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Closeted Brooklyn state Sen. Carl Kruger, a Democratic powerhouse, traded political favors for more than $1 million in bribes over the last five years — which his live-in boyfriend helped launder, the feds charged yesterday.
Kruger and his secret longtime companion, Manhattan gynecologist Michael Turano, were among eight men arrested in a sweeping government “pay-to-play” corruption scandal.
The charges include allegations that Kruger, Brooklyn Assemblyman William Boyland and previously convicted Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio — who died in prison in January — received bribes and other largesse to help two competing health-care companies buy hospitals, and direct state funds to those firms.
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Kruger’s constant companion, Turano, is accused of using bribe money he deposited in two shell companies for Kruger to pay the lease on a Bentley luxury sedan, credit-card bills and the mortgage on the garish, multimillion-dollar Mill Basin home where the two men for years have shacked up with Turano’s mom and brother, authorities and neighbors said.
“Sen. Kruger had a close and intimate relationship with the entire Turano family, which includes one of the defendants, Michael Turano, along with his mother and brother,” US Attorney Preet Bharara told reporters yesterday.
Neither of the other two Turanos has been accused of any wrongdoing.
A press release from Bharara’s office noted, “[Kruger] spent his free time with the Turanos, shared holidays with them, went shopping for them, and managed the affairs of their residence.
“Kruger was closest with Michael Turano. The two men were in nearly daily contact, Kruger picked Turano up from work, and people even called Kruger’s cellphone in order to reach Turano,” Bharara noted. A source close to the investigation told The Post that Kruger — who voted against a state gay-marriage bill last year — was particularly “intimate” with Michael Turano.
And a criminal complaint written by FBI Special Agent Julie Brown said, “Kruger acted — and was treated in many ways — like a member of the Turano family, and Kruger effectively functioned as a member of their household.
“Kruger went shopping for the Turano family, for example buying light bulbs for the Turano residence, travel-sized snacks for them when they traveled, and stockings for the Turano mother” — Dorothy Turano, the district manager of Community Board 18 — the complaint said.
Neighbors said that Kruger clearly lived in the massive Mill Basin home owned by Michael Turano, while neighbors of Kruger’s “official” residence in the Georgetown section of Brooklyn said either that they did not recognize him or that he was rarely, if ever, there. The feds, meanwhile, said Boyland accepted a no-show job that paid him $177,000 over five years from health-care provider MediSys in exchange for trying to secure millions of dollars in grants to its hospitals.
The extensive alleged “bribery, money laundering, influence peddling and official misconduct [was] eye-opening even to seasoned investigators,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice Fedarcyk.
A big chunk of that illicit cash came from well-known New York lobbyist Richard Lipsky — who in return got Kruger to sponsor bills, lobby other elected officials and direct state money to projects that benefited Lipsky’s clients, prosecutors said.
Among those clients was Forest City Ratner — the company behind Brooklyn’s $4 billion Atlantic Yards development — which Kruger late last year unsuccessfully tried to help obtain $4 million in state funds for other Brooklyn projects, documents and sources revealed.
Forest City Ratner fired Lipsky yesterday.
The criminal complaint revealed that on Monday, FBI agents raided Lipsky’s Upper West Side residence, where they found $102,000 in cash from a safe in a closet and $4,000 “in crisp, large denominational bills from the pocket of a suit belonging to Lipsky.”
At about 9:54 a.m. that same day — as the search was ongoing — a call was made from Kruger’s phone, which was tapped by authorities, to Lipsky’s phone, the complaint said.
Although FBI agents remotely listening in on Kruger’s phone “heard no conversation between Lipsky and Kruger, [they could] overhear Lipsky responding to questions from the agents [at the residence] about, among other things, the relationship between Kruger and Mrs. Turano,” the complaint said.
“Immediately afterward,” the complaint said, “26 calls were placed from the Kruger phone to the Lipsky phone every few minutes from approximately 9:55 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. These calls were unanswered.”
Seven minutes after that last call — and right after Kruger was told by a “known New York state political operative” that Lipsky had asked that Kruger stop calling him because the FBI was at his house — Kruger called Michael Turano and told him about the raid, the complaint said.
“I suggest you don’t answer the door until I find out more about what’s going on,” Kruger told Turano, the complaint said.
Asked yesterday if Kruger and Turano were lovers, Turano’s lawyer declined to comment.
Kruger’s attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said only, “I don’t think that this is an appropriate area of inquiry, and I choose not to comment.”
Brafman also said his client was innocent of the charges and would mount a vigorous defense.
After Kruger and Turano were released without bail yesterday from Manhattan federal court, they got into a limousine.
The arrests of Kruger and Boyland for official corruption set off yet another shudder at the statehouse in Albany, where a slew of legislators have been busted for similar acts in recent years.
“Every single time we arrest a state senator or assemblyman, it should be a jarring wake-up call,” said US Attorney Bharara. “Instead, it seems that no matter how many times the alarm goes off, Albany just hits the snooze button.”
The others charged yesterday were:
* Real-estate developer Aaron Malinsky, who the feds say funneled $472,500 to Kruger via Turano’s shell companies, for his support of a Brooklyn real-estate project.
* Solomon Kalish, the owner of health-care consultant Adex Management, who allegedly took $60,000 from Robert Aquino, the former CEO of Parkway Hospital in Queens, for Kruger’s help in his attempt to take over the now-shuttered Caritas Hospitals. Kalish sent $30,000 to Kruger via a shell company, the feds say.
* Aquino, for allegedly paying the bribes.
* MediSys Health Network CEO David Rosen, who allegedly bribed Kruger for support trying to win control of Caritas Hospitals, and who the feds said gave $390,000 in bribes to Seminerio and $177,000 to Boyland.
Additional reporting by Mitchel Maddux, Brendan Scott, David Seifman, Douglas Montero and Cynthia Fagen