State Sen. Malcolm Smith made a wire-wearing, undercover agent posing as a power-hungry developer an offer he thought he’d never refuse: Help rig the mayor’s race in the pol’s favor and become King of New York.
“You pull this off, you can have the house…I’ll be a tenant,” Smith tells the agent, in what the feds say was a failed $200,000 bribery scheme aimed at getting the powerful Democrat the Republican line in the 2013 mayoral election.
Audio of their November 2012 meeting at a White Plains hotel was played for jurors Tuesday as the agent was on the witness stand in the White Plains federal corruption trial of Smith (D-Queens), former City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens) and former Queens Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone.
The agent later testified, “My understanding of this is I would own Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s house.”
Prosecutors throughout the day played other tapes of meetings and phone conversations they also believe prove the co-defendants did whatever it took to try rigging the election. Some even suggested a lust for strippers and living large is running rampant among top city Republican leaders.
In a related audiotape played for jurors, Brooklyn Republican Chairman Craig Eaton offers the agent,an FBI informant and Halloran his plan to beating Democratic pols.
“You see the whole idea how we beat Democrats is we just say at some point they’ll be in prison, cause most of them will end up there at some point,” Eaton says during a December 2012 sitdown at City Hall Restaurant in Lower Manhattan in which Smith’s possible mayoral bid was mentioned.
Eaton said he favored former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr because Smith is a “victim of stupidity.”
However, he added that he’d consider offering Smith his support provided it was done above board – and only if other county GOP leaders did the same.
After Eaton walked out, Halloran was asked how close he is to Eaton by both the agent and crooked developer-turned-FBI-informant Moses Stern.
Halloran bluntly responds, “Enough to get him here. Look I’ve been in a strip club with him with a naked woman on his f—-ng lap. How close to do I need to be?
Halloran then predicts that Tabone “is open for business.”
“Let me tell you something, he’s a f—-g whore,” says Halloran.
Because he is a Democrat, Smith needed GOP support in at least three boroughs to run as a Republican without changing his party affiliation. Besides having Queens’ support through Tabone, he had also locked up then-Bronx Republican Chairman Joseph “Jay” Savino.
The former Bronx GOP boss pleaded guilty last year to pocketing $15,000 in bribes through the plan.
During a taped November 2012 conversation at a Queens pastry shop, Halloran tells the agent, who he calls “Raj,” that Savino “is a like a wild man” compared to Eaton.
“OK, so he can be in play, too?” Raj asks.
“Absolutely,” Halloran says. “Savino, take him to the steak house Sparks in Manhattan, then you take him to a strip club afterwards.”
Eaton in another recorded conversation barks that the value of his Brooklyn home will continue to drop if openly gay then-Council Speaker Christine Quinn “gets in” as the next mayor… “and they start having little gay stands in every community on every corner and they, they start burning cars in Bay Ridge on the Belt Parkway.”
Eaton did not return messages seeking comment.
Both Smith and Halloran face up to 45 years behind bars, while Tabone faces 25 years in the slammer.