ALBANY Longtime Democratic political consultant Hank Morris saw his opportunities when Alan Hevesi became state comptroller in 2003 and as Tammany Hall’s George Washington Plunkett famously declared to justify what he called “legal graft” he took ’em.
One of the state’s best-known political gurus, Morris acted like a character right out of the Tammany era, using his political influence to manipulate state pension-fund assets and making more than $30 million for himself, an indictment charges.
Even as Hevesi, the former city comptroller and assistant Assembly majority leader, took the powerful comptroller’s post, Morris, his paid political consultant, allegedly began using his influence to exert control over the state’s Common Retirement Fund, totaling $150 billion at the time.
Later into Hevesi’s term, Morris would even participate “in decisions to remove and promote executive staff” in the state Comptroller’s Office because they were “not sufficiently accommodating to the Morris group and its associates,” the indictment says.
A few months into Hevesi’s term, Morris, Hevesi’s longtime political guru, began a long affiliation with the small, Connecticut-based broker-dealer, Searle & Co. which would eventually pay Morris tens of millions in until-now-undisclosed fees.
And to tidy up the arrangement, Morris took and passed the tough Series 7 and Section 63 exams administered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and registered with the federal agency as a general securities representative affiliated with Searle. Searle was headed by Robert Searle, a longtime Morris friend.
When a major private investment firm such as the Carlyle Group wanted to help manage for a fee state pension-fund investments, it would contact a politically connected middleman like Searle, who would arrange for pension funds to be invested. The investor would then pay Searle a fee $13 million from Carlyle alone with 95 percent of those funds given to Morris and pals, the indictment says.