FBI WIRETAPS CATCH DEMOCRATIC SENATOR AND REPUBLICAN COUNCILMAN ON BRIBERY CHARGES

DEM. SEN. MALCOLM SMITH

Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith and GOP City Councilman Dan Halloran were caught on damning FBI wiretaps bribing GOP bosses in order to “grease the wheels” for Smith’s mayoral run on the Republican ticket, authorities revealed yesterday.
Smith, Halloran and four others were arrested in predawn raids on a slew of federal conspiracy and bribery charges that could send them to prison for up to 45 years.
The FBI used a confidential informant and an undercover agent — both posing as real-estate developers — to secretly record the pols hatching their plot.

“That’s politics, that’s politics. It’s all about how much, not about whether or will. It’s about how much, and that’s our politicians in New York, they’re all like that, all like that,” Halloran said in one conversation.

“You can’t get anything without the f--king money. Money is what greases the wheels — good, bad or indifferent,” he added before allegedly pocketing a $7,500 cash bribe from Morris Stern, who sources said was the cooperating witness.
A number of new details emerged in the sweeping scandal.

GOP CITY COUNCILMAN DAN HALLORAN

* Smith planned to “bribe his way into Gracie Mansion,” US Attorney Preet Bharara charged, by paying off co-defendants Bronx Republican Chairman Joseph Savino and Queens Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone to lock up two of the three boroughs the Democrat needed to run on the GOP ticket.
“Business is business,” Smith said.
* Halloran allegedly took $20,500 in cash to buy support for Smith’s dream of replacing Mayor Bloomberg. The councilman hoped Smith would appoint him an NYPD deputy commissioner — even though he couldn’t even cut it as a cadet and was deceptive about his police career.
* Spring Valley Mayor Noramie Jasmin and Deputy Mayor Joseph Desmaret conspired with Smith to steer $500,000 in state transportation money to a real-estate deal proposed by the undercover posing as a wealthy developer, the feds say. In exchange, the agent made $80,000 in payments to the GOP bosses on Smith’s behalf.


* Savino and Tabone allegedly accepted the bribes from the confidential informant with the promise they’d issue special certificates that would allow Smith to run as a Republican.                                          
* GOP mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis fired Tabone from his campaign, where he served as adviser, and from his lawyer job at the billionaire grocer’s company. Catsimatidis called the affair “very sad.”
Savino was canned from his job in the town attorney’s office in Clarkstown, which includes Spring Valley.
* State Sen. Jeff Klein (D-Bronx), one of the Senate’s two chiefs, stripped Smith of his lucrative leadership position and committee assignments yesterday.
Bharara said the latest round of corruption to scar the New York political landscape felt like “a scene from “Groundhog Day” — the Bill Murray flick in which history keeps repeating itself.
“Today is another sad and disappointing day for every New Yorker who hasn’t yet given up on the dream of honest government. The charges we unseal today demonstrate, once again, that a show-me-the-money culture seems to pervade every level of New York government,” he said.
The feds said the co-conspirators cooked up the plan during secret meetings in hotels, restaurants, cars — and even Smith’s Albany office.
The pols believed that informant Stern, who pleaded guilty in federal court on March 11 as part of his cooperation deal, and the undercover agent were deep-pocketed investors who would bribe Smith’s way to City Hall in exchange for political favors for their upstate development projects.
FBI Assistant Director George Venizelos said the defendants would pay dearly if convicted.