N.Y. Gov. Spent Campaign Cash On Mistresses

The blind politician widely admired for earning an Ivy League college degree and becoming New York governor illegally used campaign funds to pay for hotel trysts with mistresses and, in some cases, give the women cash.

The unethical dark side of New York’s new governor, David Paterson, is finally being exposed and it reveals a veteran lawmaker who had multiple extramarital affairs with a series of women and illegally mingled campaign committee funds with his romantic engagements.

At least Paterson, who served two decades as a state senator, was creative about billing the rendezvous to his campaign. He listed an Upper West Side hotel stay with a girlfriend as “constituent services” and a $500 payment to a separate mistress as “professional services.”

Additionally, Paterson’s campaign committee made payments of more than $11,000 to a mystery woman that he now says served as a staffer in his Manhattan Senate Democratic office while he was minority leader. State records reveal that Paterson’s campaign made more than a dozen payments to the woman over a five-year period.

While Paterson slept around, he managed to direct hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a hospital in his Harlem district that employed his wife. He also sponsored bills to make it legal for non U.S. citizens to vote in state and local elections and use force against law enforcement officers while resisting wrongful arrest.

New Yorkers must wonder if Paterson is any better than the disgraced governor he replaced. Then again Eliot Spitzer is addicted to hookers and faces charges for money laundering, tax evasion and importing a prostitute across state lines.

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