State Senate candidate Pedro Espada Jr. surivives residency challenge
BY BOB KAPPSTATTER DAILY NEWS BRONX BUREAU CHIEF
Sunday, August 17th 2008, 5:30 PM
Bronx political issues can sometimes be moving ones.
Case in point: controversial former State Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., with a house in Westchester and a co-op in the Bronx, last week likely survived a residency court challenge.
Espada, who formerly represented the East Bronx, is challenging State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez for his West Bronx seat in the Sept. 9 Democratic primary.
Gonzalez is due to go on federal trial in October, charged with siphoning $400,000 from non-profits he funded.
Last week, Special Referee John Ostermann issued a legal finding to Bronx Supreme Court Justice Robert Seewald that Espada legally lives in a two-bedroom Bedford Park co-op he bought last August.
Gonzalez, a Bronx Democratic Party stalwart, has the party's support, though he has leaned at times to the Republican side of the aisle in Albany.
Bronx Democrats, however, view Espada as a party pariah for sitting with the Republican majority and threatening to change his party registration when he was in office.
In the residency case, Gonzalez's operatives produced testimony from residents and the super of the co-op that they rarely saw or heard Espada, though they did encounter his wife and heard noises coming from the fourth-floor apartment.
They also submitted utility bills showing minimal gas usage, though Espada's wife, Connie, contended she cooked a number of meals for six of their nine grandchildren there. Both testified they spend only two to three days a week at the Mamaroneck house, which they said they have tried to sell "several times."
Gonzalez's side also submitted registration records for four cars Espada owns and mortgage and banking records, all tied to Mamaroneck or the Soundview Health Care network, upon which Espada has built a small fortune - and legal problems.
He was previously tried and acquitted of using Medicaid funds for campaign expenses.
rkappstatter@nydailynews.com
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August 29, 2008, 10:37 am
Citizens Union Makes Its ‘Preferences’ Own
By Jonathan P. Hicks
politics5b
In the hotly contested race for a State Senate seat in Brooklyn, Kevin S. Parker, the incumbent, has received the backing of Citizens Union, a nonpartisan civic organization founded more than a century ago to fight the corruption of Tammany Hall.
The group’s support of Mr. Parker, a three-term incumbent, was announced along with its preferences for candidates in a number of other races in the Sept. 9 primary.
Mr. Parker, a Democrat who represents a district anchored in East Flatbush, is facing two opponents in the primary: City Council members Simcha Felder and Kendall Stewart.
Citizens Union does not officially endorse candidates. Instead, it issues “preferences,” based on candidates’ written responses to a questionnaire, interviews with the board, public records and “adherence to the principles of good government.”
In a State Senate primary in the Bronx, the organization said it preferred Pedro Espada Jr., a former city councilman and state senator. Mr. Espada is challenging incumbent State Senator Efrain González Jr. in a district that stretches from Kingsbridge to East Tremont.
Senator González is facing federal corruption charges. A federal indictment filed in 2006 charges that he stole more than $400,000 in state money and used the funds for personal expenses, including financing his private cigar company. Mr. González has denied the charges.
Mr. Espada has served previously in the Senate, although in an adjacent district.
The organization also expressed a preference for Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat who represents the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Mr. Espaillat, who was first elected in 1996, is being challenged this year by his onetime protégé, City Councilman Miguel Martinez.
Inez Barron, a teacher who is the wife of city councilman Charles Barron, was also preferred by Citizens Union. Ms. Barron is running for an open Assembly seat representing the East New York section of Brooklyn. She is one of five candidates in the Democratic primary.
The seat is open following the resignation of Diane M. Gordon, who was convicted in April of receiving a bribe for offering to help a developer acquire a parcel of city-owned land in her district if he would build her a free house in a gated community in Queens.
The group also supports State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, a Queens Democrat, who is facing a primary challenge from Robert Schwartz, a retired business owner. Ms. Stavisky was first elected to the Senate in 1999 in a district that includes Flushing, Fresh Meadows and Rego Park.
The organization declined to offer a preference inn an Assembly contest in Flushing in which the incumbent, Ellen Young, is being challenged by Grace Meng, a lawyer whose father, Jimmy K. Meng, was Ms. Young’s predecessor in the Assembly.
Also, the group expressed no preference in a primary race in Manhattan where Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is being challenged by two candidates.
The organization said it will wait until next week to announce its preference in a few other races: A primary where State Senator Martin Connor is being challenged by Daniel Squadron in a district in Brooklyn and Manhattan as well as another in Brooklyn in which Assemblyman William F. Boyland Jr. is being challenged by two candidates: Royston P. Antoine and Leonard Hatter Jr.
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