State senator from Bronx used straw donors for campaigns, ex-loyalists say

ALBANY — Three people who worked at Bronx charities created by Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. say the state senator secretly gave them currency or money orders and instructed them to personally contribute the cash into his or his son’s campaign accounts. Two of the charities have been heavily financed by special legislative grants of taxpayer money — called “member items” — arranged by the senator’s son, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. State law makes it unlawful for a person to give money in someone else’s name to a candidate’s campaign, but that is exactly what Sen. Diaz did, three former loyalists said in interviews.

Hundreds of dollars in campaign donations from the three appear on the Bronx Democrat’s state and city campaign disclosure reports, as do thousands of dollars more from dozens of employees and former employees of not-for-profit organizations Sen. Diaz controls.

“He would hold a fundraiser and go to the employees and give them cash or money orders,” said Edward Padilla, executive director of Soundview Community In Action. “It wasn’t the employees’ money.”

Sen. Diaz and his son, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., both refused to comment.

Soundview Community in Action is a Bronx nonprofit group that formerly employed Sen. Diaz, his wife and his former wife, the mother of Assemblyman Diaz. Soundview received hundreds of thousands of dollars in so-called legislative “member-item” funds through the senator’s son while his family members were employed.

Soundview employees had begun to rebel at being used as political tools when Diaz Sr. rose from his position as a city councilman to become a state senator in 2003. Both the senator and his assemblyman son then began steering hundreds of thousands of dollars in member-item money to Christian Community Benevolent Association, another Diaz organization. Its staff is closely affiliated with Christian Community In Action, which employs Sen. Diaz’s wife.

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See this is the type of thing Spitzer should be investigating. But will he ever go after any corruption in government? Not if it within his own party

This is clearly illegal activity and to me it doesn’t matter if it’s a Democrat or a Republican. Corruption is corruption and it must be dealt with harshly.