We’re not going to growl or grumble about the reports released yesterday closing the case on Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s sexual-harassment spree.
A special prosecutor investigated Vito for nearly a year but found no grounds for prosecution — so Vito can relax, knowing there’s no such thing as crime in New York.
If you don’t feel like reading 75 pages rehashing the story, here’s the gist:
It’s not a crime that Vito harassed and molested employees and retaliated against them when they refused his sexual advances.
It’s not a crime that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver covered up Vito’s attacks and made secret payments to the accusers with taxpayer money to shut them up.
It’s not a crime that state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman closed his eyes to the hush-money payoff.
It’s not a crime that state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli signed off on the payments without raising a single objection.
Glad that’s cleared up.
Although Vito sexually degraded numerous employees over a period of years, at this point he’s the small fry. Our real beef is with his enablers — including Silver, Schneiderman and DiNapoli, who are three of the top dogs in state government.
As the special prosecutor found, “the chief concern of those in the Assembly was mitigating the Assembly’s damages. That goal outweighed any interest in investigating or disciplining . . . Lopez or in preventing similar occurrences in the future.”
The Joint Commission on Public Ethics also released its investigative report yesterday, and it contains some real pearls.
Vito’s virus is literally infecting others: One harassed employee contracted pink eye from Lopez after he pressured her to place medicinal drops in his infected eyes.
But don’t cry for her. Vito was kind enough to set up the woman’s totally unqualified boyfriend with a $142,000-a-year job running a massive state agency.
Welcome to New York politics. Long after Vito is gone, the men who kept his secrets — Silver, Schneiderman and DiNapoli — will remain in power, elected and re-elected.
That’s the real scandal.