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Dealing with Disgrace
Scandal and humiliation can end a political career. But not always.
By Edward-Isaac Dovere

When it comes to producing problem-plagued politicians, New York more than holds its own.

Flash back 15 years to two men who were supposed to be governor. Sol Wachtler was the chief judge of the Court of Appeals and the GOP's intellectual, personal and political match for Mario Cuomo (D), whom he was expected to challenge in the 1994 governor's race. His reputation and credentials secure, he was headed to a showdown with the three-term liberal lion, and Republicans across New York State were salivating in anticipation.

Different Outcomes for Some Recently Disgraced

Mel Miller (D-Brooklyn) was the third of four consecutive speakers to be indicted, after Perry Duryea (R) and Stanley Steingut (D)—though charges against both were dismissed. A few months before, the Court of Appeals had dismissed lingering charges of illegal campaign hiring against State Senate Minority Leader Manfred Ohrenstein (D-Manhattan).

Sometimes, though, the prosecutorial axe does fall. Former Brooklyn Assembly Member and Democratic Chair Clarence Norman, Jr. is in jail for soliciting illegal campaign contributions and for placing political funds in a private account. Former State Sen. Guy Velella (R-Bronx) got an early release after spending half a year in Rikers for bribery conspiracy, though he had weathered several other scandals, including fathering a child from an affair. (He was even briefly discussed as a 2006 candidate to take back his old seat, which is now in Democratic hands.)

Some stand firm, even in the face of charges, like Assembly Member Adam Clayton Powell IV (D-Manhattan), who did not let two dismissed claims of rape against him stop his reelection either in 2004 or this year. Some unsuccessfully fight the scandal, as when Assembly Member Patrick Manning's (R-Hudson Valley) extramarital affair and impersonation of his opponent to a political consultant overwhelmed his candidacy in this year's Republican primary. And some do not wait until the scandal or accompanying charges materialize, like Ryan Karben (D-Rockland County), who resigned his Assembly seat in May when reports emerged of his inappropriate fraternizing with three male interns.

They and others touched by indictment or scandal may have cause for optimism. Filing false travel expenses and resigning in April of 2004 did not stop Roger Green (D-Brooklyn) from running for reelection—and winning it—seven months later, nor from making a primary bid against Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-Brooklyn) this year. Malcolm Smith's (D-Queens) effort to lead his party's conference in the State Senate was hardly derailed by a former staffer serving him with a paternity suit earlier this year.

— Edward-Isaac Dovere

In the Democratic wings sat Assembly Speaker Mel Miller (D-Brooklyn), a would-be Cuomo successor.

Miller dropped first. In December of 1991, he was convicted of eight of the 19 felony charges brought against him and a former law partner for cheating clients out of profits from investments in cooperative apartments. He was automatically expelled from the Assembly when the ruling was issued.

Wachtler lasted a few months longer than Miller, but his downfall was much more colorful. In November of 1992, he was pulled over on the highway by a van of FBI agents and arrested for harassing and trying to extort money from a woman with whom he had had an affair.

His political career, which he had attempted to protect by self-medicating his depression, was over. He was publicly disgraced, and quickly resigned from the court. He spent 11 months in a North Carolina prison.

Wachtler began the prison diary he published as “After the Madness” (available only through Amazon.com) by imagining the “grand funeral” full of dignitaries extolling eulogies he would have been given had he died just a day before his arrest.

“I'm just trying to stay alive because I know what they're going to write in my obituary, and I'm trying to escape it.” — Sol Wachtler

These days, he said, “I'm just trying to stay alive because I know what they're going to write in my obituary, and I'm trying to escape it.”

Wachtler said the conviction and the behavior which led to it “comes up in my mind every waking hour, and most of the time that I sleep as well. It's become part of my psyche, and part of my regret, and my remorse, and my desire to redeem myself, but it's never away from me, and I'm still not mentally well. Though I'm stable now, there's always the depression which I feel breathing down my neck every hour.”

