Disgraced ex-state Comptroller Alan Hevesi savored his first day of freedom yesterday after serving 20 months in prison for his role in a pay-to-play pension scandal.
“I’m very, very happy to be home with my family, and wish all you guys a very happy holiday season,” Hevesi said outside his Forest Hills, Queens, home after being released from Mid-State Correctional Facility in upstate Oneida County.
Hevesi, 72, was accompanied home by his son, state Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Queens), and daughter, Laura, for the more-than-four-hour drive.
As an elected official, the once-dapper former state and city comptroller was known for his neatly groomed silver hair and fine suits. But yesterday he sported a shaved head and wore jeans, a black pullover with a collared shirt underneath and a peacoat.
Alan Hevesi was granted parole last month after serving 20 months of a maximum four-year sentence.
State comptroller from 2003 to 2006, he admitted taking $1 million from a pension-fund investor to finance gifts and trips and campaign contributions in a case prosecuted by then-state Attorney General and now-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The quid pro quo included accepting trips for himself and his family to Israel, Italy and California and $500,000 in donations arranged by the investor who won $250 million in pension-fund business.
“What we did [as attorney general] with that case, I’m very proud of. For Mr. Hevesi, I’m glad he gets to go on with his life and [be] reunited with his family,” Cuomo said on Post columnist Fredric U. Dicker’s Talk 1300 radio show in Albany.
It wasn’t Hevesi’s only brush with the law. He left office in 2006 after pleading guilty to another felony for using state workers and resources to chauffeur around his wife, Carol, who was disabled, as well as run family errands.
Hevesi won his second bid for release. The state Parole Board denied his original request last year after hearing his “shallow” attempt to accept blame for his actions.
His political consultant, Hank Morris, the mastermind of the pension-fund scam, remains in prison after his parole bid was rejected earlier this year. Morris, also sentenced to up to four years in the slammer, pleaded guilty to securities fraud for the kickback scheme that netted him $19 million.
Hevesi, a former state assemblyman, was a fixture in Queens Democratic Party politics. He ran for mayor in 2001, but failed to win the Democratic primary.
Despite his conviction, Hevesi will receive a $105,000- a-year government pension.
“Alan Hevesi is the only Ph.D. I know who is a twice-convicted felon with a state pension,” said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.
Additional reporting by Erik Kriss