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"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones." Machiavelli
Thoughts on Investigations and Albany ReportingBy DIA, Section News
Recently we were treated to this bit in a story written by reporter Michele Morgan Bolton.
A City Court judge is being investigated by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct over allegations he twice intervened when police stopped his son, including once when the youth had marijuana and drug paraphernalia, according to sources with knowledge of the probe.Now we know that this judge (Keefe) beat a traditional Albany machine candidate and he isn’t in favor with the establishment. So many consider this “leaking” of an investigation to a reporter to be politically motivated. And since I’ve found MM Bolton’s work to be quite biased against any non machine candidates, I would have to agree. After all, we know that the Albany Police aren't fond of leaking information to Times Union reporters, right? After all, the president of the police union threatened the Times Union in the past year and has since refused to talk to them. Of course, that was only about cases involving crimes within the APD. Now in another recent story about an assistant DA who screwed up some procedural parts of a case we were treated to this bit of editorializing by MM Bolton. Such a declaration could be the kiss of death for the case that Albany County District Attorney David Soares has counted as one of his most significant.So, Bolton takes the fact that an assistant DA screwed up, places the blame on the DA, says that this case is one that the DA has "counted" as one of his most significant but offers not proof of this. Seems like she is really going over board on this one and just trying to make readers think that this is the "kiss of death" for David Soares. I consider that unprofessional and biased. Now, let's take a look at another investigation in Albany and see how that has been handled. Remember this case? From in or about December 2003 through in or about December 2005, he conspired and agreed with another person to use interstate wire communications in execution of a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money and property from mortgage lenders by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises. As part of this scheme, Dare's conspirator would and did locate borrowers to obtain mortgages for the purchase of various residential properties in and about the City of Albany. Thereafter, Dare would and did prepare loan applications for the borrowers, which applications sometimes falsely represented that the borrowers had access to capital, usually through a bank account. In these applications, Dare also would and did falsely state and inflate the income of borrowers who he did not believe would otherwise qualify for financing. As part of this scheme, Dare's conspirator would and did obtain cashier's checks in the names of borrowers as purported proof of their access to capital when, in truth and fact, this was not the borrowers' capital and the checks were retained after the closings by Dare's conspirator. Dare and his conspirator would utilize inflated property values in obtaining financing, in order that the borrowers could obtain the properties without putting money down, and Dare and his conspirator could profit from the additional proceeds from the fraudulently obtained mortgages.Sounds a little more serious than picking your kid up after he was pulled over for speeding or for having one of your employees screw up a case. Sounds like some pretty serious white collar crime. Perhaps you remember this? Albany Police Chief James Tuffey, who took over the department in December, said he was not aware of the federal investigation. However, several departmental sources said it was known by certain police officials that the FBI investigation was unfolding.What investigation would that be? Well, the feds were looking into who was Dare's partner in this rather elaborate white collar crime spree. And apparently he was on the APD. So, did I miss the Times Union article that says that this is a "black mark" on Tuffey's record, or perhaps Tuffey's boss, Mayor Jennings? That the feds were investigating a member of his force for white collar crime? Seems like that might be the "kiss of death" if you were a police chief, right? Or if you were the Mayor who had presided over this force for the last 14 years through various allegations of corruptions, serious DWI issues among your employees, etc. So where has the investigation been into who Dare's partner was. Dare stole several million dollars from tax payers. This isn't some kid with a bag of weed we are talking about. So, where is the investigative reporting? Where are the reporters writing lines like, "This is just another in a long string of incidents that cast a dark shadow over Mayor Jennings adminstration and raise serious questions of ongoing corruption and disregard for the law..."? I'm not excusing the actions of the judge or the ADA. I am accusing the Times Union reporters of rather blatant bias. Perhaps this was all taken care of with another internal investigation by the chief and there was no need to release the information to the public? Dare was originally scheduled to be sentenced on March 6th. Anyone hear about that? Because I don't recall seeing that in the paper.
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All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 2005 The Management