Fred Dicker at the NY Post: [1]
THE man supposedly leading a key state probe of Gov. Spitzer [2] and the Dirty Tricks Scandal has abruptly taken a 21/2-week vacation in South America – after secretly receiving a $15,000 pay raise, The Post has learned. Recently hired Public Integrity Commission Executive Director Herbert Teitelbaum’s extended vacation in Argentina has left stunned commission employees questioning his commitment to a probe aimed at determining if Spitzer and his aides broke the law by using the State Police in an effort to politically damage Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer.)
“People can’t believe Teitelbaum just took off in the middle of the investigation,” said a source close to the commission.
[3] “This is the biggest scandal in a generation, and he leaves in the middle of the investigation, before the governor has undergone questioning?”
A raise from who? Who authorized it? On whose direction was this raise given? During a fiscal crisis here in NY? This raise and the timing of this vacation would appear to have all the earmarks of a political cover-up/payoff, particularly given the connections:
Teitelbaum, a longtime Manhattan lawyer with close ties to Spitzer’s aides, was named in mid-July by another Spitzer appointee, commission Chairman John Feerick, as the $140,000-a-year head of the Ethics Commission.
As time goes on the evidence against Spitzer continues to mount.
And, Argentina? Please tell me there’s no connection to Crazy Uncle Hugo in all of this.