ALBANY – Former Attorney General Dennis Vacco’s lobbying firm is facing a $50,000 fine next week to settle a state Lobbying Commission investigation into a potentially illegal contract with a group seeking to open an Indian-run casino in the Catskills, The Post has learned.
At issue is whether the client offered Crane & Vacco a $5 million “success fee” for helping the group get approval to open the casino. Success fees are illegal under state law.
Crane & Vacco – which claims to have never signed a contract that included a success fee – agreed to pay the maximum $50,000 civil penalty after the state Lobbying Commission rejected an offer to settle the case in June for $7,500, a source said. The firm will admit to no wrongdoing as part of the agreement.
Vacco could not be reached for comment, and commission Executive Director David Grandeau and spokesman Kris Thompson declined to comment.
Grandeau did question the arrangement several months ago, after an upstate developer claimed to have entered into a contract with Vacco that included a success fee.
Vacco, a Republican who served as attorney general from 1994 to 1998, maintains that he never signed that contract.