Democrats Stealing From The Children

Only in New York, kids. Well actually, it isn't only in New York. Democrats who run large urban cities enjoy massive piggy-banks stuffed with taxpayer cash and dole it out in return for favors, reveling in their own little fiefdoms while the media largely ignores fiscal shenanigans.

The most recent example of fiscal perfidy involves (surprise!) the New York City Council, possibly the most useless political organization on the planet.

Recently the discovery of a massive slush funds used to dole out cash in returns for political favors has led to an ongoing investigation and has now bared the first fruit in the form of two City Council aides being busted for embezzling funds intended to provide tutoring for public-school kids.

Business as usual, in other words.

Two City Council aides were busted by the feds yesterday for embezzling $145,000 in taxpayers' money - and authorities indicated it's just the first fruit of an ongoing probe into corrupt use of the council's budget.

Asquith Reid, the chief of staff to City Councilman Kendall Stewart, and another Stewart aide, Joycinth Anderson, are charged with money laundering and fraud for allegedly siphoning cash from a pet nonprofit group purported to provide tutoring to public-school kids.

Reid is accused of abusing the city's poor oversight of "discretionary funds" - money controlled by individual council members and intended for charity - to pour money into the Donna Reid Memorial Education Fund, which he controlled.

The arrests came as the result of a year-long probe by the city's Department of Investigation and federal prosecutors into how millions of dollars are handed out each year.

To line his own pocket, Reid allegedly diverted $93,000 from the Donna Reid fund - a nonprofit named after his dead daughter - by arranging to have checks cashed by Anderson and two other unnamed co-conspirators. Anderson allegedly cashed $20,000 worth of checks.

Reid also brazenly wired $31,000 to family and friends in Jamaica and shelled out another $21,000 in looted cash for a private hall in Brooklyn for Stewart's political club and campaign literature, according to court papers.

In announcing the arrests, US Attorney Michael Garcia said Reid and Anderson's "loyalty should have been to New York City taxpayers. Instead, they were driven by greed."

Stealing money from a charity named after your dead daughter.

What a guy.

Read the rest of the story, then start counting the days before Council Speaker Christine Quinn plays the lesbian card.

Also check out Slush-Fund Shenanigans.

The New York Times reports the story, but naturally fails to note the word Democrat anywhere.

Shocking, isn't it?

Meanwhile, we didn't note it Wednesday, but another criminal Democrat across the river in Newark has been convicted. The Times actually notes he's a Democrat.

Progress.

A federal jury today convicted the former longtime mayor of Newark, Sharpe James, of fraud for conspiring to sell city-owned properties to a former girlfriend, who quickly flipped them and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits.

On the sixth day of deliberations, the jury found Mr. James, 72, guilty on all five counts he faced. His former girlfriend, Tamika Riley, 39, was convicted on the same fraud and conspiracy charges as well as eight others for numerous tax violations in connection with what the authorities said was her failure to file income tax returns for her public relations firm.

Under federal guidelines, prosecutors say the two face up to about eight years in prison. For now, both are free on bail and will face sentencing on July 29. Mr. James’s lead attorney, Thomas Ashley, said he intended to appeal the verdict.