Federal authorities raided a government-funded health clinic Wednesday run by New York’s state Senate majority leader a day after he was accused of siphoning $14 million from the nonprofit operation.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo confirmed that his office is assisting Brooklyn federal prosecutors in a corruption probe of state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., with potential charges that could include mail fraud, wire fraud, theft of government funds and conspiracy.
In a civil lawsuit Tuesday, Cuomo accused Espada and relatives and friends on the clinic’s board of looting clinic funds for lavish restaurant meals, trips to Las Vegas and Espada’s campaign. Cuomo said Wednesday it was clear Espada had broken the law.
But Espada called the federal raids “an invasion” and denied any wrongdoing. He accused Cuomo of staging a politically motivated vendetta against him.
Espada was a leader of a Republican-backed coup last summer that he claims is motivating Cuomo’s lawsuit. Espada later rejoined the Democrats and received the majority leader title.
About a dozen FBI and IRS agents and investigators from Cuomo’s office spent eight hours Wednesday at the Soundview Healthcare Network in the Bronx, where a canopy above the front door lists Espada as its president and CEO.
Agents used bolt cutters to open an 8-foot-tall, 25-foot-long storage container behind the building and removed Espada campaign posters and other items. More than 30 boxes of files and materials were carted away in a van. Agents wearing blue or green gloves leafed through the contents, taking notes.
One box was marked, “Payroll 205.” Another said “Timesheets 205-206.”
In a late afternoon news conference, Espada said he would fight the “false and unfounded allegations made by the attorney general.” He called the raids “a media circus, a media show.”
“The attorney general wants to create this impression of wrongdoing when there is no wrongdoing,” he said.
Espada brushed aside several specific questions about the charges.
Cuomo’s civil action accuses Espada of diverting the clinic’s funding charitable assets to himself, relatives, friends and his political operation.
FBI spokesman James Margolin would not comment on what was seized from the clinic. A search warrant affidavit was sealed. The IRS declined to comment Wednesday.
In the civil suit, Cuomo also accused Espada of getting Soundview’s board, which he controls, to give him a guaranteed $9 million severance package that, if ever paid out, would bankrupt the clinic.
In 2004, then-Attorney General Spitzer charged two of Soundview’s vice presidents, Espada’s executive assistant and a clinic director with grand larceny and scheming to defraud. Two of them were accused of filing false reports, a concern Cuomo raised in his civil lawsuit on Tuesday.
Espada was not charged, but he and his campaign were later fined $61,000 by the city for campaign-finance violations involving Soundview employees who had been reimbursed for their contributions.
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