Skelos refutes investigation claim

Spokeswoman calls WNBC story ‘irresponsible’

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State Sen. Dean Skelos, the Senate’s majority leader and one of the most powerful elected leaders in Albany, is refuting a story aired by WNBC on Thursday, reporting that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was investigating the Republican from Rockville Centre.

According to the story, which appeared on the station’s 11 p.m. newscast on Thursday, unidentified sources close to the investigation said that Bharara and the FBI were taking a “hard look” at how Skelos was earning income in addition to his salary as a state senator. At press time, no charges had been filed against Skelos.

“Last night’s thinly sourced report by WNBC is irresponsible and does not meet the standards of serious journalism,” Kelly Cummings, Skelos’s communications director, said in a statement. “Senator Skelos has not been contacted by anyone from the U.S. attorney’s office. As such, we won’t be commenting further.”

A spokesperson for Bharara neither confirmed nor denied a possible investigation.

Skelos, Albany’s highest-ranking Republican, was sworn into his 16th term as a senator on Jan. 7. According to the NBC story, Bharara is investigating Skelos’s income from Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, the law firm for which the senator serves as counsel. According to state law, legislators are part-time and are allowed to earn outside income.

After Gov. Andrew Cuomo disbanded the Moreland Commission last year — which he impaneled to investigate corruption in Albany — Bharara took up its mantle. He sent shock waves through Albany last week when he directed federal agents to arrest Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on charges of taking bribes.

In public comments he has made since then, Bharara has made it clear that he does not agree with the notion that everything in Albany is decided by the governor, speaker and majority leader — the so-called “three men in a room.” “Is that really how government should be run?” Bharara said in a speech at New York Law School on Jan. 23. “Is that really how to run a state of almost 20 million people? When did 20 million New Yorkers agree to be ruled like a triumvirate in Roman times?”

After Silver’s arrest, Bharara insinuated that there would be more corruption charges filed against other elected leaders. “These charges [against Silver], in our view, go to the very core of what ails Albany: lack of transparency, lack of accountability and lack of principle — joined with overabundance of greed, cronyism and self-dealing,” he said at a press conference on Jan. 22. “But we will keep at it. As our unfinished fight against public corruption continues, you should stay tuned.”