Calling himself “broken, destroyed and disgraced,” a Brooklyn politician who admitted taking $500,000 in bribes with the aid of his live-in boyfriend slumped in a courtroom chair yesterday as he was sentenced to seven years in federal prison.
“I have no one to blame but myself,” ex-state Sen. Carl Kruger, 62, said in Manhattan federal court — where his lover, Dr. Michael Turano, received a two-year sentence for the same “pay to play” scheme that a judge called “daggers to the heart of government.”
“I will be haunted with that reality for the rest of my life,” said a somber Kruger, who shared a long, lingering embrace with Turano, 50, after they each were ordered to surrender on June 26 to begin their prison terms.
“I am sorry,” said Kruger. “I am sorry for bringing discredit to the New York state Legislature. I am sorry for abandoning my constituents, who elected me to serve them.
“Worst of all, I have destroyed the brilliant medical career of Michael Turano. I have destroyed a career I helped build and the people I love. I am broken, destroyed and disgraced,” Kruger told Judge Jed Rakoff, who showed mercy in giving him less than the federal sentencing guideline of nine to 11 1/2 years.
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Kruger — who also lives with Turano’s doctor brother, Gerard, and their mother, Dorothy “Dottie” Turano, in a $1.8 million Mill Basin mansion — admitted overseeing a bribery scheme that benefited the entire extended family.
The 18-year state Legislature veteran directed illicit payments from representatives of the real-estate, hospital, supermarket and beverage industries to shell companies set up by Turano, his long-secret lover.
In return, the former state Senate Finance Committee chairman sponsored legislation beneficial to the bribe-payers and tried to steer millions of dollars in government funds to them.
Assistant US Attorney Michael Boswoth said that, “year after year after year,” Kruger took “check after check after check” for hundreds of thousands in bribes.
“And for what?” Bosworth asked. “To help the Turano family? They weren’t paupers.
“The facts and circumstance of these offenses are quite venal,” Bosworth said. “This was a sophisticated crime with a sophisticated design.”
Kruger’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, argued to Rakoff, “Whatever sentence you impose, that’s a consecutive sentence. He’s never going to be able to work in public service, the one thing he knows how to do.
“A convicted felon in his 60s is not at the top of anyone’s list,” Brafman said.
“At the end of the day, he resigns in disgrace — but he did a world of good, and that should count for something.
“He has a very good record — up until he became a flawed person,” Brafman said.
Rakoff, in giving Kruger two years less than the nine-year bottom of the guideline range, said he was uncomfortable with guidelines that don’t account for good works by a defendant and other factors “that can’t be measured.”
“I do feel that Mr. Kruger deserves credit on his day of judgment for his many good deeds,” Rakoff said.
But sending Kruger to prison for seven years, Rakoff said, was warranted by the “substantial, long-lasting bribery scheme.”
“Once corruption takes hold, democracy becomes a charade. When a legislator accepts bribes, it betrays a trust and strikes a blow at the principle our democracy was founded on,” the judge said.
Rakoff then sentenced Turano, whose mother had been sobbing since the hearing began.
“Here comes the next crucifixion!” Dorothy Turano wailed as her son prepared to hear his fate.
Michael Turano told the judge, “Today is perhaps the most somber, emotional day of my life. I implore you to look at me in the totality of my life as you pass judgment.
“I ask for nothing more,” said the gynecologist, who faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison under his own plea deal for conspiring in the bribe scheme.
His lawyer, Robert Katzberg, told Rakoff, “He’s lost his reputation. He’s lost his ability to do wonderful things as a physician.”
“The bottom line is he’s lost it all,” said the lawyer, who asked Rakoff to sentence Turano to community service and not jail time.
But Bosworth, the prosecutor, noted that “the central role that Dr. Turano played was as the necessary cover to allow this perversion of the government process to occur.”
“It is puzzling why he would let this happen,” Bosworth said. “It is wrapped up in the complex web of emotions between Mr. Kruger and the Turano family.”
Rakoff agreed with the prosecutor that Turano deserved to be locked up.
“The message must always go out that if you help corrupt our government in any of its parts, prison is a consequence,” Rakoff said. “I don’t see how that can be avoided. Prison is required.”
After Turano took his sentence stoically, he hugged Kruger and the two patted each other’s back and whispered into each other’s ear.
“This is so unfair! This is so unfair!” cried Dorothy Turano, a district manager at Brooklyn Committee Board 18 who had long publicly pretended to be Kruger’s girlfriend.
Both Kruger and Michael Turano were ordered to forfeit $223,534 by the judge.
Kruger carried on his amorous relationship with Turano even as he, for years, opposed same-sex-marriage legislation. He endorsed same-sex marriage only last year.