ALBANY – Westchester DA Janet DiFiore will chair the state’s new ethics oversight panel to help clean up Albany sleaze, Gov. Cuomo announced.
And Pat Bulgaro, a state budget director under Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, was among the 14 members named by Cuomo and state legislative leaders to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
Cuomo and lawmakers created the panel in June as part of an ethics overhaul of Albany.
About a dozen state lawmakers have been indicted on federal corruption charges over the last several years – including four in the last year.
Registered lobbyists and current and recent state employees are barred from serving on the commission, which can investigate lawmakers and executive branch employees for violating conflict of interest, gift and lobbying laws. Members get $300 for each day worked.
At least one appointment raised eyebrows. Senate Minority Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) appointed controversial lawyer Ravi Batra, a former law partner of crooked ex-Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr. (D-Brooklyn).
Cuomo’s appointees also include New York State Energy Research & Development Authority board chairman and former state Court of Claims Judge Vincent A. Deiorio, state Commission on Public Integrity chair and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitra Hormozi, former Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Daniel J. Horwitz, former George W. Bush administration and Republican Assembly aide Gary J. Lavine, and Seymour Knox IV, a Western New York businessman and official with the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) tapped Bulgaro, retired lawyer Marvin Jacob and Cardozo Law School professor Ellen Yaroshefsky.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-L.I.) named former Sen. Mary Lou Rath (R-Erie), former Nassau County redistricting judge Joseph Covello and former Senate aide George H. Weissman.
Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb (R-Canandaigua) named unsuccessful 2008 GOP state Senate candidate David A. Renzi.
erik.kriss@nypost.com