Harassment, extortion, bribery, scandalous affairs, shocking sexual revelations, money-laundering schemes, influence-peddling pyramids or just old-fashioned public humiliation—these are well-worn hobbies in the corridors of the State Capitol and City Hall. The latest practitioners caught are Comptroller Alan Hevesi (D), who had a state employee chauffer his ailing wife, and Assembly Member Brian McLaughlin, who faces 43 federal racketeering charges for stealing $2.2 million from taxpayers and labor unions. They are far from the only New York politicians to be rocked by scandal, or even the most colorful ones.

Take Allan Jennings, the Queens Council member who was dogged by sexual harassment claims and then defeated in last year's Democratic primary. Or take State Sen. Ada Smith, many of whose constituents are the same as those who voted Jennings out of office. She served nine terms in Albany amid various allegations of running through security checks, biting, and, most recently, throwing coffee at and pulling the hair of a female staffer.

The coffee incident in March was probably “the last straw” for voters, said Shirley Huntley, who narrowly beat Smith in the September Democratic primary. (Jennings briefly considered entering that race as well, but did not.)

Since voters had shrugged at stories of Smith's behavior for years, Huntley made no mention of it—or of Smith at all—during her campaign. That did not stop voters from bringing up the stories to her, however, and Huntley believes these people helped her get her 283-vote margin over Smith.

“I'm sure it did,” Huntley said. “Definitely.”

Smith, as is common for politicians facing scandal or disgrace, is difficult to find. Her staff, like the staffs of other disgraced politicians, is generally unresponsive, doing everything possible to shelter her. They closely adhere to the cardinal rule of the disgraced politician: never engage in an uncontrolled interview with a reporter.

State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez (D-Bronx) and Assembly Member Diane Gordon (D-Brooklyn) both know that rule well.

In August, Gonzalez was released on $25,000 bail after pleading not guilty to charges of fraud and misappropriation of funds. Gordon, meanwhile, is awaiting trial after being caught on tape apparently demanding a $500,000 bribe from a real estate developer.

That did not stop either of them from running for reelection this year, or from each getting more than 93 percent of the respective votes.

Proclaiming their innocence, they say they will continue to do the job they were elected to do. But for people like Gonzalez and Gordon, as long as the charges loom—and often for a long time afterward—the strategy is simply to disappear.

A Guide for Recovery

The difference between one fate and another for a disgraced politician is all in the response, say the experts.

Though George Arzt, one of the premier public relations men in New York City politics, insisted that “every case is different, there is no similarity,” he said he saw one rule that held true no matter what the problem: “if you get caught doing something, you have to show remorse the first day.”

But as public relations impresario Howard Rubenstein pointed out, though the apologies are definitely good ways to respond, they are not always in the best legal interests of the people involved. An apology is an admission of guilt, and that might lead to fines or jail time. So talk to a lawyer first.

Once the task of getting past charges has been addressed, Rubenstein said, then come concerns about hanging on to their loved ones, and only after that, preserving their place in politics.

Though Rubinstein insists that the “best preventative measure for people in politics is not to do it,” he suggested several different responses for those unable or unwilling to inoculate themselves.

The rehab response has proved particularly popular and effective.

“They say ‘I was drunk, I was on drugs, I had a mental breakdown, I had psychiatric problems' so that the fig leaf that a lot of them have been using seems to be rehab,” Rubinstein said, though noting, “the public's getting tired of rehab.”

“They say ‘I was drunk, I was on drugs, I had a mental breakdown, I had psychiatric problems' so that the fig leaf that a lot of them have been using seems to be rehab.” — Howard Rubinstein.

Also popular and effective: the weepy, soul-searching television interview. Rubenstein said a sympathetic reporter and an agreement that the piece go out live (to prevent any unflattering editing) were imperative for those going this route.

Rubinstein said sex scandals, which tend to stick in people's minds, are the biggest problems. Harder to grasp financial scandals can often be overcome, especially when the amount of money in question is not large. The trick is to make it through the initial onslaught of criticism, he said.

“If the public memory of wrongdoing in the short term wasn't so great when [voters] elect these people by 90 percent, in the long term, they forget, they figure he's walking on the street, he must be okay,” Rubenstein said.

Sometimes the resurgence can happen very quickly.

Andrew Cuomo's 2002 try for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination ended in what seemed to some like a flameout, as he withdrew from the race just a week before Primary Day. In the summer of 2003, his divorce from Kerry Kennedy exploded across the tabloids, complete with accusations of adultery and threats.

