Dick Grasso is savoring the ultimate last laugh.
The former New York Stock Exchange boss is likely to keep all his disputed $190 million paycheck, and can have a summer blast watching his accuser Eliot Spitzer fight his own legal woes over hookers.
New York’s highest court this morning finally untangled Grasso’s four-year legal mess over his bloated pay, throwing out most of the charges made by Spitzer when he was attorney general.
Grasso, who’s harbored deep feelings against Spitzer, is expected to declare complete victory in his ordeal by just smacking down a couple of weak, remaining charges, experts say.
“Today’s decision might well be the death blow to the lawsuit,” said Anthony Sabino, a law and business professor at St. John’s University.
Spitzer made headlines for bashing Grasso over his high pay, forcing him out of his cushy lifetime job running the New York Stock Exchange, and dumping a weighty lawsuit in Grasso’s lap. That lawsuit maneuver helped Spitzer snare the governor’s job as a corruption-fighter.
Grasso spent years in public seclusion fighting demands that he forfeit as much as $112 million of the $190 million windfall paid in his final year running the NYSE.
Lately, Grasso’s camp has been publicly upbeat since Spitzer got snared in his sex scandals in March and was driven from office. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had kept the case alive for public appearances, and now can find his easy exit from another embarrassing symbol of the brief Spitzer era.