ALBANY — The Public Integrity Commission, the state’s top ethics watchdog, yesterday made official what has long been known inside the Capitol — that Gov. Paterson is an incorrigible liar whose words, under scrutiny, rarely hold up.
Paterson has earned a reputation for mendacity among elected officials during his embarrassing 2½ years in office. Yesterday, he earned that reputation with the public with the commission’s imposition of an unprecedented $62,125 fine.
He had avoided being officially certified a liar until now through a series of ducks and dodges, claims of victimization, and appeals to sympathy because of his legal blindness. But he went a step too far when he testified as the commission investigated The Post’s disclosure of his acceptance of World Series tickets to Yankee Stadium in 2009 — in violation of the state’s tough “gift ban” for top officials.
“The moral and ethical tone of any organization is set at the top,” said Commission Chairman Michael Cherkasky, a former rackets bureau chief in the Manhattan DA’s Office — who just happened to have been appointed by Paterson.
“Unfortunately, the governor set a totally inappropriate tone by his dishonest and unethical conduct,” Cherkasky said.
The fine is a civil penalty, but Paterson’s conduct may have been criminal as well. Former Chief Judge Judith Kaye, in a report prepared at the request of Attorney General and Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo, concluded in August that Paterson may have broken the law by lying under oath. That possibility is being probed by the Albany County district attorney.
So the commission’s record fine may not be the last word. A criminal indictment could still come.
And lying under oath was, of course, far from this governor’s first serious ethical transgression.
Whether it was his deep involvement in the Aqueduct scandal, for which federal criminal charges may soon be brought, his improper intervention in the Sherr-una Booker-David Johnson domestic affair, for which Johnson has been criminally charged, or the leaking of personal information on Caroline Kennedy when she was being considered as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s replacement in the US Senate, Paterson’s brief tenure as chief executive brought the ethical standards of an already disreputable state government to an all-time low.
Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, may have put it best when he succinctly declared that “the governor’s failures on ethics policies and his behavior will forever tarnish his record.”
He just should have added, “And it has severely damaged the state as well.”