ALBANY — Gov. Paterson secretly solic ited five free tickets to last week’s World Series opener, in apparent violation of the state ethics law, even while publicly claiming it was the Yankees who had “invited” him to the game, The Post has learned.
When initially asked about the freebies, Paterson spokesman Peter Kauffmann said the governor was personally offered the tickets by Yankee President Randy Levine, with whom he had appeared on a CNBC show a few days earlier.
Levine shot back, “He’s a liar. I never talked to him [Paterson].”
Kauffmann then offered two other stories.
First, he claimed that another Yankee official, Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost, offered the tickets to Paterson.
But after Levine, a former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, shot that down as false as well, Kauffmann conceded that Trost had actually offered the governor playoff tickets, not Series tickets, many weeks ago.
A third story then came from a senior Paterson administration official, who told The Post that the tickets were solicited from the Yankees’ top management at Paterson’s direction by David Johnson, the governor’s personal aide.
“The governor didn’t want to pay,” the official said.
The free tickets, originally for Paterson, his son, his son’s friend and two aides, were called illegal by ethics watchdogs because the governor is barred by law from accepting gifts from organizations that do business with the state.
Kauffmann initially claimed that taking free tickets worth nearly $2,000 was appropriate because the governor’s appearance at the World Series was part of his “official” and “ceremonial” responsibilities. He said Paterson’s chief counsel, Peter Kieran, had given the Yankees a letter assuring them the governor was on “official business.”
The team responded by saying it had demanded written assurance that the free tickets were for “official purposes” to make sure it wouldn’t be violating the state’s gift ban.
Kauffmann’s story changed several more times over two days as the number of free tickets received shrank to four, to two and, over the weekend, to one.
Kauffmann said Paterson ultimately decided — after learning that The Post was preparing a report — to pay for his son and his son’s friend, while directing Johnson to pay for his own ticket.
New York Public Interest Research Group Legislative Director Blair Horner said he was “stunned” by the receipt of free tickets.
“That should be a slam-dunk violation of the gift ban,” said Horner, a state ethics-law expert.