By ISABEL VINCENT
For state Senate boss Pedro Espada Jr., charity begins at home -- with cushy jobs at his nonprofit health-care centers in The Bronx for his sons and extended family members.
The powerful majority leader -- who last week was thwarted in his effort to create a $120,000-per-year state job for a son -- is being investigated by the state Attorney General's Office for turning his health-care charity into a family and political money tree.
The one-time Democratic turncoat controls the money flow as CEO of Comprehensive Community Development Corp., which he founded in 1978 and which is the umbrella organization for Soundview HealthCare Network.
The corporation's five clinics serve more than 40,000 people each year, but critics say Espada has put to personal and political use some of the $15 million the organization pulls in annually.
"For Pedro Espada, politics is a route to wealth and power," said a Bronx political insider.
Even as the geyser of cash rains on his family and on his political campaigns, Comprehensive Community Development owes some $347,000 in federal and state income tax withheld from employees, as well as unpaid unemployment taxes.
Espada associates have been raiding his health-care network till since the late 1990s.
The senator was acquitted of charges that he stole more than $200,000 in Medicaid cash in order to finance his and his son's political campaigns.
But four senior employees of the Soundview HealthCare Network were convicted in a scheme to divert state money to Espada's 2001 run for Bronx borough president. The money had been intended for programs aiding poor women and children and HIV patients.
Among the charity's other lapses:
* Espada paid himself nothing in 2007, IRS documents indicate -- but the corporation's chief financial officer says they will be amended to show the lawmaker paid himself more than $450,000 a year, some $80,000 more than the standard for a charity its size.
* Espada stacks his nonprofit board with relatives and friends. His grandfather Victor Feliciano -- who is between 90 and 100 years old and lives in Puerto Rico -- is on the board and votes via conference calls from the family compound there.
Lourdes Mocete, who is married to Espada's eldest son, Pedro G. Espada, is chairwoman of the board, according to 2007 tax records, the latest available.
Pedro G. Espada, 35, draws a $90,000 salary, sources say, as Soundview's director of "environmental care."
He abruptly resigned this week from a Senate job created by his dad after Attorney General Andrew Cuomo threatened a probe.
State law bans elected officials from participating in "any decision to hire, promote, discipline or discharge a relative" for any paid state post.
* Only one board member, T.L. Solimon, was identified as a doctor -- but his license is no longer active.
"By our standards for charities, neither the chair nor the treasurer should be compensated, directly or indirectly," said Bennett Weiner, who heads up the Wise Giving Alliance of the Better Business Bureau.
According to Weiner's analysis of the corporation's tax filings from 2005 to 2007, Mocete profits indirectly from her husband's employment, even though she draws no salary as a board member.
* Espada's uncle, Juan Feliciano Jr., was the chief executive officer at the Soundview medical clinic. He left that position in January after he took an Albany job paying about $76,000 a year.
Meanwhile, Espada's other sons, Romero and Alejandro, each rake in about $90,000 at the Soundview Health Center on White Plains Road, a political insider said.
When The Post went looking for them there, they were not at work.
Romero Espada, 27, is director of Soundview's "help desk," a post he has held since 2006. His job is to train employees on the clinic's computer systems.
Alejandro Espada, 30, oversees his father's five clinics, according to Soundview's longtime chief financial officer, Kenneth Brennan.
Brennan worked as campaign treasurer for Espada in 2001 and 2003. He sits on the corporate board and earns just under $136,000, according to the nonprofit's 2006 tax filings, the most recent to list his salary.
Although charities are required to disclose personal relationships to explain possible conflicts of interest, a spokesman for Espada's charity refused to clarify board members' relationships with the lawmaker.
Alexander Fear, Soundview's legal counsel, stated in an e-mail that the board members "volunteer their time and services as private citizens. We do not have permission from board members to release personal information."
At least two of the Soundview employees who were convicted of fraud for rerouting funds to Espada's campaign -- Sandra Love and Maria Cruz -- are still employed there, The Post has learned.
Love is the site director for the Delany Sisters Health Clinic, one of the five medical centers under the Soundview umbrella. Cruz is director of human resources for Soundview HealthCare Network.
In June, Espada and another Democratic senator, Hiram Monserrate, of Queens, threw the Senate into chaos when they defected to the Republicans.
The ensuing monthlong stalemate had the parties bidding against each other until last month, when a deal was reached for Espada to return to the Democratic fold and become the majority leader.
Additional reporting by Cynthia R. Fagen
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