MANHATTAN — Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that New York will pick up an additional $20 million as a result of the pension fund scandal, thanks to an investment executive looking to avoid any further legal issues.
This makes a total of over $100 million collected to date in Cuomo's investigation into the play-to-pay scam.
“It is important that both firms and individuals be held accountable for conduct that jeopardized the integrity of the New York State Common Retirement Fund,” the attorney general said in a statement.
"As these sums return value to the state pension fund, we continue to pursue the critical reforms that are necessary to prevent such rampant abuse from again corrupting the pension system.”
The $20 million restitution will come from David Leuschen, founder of the private equity firm Riverstone Holdings.
In an apparent attempt to garner the favor of pension fund officials, Leuschen’s firm put roughly $40,000 into former state comptroller Alan Hevesi’s campaign and paid millions of dollars in shady lobbying fees to a political consultant of Hevesi’s. These payments are commonly referred to as “kickbacks” by authorities.
Leuschen also put $100,000 into an independent movie produced by the brother of a pension fund executive following the award of a $150 million pension fund investment to Riverstone.
Both the pension fund executive and Hevesi’s political consultant face criminal charges. Hevesi resigned in late 2006, but was never charged.
