At the end of last August, former State Senator Shirley Huntley called for a press conference in her home district of Jamaica, Queens. There, she informed her supporters that she would be arrested the following day for an extensive criminal investigation into her personal expenses.

Turns out, between 2007 and 2008, Huntley was embezzling $90,000 through an educational non-profit she set up to spend on herself, her family and her friends. And the FBI knew all about it. So yesterday, Huntley was handed her sentence: a year and a half in state prison.

She begged the judge for a more lenient term, arguing "that you give me another chance. I vow to spend my remaining years to redeem myself in the eyes of those I have embarrassed." This sentence even comes after Huntley agreed to help the Gmen with an action that could lead to a whole new row of scandal.

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Might as well use this recent scenario to hit two birds with one stone.

Last week, Governor Cuomo announced the Public Trust Act. The bill, which came in the wake of the scandals that rocked New York politics this month, would expand the powers given to state bribers to locate and detain those involved in bribery. It would also make it much easier for a prosecutor to bring a case against this type of corruption. It was Albany's reaction to the Holleran/Smith and Stevenson controversies, both of which gave the public a rough glimpse into the dirty world of money and politics.

Moving beyond that, the governor has used the opportunity for something else. At a press conference yesterday, Cuomo proposed another idea he's been talking about for a while now (with the backing of President Obama's Organizing for America squad, too): reforming the means by which we elect our representatives in New York state.

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Last week, New York government, on both a city and state level, bore witness to corruption in its purest form.

In a matter of days, a mayoral rigging scheme was uncovered that involved the City Council, the State Assembly, and business interests. And then we found out about yet another plan in the Assembly that involved wire-tapping, bribing and, once again, business interests. The Halloran/Smith and Stevenson/Castro debacles revived a question that has driven New York politics for years: is it really that driven by money?

Well, in any sort of political scandal pile-up, the government has to make it seem like it's doing something. That's your cue, Cuomo.

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Public officials took big money to award contracts and favors.

Two guilty pleas entered yesterday revealed rot inside the city's affordable-housing department.

Luis Adorno, an inspections supervisor with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and Michael Provenzano, the department's director of construction services, both confessed to taking bribes in exchange for awarding construction contracts.

Adorno admitted that he took $100,000 in return for helping a contractor win a departmental construction contract.

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More bad news for embattled Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver: The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is reportedly looking into allegations of voter fraud against the speaker's children.

As we reported earlier this week, Silver's kids are all voting in the powerful Democratic pol's district (presumably for their old man) despite the fact that none of them actually live there -- and haven't for quite some time.

One of his kids doesn't even live in New York but has voted here six times while living out of state.

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Trenton Mayor Tony Mack was arrested this morning after authorities say he solicited bribes in exchange for a city-funded contract to build a parking garage. We've read the entire 31-page indictment -- and it's hilarious.

With a bevy of aliases like "The Fat Man," "The Little Guy," "Honey Fitz," and "JoJo," the  indictment reads more like a script for the Sopranos than something that actually could happen in real life -- or outside of New Jersey.

"Uncle Remus" is code for the money Mack and his co-defendant -- convicted pervert/enormous fatso Joseph Giorgianni -- solicit from a private contractor, and he uses analogies like "an empty garbage bag can't stand up unless you put garbage in it" to secretly explain that bribes are expected.

It's terrific in that "Seriously, New Jersey? Seriously?" sort of way. 

Read the entire complaint below.    

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Trenton Mayor Tony "Napoleon" Mack

Trenton Mayor Tony "Honey Fitz" Mack currently is in federal custody after authorities say he solicited bribes in exchange for a city-funded contract to build a parking garage. Also arrested this morning was Mack's sex-offender buddy Joseph Giorgianni, who "ate his way out of jail" after getting convicted of perving out on a 14-year-old girl (more on that below).

According to court documents obtained by the Voice, the feds have been investigating Mack since September 2010, when they say he, Giorgianni and several others -- including Mack's brother, Ralphiel -- accepted bribes for the parking garage contract.

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Since 2009, Louis Abate -- in his former role as a Nassau County housing official responsible for distributing Section 8 federal housing funds -- has been writing $5,000 checks every month to a landlord named "J.M. Watson" to subsidize the rent of low-income families living in an apartment Watson supposedly owned.

The problem, as the federal government sees it, is that Watson doesn't exist, and Abate was pocketing the cash.

Abate was arrested this morning, and is expected to be arraigned this afternoon on charges of theft of government funds.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by the Voice, since 2009, Abate -- who served as the fiscal director for the Nassau County Office of Housing and Community Development (it was his job to hand out federal funds to landlords with tenants who qualify for Section 8 housing benefits) -- wrote about $120,000 in checks to "Watson."

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Really, Jimmy Meng? Really?

Is this guy friggin' serious?!

Just minutes after getting released from jail on $1 million bail yesterday afternoon, former Assemblyman Jimmy Meng -- who currently is charged with fraud in a somewhat hilarious faux-bribery case -- actually called the very witness who ratted him out to federal authorities.

As we reported yesterday, Meng allegedly lied to the aforementioned witness about being able to get him a reduced plea deal in a tax fraud case by bribing prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. The witness, however, told federal authorities about the alleged bribe, they set up a sting, and Meng was busted yesterday holding a fruit basket filled with $80,000 in cash.

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www.chinadaily.com

Former Assemblyman Jimmy Meng is looking at up to 20 years in prison after authorities say he accepted $80,000 to attempt to bribe non-existent prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

Well, this can't be good for Grace Meng's Congressional campaign...

The Democratic hopeful's father, Jimmy Meng, is the first Asian-American to be elected to the New York Legislature in the history of the Empire State. After allegedly accepting a fruit basket packed with $80,000 in cash earlier today, he now becomes the first Asian-American state legislator in New York history hit with fraud charges.

Federal authorities say the former Queens assemblyman solicited a bribe from an unidentified man charged with tax crimes in state court. Meng allegedly told the man that he could guarantee him a reduced sentence by bribing prosecutors if he forked over 80,000 bucks -- which the man did this afternoon...in a fruit basket...as federal authorities were watching.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by the Voice, in 2011, the unidentified man went to Meng -- a once powerful state lawmaker -- and asked if he had any advice in regard to his legal troubles. Meng told the man that several assistant district attorneys from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office had been assigned to his case, and that if he gave them $20,000 each he would be given a plea deal that would keep him behind bars for no more than a year -- which is substantially less time than was offered in his initial plea deal.

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