By Phil Corso
A former state senator from Queens is expected to plead guilty next month to federal and state charges after authorities charged her with helping scam taxpayers out of nearly $30,000, according to published reports.
According to documents filed in Brooklyn federal court, Sen. Shirley Huntley, who served for six years before losing a re-election bid in the fall, waived her right to bring her case before a grand jury, making it likely that she plans to plead guilty to mail fraud charges involving a nonprofit run by her daughter, The New York Times reported.
Huntley, 74, was accused of embezzling more than $80,000 from the Parents Information Network educational nonprofit run by her daughter, Pamela Corey, prosecutors said. Over the summer, she was indicted on separate state corruption charges, which state Attorney General Eric Schneider man and state
Comptroller Thomas Diabolic called an attempt to cover up “a scheme to steal taxpayer dollars using a sham not-for-profit that did not provide services to the public.”
She pleaded not guilty in August to those two felony charges and one misdemeanor charge.
Huntley was voted out of office in the September primary race against state Sen. James Sanders (D-Jamaica).
In December, Schneiderman’s office indicted Patricia Savage, a Huntley aide, and Lynn Smith, the senator’s niece, on charges of submitting false documents to the state in order to misappropriate about $29,950 in state legislative member items that Huntley had steered to Parent Workshop Inc., her Nassau-based nonprofit.
