A prominent Democratic state senator and a Republican city councilman from Queens were arrested Tuesday in an alleged plot to get the senator onto the New York City mayoral ballot by paying off GOP county chairmen, authorities said.
Democratic State Sen. Malcolm Smith, City Councilman Dan Halloran and four others were arrested by the FBI Tuesday morning.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Smith “tried to bribe his way to a shot at Gracie Mansion.”
Bharara said Smith conceived the plot and Halloran “quarterbacked that drive by finding party chairmen who were wide open to receiving bribes.”
NBC 4 New York’s calls and emails to offices and attorneys of those arrested were not immediately returned.
The Democratic field in this year’s mayoral race is crowded with several candidates, and getting on the GOP ballot would be a way to sidestep that battle in heavily Democratic New York City. Any candidate seeking to be added to a primary ballot needs to be approved by three of the five county chairmen for a particular party.
Two Republican county chairmen–Joseph Savino, of the Bronx, and Vincent Tabone, of Queens–were among those arrested Tuesday.
FBI New York Director George Venizelos said in a statement that “public service is not supposed to be a shortcut to self-enrichment. … As alleged, these defendants did not obey the law; they broke the law and the public trust.”
Smith was elected to the State Senate in 2000 in a special election. He was elected minority leader in 2007, succeeding David Paterson. He served as leader of the Senate Democrats until 2009 when he was forced out amid an Albany coup.
Last year Smith joined with several Republicans to form a “bipartisan governing coalition.”
Halloran took office in 2010 and represents the 19th district in Queens, succeeding Tony Avella. He garnered widespread attention that year when he said five municipal employees told him that workers had engaged in a deliberate slowdown in clearing snow following the Christmas blizzard. The Department of Investigation said later that an exhaustive probe found no evidence of such a slowdown. Federal officials announced other arrests Tuesday; those expected to be charged are Democrat Noramie Jasmin, mayor of Spring Valley in Rockland County, and her deputy mayor, Joseph Desmaret. This article originally appeared on NBCNewYork.com here.
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