Need $35 million??

Here's the reader's digest version of the story. Alan Hevesi's former aides are alleged to have taken $35 million dollars for themselves in a pay to play scheme with the $120 billion NYS pension.

That makes Joe Bruno and the Republican Senate "issues" look like child's play.

Consultant Hank Morris, Hevesi aide David Loglisci get corruption charges in $35M pension scheme

By Kenneth Lovett and Melissa Grace
Daily News Staff Writers

Buckowski/Times Union

Another day, more news to turn Albany upside-down: This time it's a scandal involving the state's $120 billion pension fund. A former aide to disgraced state comptroller Alan Hevesi has been charged.

A key political consultant and a top aide to former Controller Alan Hevesi were slapped with corruption charges Thursday over the state's $120 billion pension fund.

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose office conducted a two-year pension fund probe, warned there could be more indictments.

Hevesi consultant Hank Morris and David Loglisci, a former deputy controller for pensions, were named in the devastating 123-count indictment.

Cuomo said Morris and Loglisci plotted "to sell access to billions of dollars in exchange for millions" in kickbacks.

"The indictment charges crimes that go beyond the grossest manifestation of pay to play," Cuomo said.

Morris pocketed $30 million in pension-related fees over four years from companies that won business with the fund. Companies that wouldn't pay often didn't get business, the indictment said.

The two also helped steer millions of dollars in donations from financial companies to Hevesi's campaign, probers said.

They also gave Hevesi's "political cronies" sham fees.

The Daily News reported in January that former state Liberal Party Chairman Ray Harding and former New York City Council President Andrew Stein received $300,000 and $1.5 million in fees, respectively, from companies subsequently named in the indictment.

Morris, who helped run Hevesi's campaigns, had a major say over how a portion of the pension fund was run after Hevesi took office in 2002, the indictment alleges.

He forced out the old top investment officer and had him replaced with Loglisci, who helped steer business to Morris and their associates, prosecutors say.

Morris and Loglisci pleaded not guilty before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone.

In addition to corruption charges, the indictment listed securities fraud, bribery, money laundering, falsifying business records and grand larceny.

Hevesi, who resigned in 2006 after pleading guilty to an unrelated felony, was not charged. He has denied wrongdoing. Morris was freed on $1 million bail, Loglisci on $350,000 bail.

Two unnamed unindicted co-conspirators also were involved, the indictment states.

Sources identified the first as Barret Wissman, a pal of Loglisci and his brother and part owner of a Dallas firm that did business with the fund and Morris.

The second unindicted co-conspirator was described by Cuomo as a high-ranking official in the controller's office who got rent payments for his girlfriend's luxury Manhattan apartment, a "sham" $100,000 loan for the woman and a job for her daughter.

Sources said that official was Hevesi's former chief of staff, Jack Chartiere, who was probed for showering pension fund resources on actress Peggy Lipton.

Cuomo wouldn't say whether the unindicted co-conspirators or the Hevesi cronies would be charged. He didn't charge any of the firms that paid fees, including the Carlyle Group, Quadrangle and Wissman's fund, Hunt Financial Ventures.

Morris' lawyer William Schwartz said, "There was no fraud and no corruption." He said the pension fund made "hundreds of millions" through Morris.

Loglisci's lawyer, Irving Seidman, said the fund more than doubled under Loglisci. "This matter has its origin not in truth, but in politics," Seidman said.

Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint against Morris and Loglisci seeking to recoup the money. Cuomo also has frozen some $11 million in Morris' assets.