The stench from Albany’s toxic sewer of corruption grew worse yesterday when a Bronx assemblyman was charged with selling legislation to crooked businessmen — and was caught on wiretaps letting them tailor it to their needs, authorities said yesterday.
“I just need you to tell me what they want; we prepare the bill . . . you can write down the language, basically what you want,” Eric Stevenson told his cohorts, who owned two adult day-care centers and wanted to eliminate any future competition.
Stevenson, a Democrat, stuffed his pockets with $22,000 in cash-filled envelopes he got outside a Bronx steakhouse, in a car and even in an Albany hotel bathroom, authorities said.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said the charges — announced two days after the bribery arrests of state Sen. Malcolm Smith and City Councilman Dan Halloran — paint a disturbing picture of New York politics.
“When it is more likely for a New York state senator to be arrested by the authorities than to be defeated at the polls, [voters] should be angry,” said Bharara, quoting a story in Tuesday’s Post.
“How many other pending bills were born of bribery?” he asked. “And worse: How many passed bills were born of bribery? How about items in the budget?
“How much work of the city and state government is tarnished by tawdry graft?”
As part of the new scandal:
* Stevenson “introduced actual legislation barring the opening of . . . adult day-care centers in the city” so they wouldn’t compete with the two day-care centers in The Bronx, Bharara said.
* He asked Con Ed to expedite a gas line at one of the centers, recruited senior-citizen customers at a Black History Month event and helped get one of the facilities a certificate of occupancy, the feds say.
* The case got a big assist from fellow Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Nelson Castro, a cooperating witness who led investigators to former Assembly candidate Sigfredo Gonzalez as part of a deal to escape perjury charges by the Bronx DA.
Gonzalez — a former Pedro Espada staffer — made his own deal and wore a wire, catching Stevenson discussing bribes with the businessmen, according to the criminal complaint.
* Castro is resigning from the Assembly effective Monday as part of his deal — and revealed he has been cooperating with state and federal prosecutors in multiple politician probes.
* Stevenson blamed stop-and-frisk for his problems when he walked out of Manhattan federal court on $250,000 bail.
“I’ve been really outspoken for a lot of issues,” Stevenson said. When asked which ones, he said, “Stop-and-frisk and all those things,” referring to the controversial NYPD policy.
Stevenson, 46, was charged with bribery and corruption and faces 35 years in prison.
He was arrested yesterday morning along with adult day-care center owners Igor Belyanksy, Rostislav “Slava” Belyansky, Igor Tsimerman and David Binman.
“The people of New York should be more than disappointed. They should be angry,” Bharara said.
He hammered Stevenson for trying to give the day-care centers “a local monopoly” with the bill, which was drafted in February and had yet to get a co-sponsor in the Assembly.
The bill also would allow his alleged bribe-givers to expand their existing centers.
Bharara called it “a fairly neat hat trick to hatch a scheme that offends core principals of both democracy and capitalism simultaneously.
“If proven,” he said, it represents “an especially breathtaking bit of corruption, even by Albany standards.
“Assemblyman Stevenson was only too happy to oblige — for the right price. Assemblyman Stevenson basically said, ‘Show me the money’ . . . The money was shown over and over again.”
Bharara said New Yorkers should be angry that “so many of their leaders can be bought for a few thousand dollars” — and ask “some pointed questions.”
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver called Stevenson’s alleged actions “a clear violation of the public trust” that “cannot be tolerated.”
“I am encouraging him to resign,” Silver said.
Gov. Cuomo called the alleged scheme “appalling.”
“New Yorkers deserve a government that is as good as the people it serves, and the events of the last few days fail this and every standard of public service,” Cuomo said.
Stevenson’s lawyer, Murray Richman, predicted, “He’ll be exonerated of these charges.”
One of Stevenson’s co-defendants, “Slava” Belyansky, said, “I’m innocent,” and lauded Stevenson.
“He’s a great person,” Belyansky said.
“He’s the best politician I’ve ever known . . . He helps a lot of people.”
But he had less-than-kind words for Castro, the assemblyman whose secret cooperation led to the charges in the case.
“He’s a rascal,” Belyansky said.
Additional reporting by Josh Margolin, David Seifman, Erik Kriss, Frank Rosario and Julia Marsh