With the Political Parties and Their Lobbyists Controlling the Board of Elections is Anyone Surprised Investigators Found Bribery in Their Contracting Process

The NYC Board of Elections suspended an employee who’s also a top Queens GOP official, Stephen Graves, after he was caught on tape soliciting a “finder’s fee” from a voting machine contractor in exchange for recommending a particular lobbyist. Qns. elections official under fire for soliciting money from a contractor (NYP) he city’s Board of Elections has suspended an employee who is a top official in the Queens Republican Party after being notified that he was caught on tape soliciting a $25,000 “finder’s fee” from a company competing for a $65 million contract in 2009. Department of Investigation provided information to the board that Stephen Graves, first vice chairman of the Queens GOP and a $66,392-a-year board employee, asked for the money from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems as it was battling rival Elections Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., to sell the city its first electronic voting machines.

The NYP Did Not Name the Lobbyist for Dominion But in 2009 the Village Voice and Daily News Did

From NYP:

"Graves was recommending the use of a particular lobbyist,” said one source. “In exchange for that he wanted a finder’s fee.” The lobbyist, who was not identified, was supposed to receive $250,000 a year for five years, the source said."

The Village Voice Named Schlein As the LobbyistFor Dominion

Dominion Voting Sytems(a/k/a Sequoia Voting) is being carried on by highly-paid proxies, namely the city's most politically wired lobbyists. Dominion/Sequoia's bid is being led by the estimable Stanley Schlein, who was Mayor Bloomberg's pick as chairman of the Civil Service Commission until he was found to be using the place and staff as his private law office. Voting Machine Smack-Down: Lobbyists Brawl(Village Voice)

Is the Bronx Fixer Involved in A BOE Bribery Scheme? You Would Never Know From the NYP Coverage

More on Schlein: The lawyer, Stanley K. Schlein, a well known lobbying is representing Senator Pedro Espada, he was the lawyer representing D.A. Johson against accusations that he live in Westchester County. Sound familiar? (see article by Sam Roberts NY Times July 26, 2005).Pedro Espada Jr. live in Westchester County too. * A Bronx fixer's scandalous history doesn't bother Yankees or Democrats Schlein was there representing the three renegade Democratic senators who are demanding a fat share of the spoils before they agree to give their own party its long-sought majority in the state senate. *

Is Schlein To Big To Go to Jail?

While rooting the Yankees to a new home, Democratic political fixer Stanley Schlein failed his other clients. *In an investigative profile in The Village Voice, Tom Robbins delves into Stanley Schlein's record, not as lawyer to George Steinbrenner, nor as counsel to the Bronx Democratic Party-which he both, fortunately for the new Yankee stadium, serves as. But rather as court-appointed guardian for the incapacitated * Schlein the Lawyer Making Bronx Judges -- Again (Village Voice) * Bronx Lawyer Is a Power Behind Several Thrones(NYT) There he was, advising the Rev. Al Sharpton during last year's presidential primaries. This spring, he joined the legal team promoting the Jets' proposed West Side stadium. Now he is navigating government bureaucracy for the Yankees and also counseling Fernando Ferrer about mayoral campaign arcana. His name is Stanley K. Schlein, and he has a hand in some of the city's biggest projects and political campaigns. But few people outside the city's intimate political world have ever heard of him. Even one of Mr. Schlein's political rivals in the Bronx, Vincent A. Marchiselli, a former assemblyman and former member of the Civil Service Commission, said: "He'd always have a connection to protect himself. He was a judge-maker, a kingmaker.

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