By Rich Bockmann
State Assemblyman William Scarborough (D-St. Albans) said he had not abused Albany’s travel reimbursements after federal agents raided his home and offices Wednesday.
“They only gave me a very small sample of what they thought represented this, and based on that small sample I think it’s very refutable,” he said in Albany after the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed search warrants at his home and offices in the capitol and southeast Queens early Wednesday morning.
The FBI confirmed the raids and would only say that they were part of an ongoing investigation.
Scarborough, a 10-term lawmaker who serves as chairman of the Assembly Small Business Committee, said he believed the feds were investigating him based on allegations raised in a New York Post article in 2012 that he had abused the Legislature’s per diem program.
The southeast Queens Democrat said the report incorrectly claimed he accepted travel reimbursements without actually staying in Albany, and he decried the public way in which the FBI conducted its investigation.
“Because no matter what happens at the end of this, what people will see is what’s going on right now,” he said. “But I do not believe I have misrepresented the Assembly. I do not believe that I have misrepresented the voucher system.”
Scarborough was in Albany where he and fellow lawmakers were working on budget discussions, which include potential ethics reform legislation in the wake of several political scandals that seem more often than not to come back to southeast Queens.
The FBI nearly a year ago arrested state Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Hollis) on charges he allegedly tried to steer public funds to a sham real estate project in order to buy Republican leaders’ support for his bid to run in last year’s mayoral race on the GOP line.
Before Smith, then-Sen. Shirley Huntley admitted to embezzling member items from a nonprofit she had ties to.
Huntley worked with investigators by wearing a wire and recording a handful of public officials at her home in southeast Queens, although Scarborough was not one of them.
In response to the arrests and what federal prosecutors called a widespread culture of corruption, Gov. Andrew Cuomo created the Moreland Commission to investigate official wrongdoing.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
