ALBANY – The state Assembly’s Ethics and Guidance Committee yesterday met behind closed doors for four hours, weighing the fate of an upstate lawmaker who carried on a hot and heavy affair with an intern.
The panel has been mulling how to discipline Assemblyman Sam Hoyt (D-Buffalo) since last month, when a political blog posted explicit e-mails between him and a one-time legislative aide.
Neither committee members nor aides to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) would confirm reports that the meeting focused on Hoyt. But Chairman William Magnarelli (D-Syracuse) said it met “to discuss matters that could lead to the discipline of a particular person.”
Sources said that Hoyt and the 24-year-old began the affair in May 2003 and that she became a full-fledged staffer a year later, when rules banning legislator-intern fraternization went into effect.