Gov. Kathy Hochul has a running-mate problem: Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin played fast and loose with the state Senate’s per diem and travel reimbursement system as well as state campaign-finance regs.
Times Union investigators found 12 instances where the then-state senator used his campaign’s credit card on trips for which he also got taxpayer-funded reimbursements for his expenses. His per diem records and campaign filings confirm the double-dipping.
State law says submitting faked reimbursement vouchers “may be a felony or misdemeanor offense.” (Senate forms don’t carry that explicit warning, but the Assembly’s travel voucher plainly says so.)
It’s meant criminal cases against other legislators.
- In 2015, Assemblyman William Scarborough (D-Queens) won a 13-month prison sentence plus two years of probation for submitting more than $54,000 in bogus travel expenses. He was also sentenced in state court for spending more than $35,000 in campaign funds on himself.
- That same year, ex-assemblyman William Boyland (D-Bklyn) got 14 years in prison for corruption and submitting $70,000 in vouchers claiming he was in Albany on legislative business when he was actually on personal trips.
- Assemblyman Roger Green (D-B’klyn) resigned from office in 2004 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges involving claims for false travel expenses and reimbursement for trips between Brooklyn and Albany that he did not pay for.
- In 2009, Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (D-Queens) drew 10 years in prison for racketeering and filing false statements, including fake claims for per diem reimbursement.
Raising state legislators’ pay to more than $100,000 was supposed to put an end to those kinds of abuses. Ha!
Even if Benjamin pleads incompetence, rather than arrogance, in submitting his false claims, he’s at least a liar: As Team Hochul vetted him for his current post, he stated on a State Police background check form that he’d never been contacted by a “regulatory body” over a possible campaign-finance violation or investigation — when both the state Board of Elections and the city Campaign Finance Board were investigating his campaigns.
Benjamin only repaid his campaign after media inquiries exposed him.
If Hochul decides to keep Benjamin as her No. 2, including on this year’s ballot, she’d better explain why his ethical breaches don’t matter.
