ALBANY — The “other woman” spotted on the arm of a partying Gov. Paterson at a Chelsea nightspot last week is a longtime friend who was put on the state payroll — despite a hiring freeze — just two weeks earlier, The Post has learned.
The governor’s office initially refused to identify the woman whose photograph with him and BET executive Rhonda Cowan raised eyebrows after it was posted online hours before Paterson revealed that the state faced a $2 billion-plus deficit.
But after The Post independently identified her, a spokeswoman for the governor confirmed the woman was Gabrielle Turner, who had posed with the governor while celebrating Cowan’s 50th birthday at Taj, on West 21st Street.
Sources called the married Turner a “longtime friend” of Paterson, while a spokeswoman for the governor said their connection goes back to 1986, when a then-unmarried Turner volunteered for his state Senate campaign.
The spokeswoman, Marissa Shorenstein, said Paterson and Turner — who lived in Florida for many years but recently relocated to Washington, DC — “did not date” in the past.
She said Turner’s husband also attended the party.
Despite a “hard” hiring freeze ordered by Paterson, Turner was hired as an $88,000-a-year legislative assistant in the state’s Washington office on July 20, state records show.
A source with strong ties to New York’s congressional delegation said, “Nobody in the Washington office knew about her being hired until she was.”
A second source added, “She was imposed on the Washington office by the governor.”
Shorenstein said Turner had been hired to fill a “three- or four-month-old” vacancy.
The spokeswoman said that with its obligation to make sure New York receives a fair share of federal stimulus money, “more than ever, the governor’s Washington office must be fully staffed and functional.”
She said Turner would be the state’s liaison to the New York congressional delegation and supervise “the legislative functions of the office.”
She provided a copy of Turner’s résumé that showed she had owned and worked at a Sarasota, Fla., public-relations firm since 2006 and served as the marketing director for another Sarasota firm.