ALBANY — The state pension-fund scandal has touched the administration of former Gov. George Pataki for the first time, according to revelations yesterday.
Aides to Pataki conspired with Liberal Party boss Raymond Harding to rig up an Assembly seat for Democratic Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s son, Andrew, sources said.
One of the Pataki aides is believed to be Adam Barsky, a onetime senior fiscal aide to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, The Post has learned.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s bombshell criminal complaint against Harding says that “official A” — identified to The Post as Alan Hevesi aide Jack Chartier — “solicited help from a high-level aide to the New York governor [Pataki] at the time, who agreed to help.”
“Shortly thereafter, the ‘governor’s aide A’ told ‘official A’ that the defendant [Harding] had pledged to introduce [an] assemblyman to a high-level executive at an insurance company,” the complaint continued. It was referring to a private-sector job that would be provided to the incumbent assemblyman so he would resign and free the seat for the younger Hevesi.
Former Pataki aides said they believed that the “governor’s aide A” was Barsky, a Harding friend who at the time was Pataki’s assistant chief of staff.
Barsky denied any involvement, saying that while he may have been in social contact with Harding, he “absolutely did not discuss” an effort to find the then-assemblyman a private-sector job.
Cuomo’s complaint also alleged a second Pataki aide later met with Chartier “and requested that the governor certify a special election for the vacant Assembly seat as quickly as possible, which would discourage competition for the seat.” It remained unclear last night who the second aide was.
Pataki spokesman David Catalfamo said the former governor “had no knowledge of the activities” outlined by Cuomo.
Cuomo said investigators had found “no evidence” that Pataki was involved in illegal conduct.