyists or shale oil companies ? We'll never know, because Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is on the cusp of either approving or rejecting fracking near the precious and irreplaceable Hudson River, exerts undue influence over the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE).

Giving JCOPE and voters full transparency and disclosure about the Committee to Save New York would be one way for voters to have faith in the integrity of the fracking review process.

It's been revealed that environmental groups, government accountability activists, and advocates of greater government transparency are worried that the Cuomo administration has been going out of its way to cuddle with special interests linked to the oil and gas industry.

"New York regulators gave natural gas drilling industry representatives exclusive access to draft regulations for shale gas drilling as early as six weeks before they were made public, according to records obtained by the Environmental Working Group through New York's Freedom of Information Law," reported the Environmental Working Group.

Gov. Cuomo is setting off all kinds of alarm bells, because it appears that the Cuomo administration isn't even going to order a healthcare study about the impacts of allowing fracking to pollute New York state.

To make matters worse, nobody knows what influence campaign contributions will have on the Cuomo administration's fracking decision. And to murky up the waters, the state ethics panel, JCOPE, recently ruled that the Committee to Save New York, a lobbying group that promotes Gov. Cuomo's political activities, can "keep secret the identities of a vast majority of millionaire donors" who have been financing the lobbying group, according to The New York Times.

Read the investigative report : The Committee to Save 1% New York.