Guilty Like Hevesi?

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A number of blogs, including TalkLeft and McJoan at DailyKos have noted that what Rudy Giuliani did — giving then-mistress Judi Nathan a city car and driver — looks a lot like, actually worse, than what ended former NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s career and forced him to plead guilty to misappropriating state funds. Hevesi had a taxpayer car and driver at the disposal of his sick wife.

Well, there’s no doubt Rudy would be tried and convicted in the court of history, posterity, generally shameless behavior and various other metaphorical jurisdictions.

Indeed, having state employees chauffeur your sick wife seems considerably more justifiable than having a car and driver detailed for your mistress.

But we’ve been looking into this and from what we can see Rudy probably skates.

Again, this is preliminary and we’re in touch with experts on New York law. But the law that snagged Hevesi applies to state officials, not all public officials in the state of New York. So even though Rudy did something considerably more egregious we’re pretty sure the law simply doesn’t apply to him as a city elected official (probably a case where the diminutive nature of his office is something he’s thankful for).

We’re looking to see if there’s a parallel law that applies in New York City. But so far we haven’t found it.

Don’t worry, we’ll keep looking …

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