After Ethics Panel’s Shutdown, Loopholes Live On in Albany
Donors to Gregory R. Ball’s successful campaigns for the New York State Legislature might have been surprised by where he spent their money.
He financed excursions to Cancún and Acapulco, and a leisurely road trip on his way back. He sprang for thousands of dollars in bar and restaurant bills in Texas — and entry fees for an extreme obstacle-course race called Tough Mudder.
The freewheeling spending by Mr. Ball, a Republican senator from New York City’s northern suburbs, was only a sliver of the questionable conduct turned up by investigators for the Moreland Commission, a powerful anticorruption panel that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo created last year to clean up Albany.
But Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, abruptly shut the commission down as part of a budget deal with the State Legislature in March. Government watchdog groups were outraged. Federal prosecutors began a criminal inquiry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/nyregion/after-moreland-commission-shutdown-by-gov-cuomo-loopholes-live-on-in-albany.html?_r=0
