Will Repay $82G

Rebuke Hevesi Over Staffer Driving Wife

 
By RICHARD STEIER

State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi last week agreed to reimburse the state more than $82,000 that was paid to a staff member to chauffeur his wife during the past several years.

ALAN G. HEVESI: Contrite over abuse.

He took that action after his Republican opponent for re-election, J. Christopher Callaghan, phoned in a complaint about the practice to a hotline Mr. Hevesi had created to allow citizens to report alleged misuse of public funds.

Cited Safety Worries

The State Comptroller in 2003 sought permission from the State Ethics Commission to have the aide, Nicholas Acquafredda, spend part of his time driving his wife because of concerns about her safety. The ethics panel responded that he could do so only if "independent law-enforcement personnel" deemed it appropriate.

The commission's Executive Director, Karl J. Sleight, responding to Mr. Hevesi's detailing of some of the threats against him over the years, had stated that "there is an appreciable concern for your wife's safety." He urged the Comptroller to get outside clearance to allay "any concern that you are using your State position for some unwarranted benefit."

JOHN FASO: 'Betrayed public trust.'

Hevesi spokesman David Neustadt, asked whether the Comptroller had subsequently gotten such an assessment, replied, "I have no comment at this time."

Urges DA Probe

Mr. Callaghan, who is far behind Mr. Hevesi in recent voter surveys, has asked the Albany District Attorney's Office to investigate whether the arrangement constituted the theft of public funds.

The controversy provoked sparks during the Sept. 26 gubernatorial debate between Democratic nominee Eliot Spitzer and Republican candidate John Faso.

Mr. Spitzer, the State Attorney General and a political ally of Mr. Hevesi's, said, "What Alan did was wrong. He apologized and paid back." While he described the Comptroller as "an honest, stupendous public servant," he added, "If anybody on my watch did that, trust me, there would be very serious consequences, because I do not tolerate that sort of abuse of the public fisc."

Faso: He Should Resign

Mr. Faso, who ran against Mr. Hevesi for State Comptroller four years ago, was considerably harsher about Mr. Hevesi's conduct and the penalty it should carry.

"Alan Hevesi stole $82,000 from the people of the state, and the only reason we found out about it is that somebody turned him in," he said. "Alan Hevesi should resign his office because he abused his public trust."

In a letter he wrote last week to the Ethics Commission, Mr. Hevesi noted that his wife has been in poor health in recent years, and that he had been threatened on occasion because of his conduct in office.

Wife's Maladies

He noted that Carol Hevesi has suffered from a variety of ailments that cause her chronic pain and has suffered from severe depression, "the symptoms of which have frequently made it impossible for her to be left alone." Besides the specific physical threats made against him that he had detailed in his letter to Mr. Sleight in May 2003, the Comptroller noted that on several occasions he disapproved state agency contracts with "vendors with organized crime connections," which "have cost the companies involved millions of dollars."

The amount Mr. Hevesi is reimbursing the state is tied to all the occasions on which Mr. Acquafredda drove his wife, regardless of whether any of them entailed a security concern. He said that driving his wife had consumed an increasing amount of Mr. Acquafredda's work time, rising from 5 percent in 2003 to 40 percent beginning in 2005.