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A Few Clouds Kaminsky introduces bills to fight corruption
Assemblyman’s legislation focuses on lying, bribery and localizing prosecution
State Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky introduced a plan to fight public corruption at City Hall on Wednesday. It includes bills designed to widen the definition of corruption and increase penalties at the state level, while equipping district attorneys to prosecute corrupt officials locally.
The package of targeted legislation, which Kaminsky, a Long Beach Democrat, calls Restoring New Yorkers’ Trust, comes after he announced last month that he was running for the State Senate seat vacated by former Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who was convicted of bribery, extortion and conspiracy in December.
“The last several years, we’ve seen an amount of public corruption cases, arrests and convictions that shocked the conscience,” Kaminsky said, “and I think has really woken the public up about what has been taking place.”
Currently, most public corruption cases are brought by federal prosecutors, said Kaminsky, who spent a decade as a federal prosecutor and an assistant district attorney. “Our district attorneys throughout our state are clamoring for the tools that they need to help make these cases as well,” he said, “because we know the corruption exists at every level and needs to be rooted out.”
The first bill would make it a crime to lie to a district attorney, an assistant D.A. or an investigator, bringing the crime of lying to a designated federal agent to a local level. The second bill addresses a bribery statute stating that offering a public official a bribe is not a crime unless there is a mutual agreement between the two. “This [bill] would clarify the law so that offering a bribe to a public official is a felony offense, period,” Kaminsky said.
First-degree bribery is currently defined as offering $100,000 or more to a public official, and second-degree bribery, $5,000 or more. The bill would lower those thresholds to $3,000 and $1,000, respectively, in an effort to crack down on the problem, Kaminsky said.
The legislation would also add a sentencing enhancement for “abuse of the public trust,” allowing additional charges against those who commit felonies and use their official position to conceal the crimes.
