Say It Isn't So…

In 2002, Assemblymember Brian McLaughlin wrote a column in The Queens Courier Op-Ed pages about Governor Pataki's budget which featured huge cuts in education and health care and increased taxes too.
In making his opinion points, he wrote:
&#8220I urge my colleagues to remember why we worked so hard to achieve public office. Our work changes lives. Our work is not just about today - it's also about tomorrow. If we believe in the &#8220American Dream,” which brought our families to our shores with the same hopes and desires of our grandfathers, then we must find ways to make government work for all of the people.”
Today McLaughlin is charged under a 44-count federal racketeering indictment that if proven to be true would show he certainly found ways to make government work for at least one person - Brian McLaughlin.
He is accused of a laundry list of greedy shakedowns and bid-rigging schemes involving city lighting contracts using his influence and seat in the state Assembly to line his own pockets and fulfill his personal version of the &#8220American Dream.”
He stands accused of stealing from unions and members and most shockingly - he even looted nearly $100,000 from the Electchester Athletic Association Little League team. The team is located at an electrical union-sponsored housing development in Flushing and McLaughlin served as their treasurer. He raised funds for the group using the slogan: &#8220A Child in Sports Stays Out of the Courts.”
It is this single revelation, if proven true, that is the most damning and despicable!
McLaughlin is accused of receiving $400,000 in illegal payments and three cars from contractors who hired Local 3 electricians; taking over $60,000 from a contractor to pay for his wife's &#8220American Dream” car - a Mercedes-Benz; misappropriating money from campaign funds to pay for his son's August 2004 wedding and creating a no-show consultant's job for his daughter-in-law.
McLaughlin allegedly used the rank-and-file electricians for family errands, to act as chauffeurs, and handymen, even to spy on his daughter while she was on dates and to exterminate rodents in his basement. Too bad they stopped in the basement.
Credit card bills were allegedly paid from union accounts as were his dues for the North Hempstead Country Club, school tuition for his son and the mortgage on his home in Nissequogue, L.I.
Adept at making government work for Brian McLaughlin, he even had union members use his E-ZPass and drive up to Albany so he could claim the per diem money for Albany appearances.
As the nasty details of McLaughlin's alleged plundering of the &#8220American Dream” are exposed daily, the emerging portrait is that of a greedy, unscrupulous thief, devoid of any conscience or moral compass. And yet the one key charge that no one can defend, ignore or rationalize away - McLaughlin allegedly stole from kids and in doing so he stole a piece of the &#8220American Dream” from everyone.
Say it isn't so!