Albany, NY – A prosecutor said Wednesday that Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s behavior toward women on his staff was “alarming” and that Albany lawmakers were too interested in protecting their political careers with secretive, back-door dealings that encouraged inappropriate conduct.
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Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan said his office did more than 50 interviews in looking into sexual harassment claims against Lopez but found no basis to conclude a chargeable offense was committed within Brooklyn, where he was tasked with the investigation.
Accusers said much of the harassment took place in Albany or in Atlantic City, N.J. Prosecutors in Albany declined to comment on what they called “an ongoing investigation.” New Jersey officials didn’t return a message seeking comment.
Donovan also found no criminal activity in the secret settling and confidentiality agreements of some of the complaints made against the Brooklyn Democrat but sharply criticized Albany’s handling of it, casting blame on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the attorney general and comptroller’s offices. He said the secretive process may have resulted in two more women being sexually harassed, sometimes to tears, by Lopez.
“Resolving the complaints in this secretive manner … apparently encouraged him to continue the inappropriate conduct,” Donovan wrote.
Even as the legal settlement for two women was being drafted, Donovan said, their two replacements “were quickly subjected to conduct similar to that which was the subject of the settlement.”
Donovan’s report comes as Albany is rocked by federal prosecutions of corruption and bribery involving rank-and-file Democrats, though his report admonishes those at the highest levels of state government. He and the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which also issued its report on the accusations Wednesday, said state officials violated the public trust.
The once-influential Lopez lost his job as Brooklyn Democratic party boss and was stripped of his Assembly leadership role last year after the allegations emerged. Protesters and some politicians urged him to resign, but he refused, saying his constituents should get to decide who should represent them.
They did, re-electing him in November to the seat he has held since 1984. Last month, he filed paperwork to run for a New York City council seat and has raised more than $30,000. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said New Yorkers should prevent him from being elected.
The 71-year-old denies harassing women. He issued a three-page statement on the ethics report noting he had been cleared of impropriety in the settlements and said there was an “all-out war” against him.
“Salacious and sensational claims in the JCOPE report are fallacious,” he said, quoting communications with female staff members that he says prove their complaints were “unworthy of belief.”
He also said many of the women were sending “provocative text messages” to him.
The ethics report claimed Lopez forced young female staffers to dress a certain way, speak in intimate ways to him and write him complimentary emails for his files.
Victoria Burhans and Chloe Rivera, who filed complaints with the Assembly over Lopez’s behavior, issued a statement Wednesday saying they came forward to ensure no other women “endure what we went through.” They also said they hoped the JCOPE report would lead to reforms.
The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they’re victims of sexual harassment unless they agree to be identified or come forward, as Burhans and Rivera have done.
Two claims were secretly settled for $103,000, using taxpayer money, and Donovan said while it followed the normal route by which employee claims are paid, that overall method was flawed. He said Silver’s chief concern was limiting damage to the Assembly.
“That goal outweighed any interest in investigating or disciplining Assembly Member Lopez or in preventing similar occurrences in the future,” the report stated.
Silver had previously said the women who complained sought to avoid having the issue become public and he agreed to protect their privacy and regretted the deal.
On Wednesday, he renewed his call for Lopez to resign.
“The actions that were taken represented a good-faith belief that the Assembly was acting in the interests of the victims, and that has not changed,” Silver spokesman Michael Whyland said.
He said “all actions by the Assembly were lawful and there was no basis for an ethics complaint against the speaker or his staff.”
Donovan blamed the attorney general’s office for failing to advise that the settlement conflicted with public policy and included confidentiality clauses that protected the bad behavior of elected officials. The comptroller’s office should have been more concerned about how public money was being spent, Donovan wrote.
But neither Donovan nor the Joint Commission on Public Ethics found evidence that showed Attorney General Eric Schneiderman or Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli knew of the issue, although their top aides were involved.
DiNapoli said more transparency and review are needed for legal payments. He said he was working on modifying the policy.
Schneiderman’s office said it was not asked to serve as counsel to the Assembly or to approve the settlement, providing only a limited response to an informal inquiry and a model settlement document that contained no confidentiality clause.