Just two weeks after state Sen. Malcolm Smith’s bribery bust, a Queens GOP boss offered a City Council hopeful the party’s endorsement in exchange for consulting jobs for him or some pals, The Post has learned.
First Vice Chairman Stephen Graves — a regular in poker games with Smith’s co-defendants, City Councilman Dan Halloran and ex-Republican power broker Vincent Tabone — made the pitch to Sunny Hahn on April 16, sources said.
He promised her the party’s endorsement as she looks to challenge Councilman Peter Koo for his Flushing seat. Koo was elected in 2009 on the GOP ticket, but later became a Democrat.
“If you . . . consider hiring me or [Republican] party people like me, it would help to get an endorsement,” Graves told Hahn, according to multiple sources.
“I called him back the next day and said, ‘I cannot accept an endorsement with conditions,’ ” Hahn told The Post.
Graves got nervous when she refused, and said, “No, didn’t mean that. I didn’t’ mean conditions,” Hahn claimed.
The FBI was immediately told about the alleged shakedown attempt, sources said.
Graves denied offering an endorsement to Hahn in exchange for a consulting gig.
“That is completely, completely, completely and totally, totally a mischaracterization,” he told The Post.
“Even if I were so stupid to be that way in the first place — which I would not — in the current environment, that would be ridiculously dumb.”
Graves claims he stressed to Hahn that only the Queens GOP chairman, Phil Ragusa, could endorse a candidate.
But Ragusa distanced the party from Graves.
“If he went out and did it on his own, that’s not my problem,” he said.
“If what you’re saying is true, clearly, we are very upset because he never had the authority to do such a thing.”
Last April, Graves was suspended by the Board of Elections when he was caught on tape allegedly soliciting a $25,000 “finder’s fee” from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, which was vying for a $65 million contract in 2009 to sell the city its first electronic voting machines.
The feds and the Queens District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute, but the Board of Elections asked Graves to take a leave of absence while the matter was investigated.
But Graves quit his job as an associate staff analyst, making $66,392 per year.
He submitted his resignation on Feb. 13, but he has not officially been replaced.