ALBANY – A combative Republican state assemblyman who voted against legalizing medical marijuana in 2011 was busted for pot possession yesterday, State Police announced today.
Steve Katz, who compared Speaker Sheldon Silver to disgraced Penn State football coach Joe Paterno for hiding a public payment to settle sex harassment allegations against Assemblyman Vito Lopez, was stopped for speeding on the Thruway on his way to Albany yesterday morning.
The trooper smelled marijuana and Katz, 59, turned over a small bag of weed, State Police said.
Katz, a veterinarian from Yorktown with a practice in the Bronx that lost its license last year, was elected with Tea Party support in 2010 despite reports of federal and state tax liens, animal abuse charges and settlement of a lawsuit involving sex harassment at his practice.
State Police stopped Katz at about 10 a.m. for going 80 miles an hour in a 65 mph zone northbound in the town of Coeymans.
The trooper smelled pot.
Katz “was cooperative and handed the trooper a bag of marijuana,” said State Police spokeswoman Darcy Wells.
Katz was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana and released on an appearance ticket. He’s due in Coeymans town court March 28.
“I am confident that once the facts are presented that this will quickly be put to rest,” Katz said in a statement today.
Katz was hit with a federal tax lien in 1992 for $54,198 in unpaid income taxes, interest and penalties from 1985, 1986 and 1987, and the state tagged him with a tax warrant in 1999 for $2,633, the Journal News has reported.
The liens were all lifted after the debt was satisfied, according to public records cited by the paper, which reported that Katz blamed a mistake by the government.
The paper has also reported that Katz was charged with “scattering rubbish” in July 1992 when, he said, he was trying to transport a client’s dead German shepherd and had to momentarily set the dog on an outdoor trash container.
He was also arrested in 1997 when a “vicious Chihuahua” he was treating at his Bronx Veterinary Center latched onto his hand and was accidentally knocked off the examination table.
Charges were dismissed in both cases.
In 2002, a woman who worked at Katz’s veterinary office sued him and his business, claiming a co-worker sexually harassed her and Katz refused to investigate.
Katz fired her a month after bringing her concerns to him, according to the Journal News.
Katz tried to dismiss the lawsuit, but it was settled for about $105,000 in 2006.
Last year while in office, Katz let his veterinary license expire, only to renew it on line and pay late fees after newspaper stories appeared.
The state Department of State dissolved his hospital’s license because his practice failed to file tax returns for two years.
His lawyer has said Katz gave up his veterinary practice to focus on his job as an assemblyman, but the center is still open and a staffer today said Katz still runs it.