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A bitter face-off between former car czar Steve Rattner and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is getting uglier.
Rattner tossed a few more verbal grenades Cuomo’s way during an interview with Charlie Rose last night in which he accused Cuomo of using strong-arm tactics.
“I have been subjected to every kind of threat of prosecution and punishment known to man practically,” Rattner told Rose during an hour-long interview in midtown Manhattan.
Rattner and Cuomo are locked in a legal feud over charges that Rattner participated in a “pay-for-play” scheme to secure investments for his funds from the New York Common Retirement Fund.
Last week, Cuomo filed two lawsuits against Rattner alleging that he offered kickbacks to officials at the pension fund in exchange for investment money.
Cuomo wants Rattner to accept a lifetime ban from the securities industry and pay $26 million in penalties — a punishment that Rattner believes is far too severe.
Rattner has already settled similar charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, agreeing to pay $6.2 million and accept a two-year ban from the securities industry.
“What the attorney general’s done is close to extortion . . . because he has basically threatened me all along the way that if I don’t do what he wants me to do he will prosecute me to the ends of the earth, basically,” Rattner told Rose.
“Andrew Cuomo decided for whatever set of reasons, the politics of this, the press, his own emotions, his people’s emotions were such that he would prefer to sue than settle,” Rattner said.
Cuomo’s probe centers on allegations that Rattner helped distribute a film for David Loglisci, the chief investment officer of the New York Common Retirement Fund, in exchange for a $150 million investment in Quadrangle Group, the firm co-founded by Rattner in 2000.
A weary Rattner told Rose that he “would like to get on with my life” and denied that the helped get the movie completed in exchange for favors from the pension manager. mdecambre@nypost.com