Two years later, he had emerged from a short retreat to become the prohibitive favorite and fundraising leader in the attorney general's race. He claimed to be chastened, to be more mature and more ready for the political arena than in the gubernatorial race.

He charged ahead, even having his three daughters star in several campaign advertisements, and scored large victories in both the primary and general elections. Cuomo is now the attorney general-elect, and presumably back on track to seeking the higher office every political observer is sure he wants.

And then there is his recently dispatched opponent, Jeanine Pirro. That she cosigned the tax returns which sent her husband to prison did not stop the state GOP from recruiting her to run for Senate against Hillary Clinton. When that campaign imploded, she transitioned into the attorney general's race.

Despite all her efforts to stand on her own during the campaign, there was barely a mention of her all year long without some reference to her husband, Al, whose speeding tickets and open womanizing provided easy tabloid grist.

Then along came the story that she had stumbled onto the radars of federal investigators for asking former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, himself a veteran disgraced public figure, to bug her husband's boat for proof of adultery.

“Did you ever have a conversation that you wish was not on the front page?” she said.

— Edward-Isaac Dovere

Wachtler lasted a few months longer than Miller, but his downfall was much more colorful. In November of 1992, he was pulled over on the highway by a van of FBI agents and arrested for harassing and trying to extort money from a woman with whom he had had an affair.

Gordon's Assembly office directs calls to the Ronald Brown Democratic Club, which her campaign used as its headquarters. A call returning a message left there suggested trying Gordon's lawyer, Bernard Udell. (Asked to identify himself, the voice from the club said, “That's not important.”)

Udell saw no reason Gordon's indictment should have impeded her reelection.

“It seems kind of obvious why she won her race,” he said, noting that he plans to fight the charges on Constitutional grounds. “She's a Democrat, and a popular one... that's it. My feeling is that people that know her don't really take that indictment too seriously.”

Udell said that he advised her to avoid the media, because the topic of the indictment would inevitably come up, even in a general conversation. But she was out on the campaign trail, and is now back in the district, according to Udell, who insisted that her Assembly work had not been affected.

“She's visible and very well-respected in Albany,” he said. “She's speaking. She's not holding press conferences, but she never did.”

New Yorkers can expect more of the same, said Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, unless major action is taken. He said the number of controversies and jail sentences for elected officials in the past few years demonstrates the need for an overhaul of state ethics laws and the creation of an independent office of public integrity.

“If you have an adequate oversight system, that will change people's behavior,” he said. “If you drive on the thruway, if there are not speed traps, people drive faster. It's the same thing here.”

But for all the protections that could be put in place, there is still a democratic will. And that, according to State Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), does not always care much about scandal.

“Voters are allowed to elect bad people,” he said. “Some would argue that voters frequently elect bad people.”

Eventually, whether bad or good, the disgraced politicians can recover.

Miller's conviction was eventually overturned on appeal. His political career was over, but that did not leave him without a career in politics: working for the lobbying and consulting firm Bolton St. John's as a specialist for the health industry, hospitals, not-for-profits and corporations. He has taught both at CUNY's Graduate Center and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Wachtler has found a new professional life as well. Aside from delivering lectures on mental health, he teaches law at Touro, coordinates programs at the bar association and does occasional arbitrations and mediations.

He said his personal relationships have recovered, with 12 years of new memories and experiences layering over what was.

“I find that people are concerned with their own lives,” he said. “They don't really focus on other people, so they forget very quickly. So if you stop someone on the street and mention my name, they say ‘Yeah, he was a judge, wasn't he? Didn't he get into some trouble?' And that would be the extent of their recollection.”

Still an admitted political junkie, Wachtler participates in a “has been” club of formerly active politicians and a “gavel club” of former judges. Regular meetings of both (the “has-been” club, for example, gathers every Election Day at Westbury Manor in Long Island) help him along, but nothing erases the continuing shame and the regrets of what might have been.

“You can't write anything about me without talking about my bad acts,” he said. “I spent 40 years of public service and that's all forgotten.”

But after the last 14 years, he admitted, “there comes a time in your life when you just want to be forgotten.”