Attorney General Andrew Cuomo went to court this morning against a not-for-profit Bronx company controlled by controversial Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, and revealed some interesting information about the on-going probe of Espada in the process.
Cuomo, in a state Supreme Court action filed in Manhattan, accused Soundview Management Enterprises of refusing to comply with a subpoena issued in August for records involving the company.
The subpoena says that Espada, who played a notorious role in last summer’s Senate coup attempt and wound up becoming majority leader in exchange for returning to the Democratic Party fold, is being probed for allegedly siphoning money from Soundview for his own personal and political benefit.
It also says he’s being investigated for possible labor and tax law violations.
“The evidence reveals … that Soundview, a not-for-profit corporation, entered into contracts with a for-profit company owned and controlled exclusively by Mr. Espada….This contract allowed Mr. Espada effectively to siphon off and otherwise divert money from Soundview for Mr. Espada’s own personal and political benefit,’’ according to the legal papers.
Espada denounced the Cuomo’s probe as a “witch-hunt driven by his political ambitions.”
“This is nothing new, just an angry, frustrated response by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo,” Espada said. “This is nothing more than a long-standing pattern and history of Andrew Cuomo running roughshod, whether over H. Carl McCall or David Paterson, and now using me, the state’s highest-ranking Hispanic elected official, as his personal political piñata.”