A s a director of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, Navnoor Kang allegedly took $1 million worth of bribes to steer $2 billion in pension-fund investments to two firms. Kang’s then-boss, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, has a lot to answer for.
Starting with how Kang got hired when he’d lost his previous job over similar allegations.
Plus: One of the brokers who now stands charged with bribing Kang apparently put in the good word that got him the job.
Then again, DiNapoli initially got his job thanks to a now-convicted felon, Assembly ex-Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Back in 2007, Alan Hevesi had to quit as comptroller — because he was headed to prison for a different pension-fund kickback scheme. State law effectively gave Silver the power to choose a new comptroller — and he tapped DiNapoli, an Assembly back-bencher with zero experience in finance.
DiNapoli has since won election twice, and escaped controversy until now. But his internal investigation can’t be the end of this.
After all, DiNapoli insisted years ago that he’d put in sufficient safeguards against Hevesi-style corruption. How many chances does he need to get it right?
The comptroller is the sole trustee of a $184 billion pension fund for more than 1 million public workers and retirees, with the taxpayers on the line to cover shortfalls. When he prosecuted Hevesi, then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo proposed putting a board of trustees over the pension funds. Now Gov. Cuomo is raising the issue again, noting the “chronic problem” of corruption.
He’s right: A single official shouldn’t have sole authority over the nation’s third-largest pension fund.
Nor is an internal probe enough. Both the governor and the Legislature should pull out the stops to investigate — and possibly remove DiNapoli from office, since the voters won’t have the chance until 2018.