The criminal probe into indicted state Sen. Shirley Huntley has expanded to include every earmark she secured for nonprofits that employed her campaign staffers, Senate aides and family members, The Post has learned.
Huntley, a Democrat, is facing up to 12 years in prison for allegedly covering up the misuse of $30,000 in “member item” funds by her niece and an aide to the bogus Parent Workshop charity.
Now “they are looking into other member items of the senator’s,” said a state official briefed on the investigation.
That includes a two-year, $70,000 contract Huntley arranged for Young Leaders Institute, a mentoring program run by her fund-raiser Van Holmes.
The grant is subject to a criminal investigation by state AG Eric Schneiderman, according to Tom Dunn, a spokesman for the state Education Department, which administered the funds.
Reached by cellphone, Holmes who wrote on his charity’s 2010 tax forms that he works 40 hours a week for his $100,000 salary, said, “I’m working at the US Open right now,” and couldn’t talk.
Other grants Huntley attempted to arrange fell through.
She tried to funnel a $50,000 member item to the Rev. Michael S. Corley, of the Gethsemane Baptist Church, for 2009-2010, records show.
Corley’s brother, Edward D. Corley, is married to Huntley’s daughter — and campaign treasurer — Pamela Huntley Corley.
And Huntley tried to secure a $5,000 grant to David Gantt, the “consultant” charged last December with helping forge documents to hide the Parent Workshop theft.
Additional reporting by Erik Kriss