Well at least this time it only involved a couple of staffers, but the late-breaking story about two council aides to Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn is another blow to the credibility of the City Council and New York politics in general. Asquith Reid and Joycinth Anderson were found to have embezzled nearly $150,000 that was going to go to an after-school program. Jeez, you'd think with all of the slush funds down at City Hall that these two crooks could have stolen money from that instead of kids who need something to do after the bell rings.
From WNBC:
"It was a part of the conspiracy that Reid and Anderson ... unlawfully, willfully and knowingly, having devised a scheme and artifice to defraud," according to the indictment. The pair allegedly misappropriated funds associated with the "Donna Reid Memorial Education Fund."
According to an indictment, the pair have been diverting funds since April 2005, with Reid allegedly sending $31,000 to relatives and friends in Jamaica via Western Union wire transfers. He was also accused of spending $18,000 on a hall used for events for a political club and more than $3,000 on campaign literature.
This indictment does not name any other council staff or members. Speaker Christine Quinn has been under fire for the way certain funds were put under false names in the budget so they could be held in reserve and allocated later. The indictment mentions "holding codes" where the city council "held money under fictitious names" and then distributed the funds later to certain nonprofits associated "with certain councilmembers." But the indictment does not say if prosecutors consider this act criminal.
Well Speaker Quinn might think of this as a way to get the pressure off of her own misgivings, but she would be wrong. This is a culture of corruption that festers around City Hall as much as it does up in Albany and down in Washington. Thankfully next year we get to replace two-thirds of the Council and hopefully that will get rid of the stench. Of course it is the culture that needs to be changed and accountability and transparency that needs to be added, not empty pledges of such things.
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