Suffolk County Grand Jury Issues Report on Abuse of County Ethics Commission

A special grand jury in Suffolk County has issued a scathing report which finds that members of former County Executive Steve Levy’s administration and Ethics Commission employees engaged in a pattern of misconduct that “completely destroyed the ethics infrastructure” in the county.

Read the Suffolk County District Attorney’s press release and the full report.

The report concludes that Levy manipulated the ethics commission while he was county executive, using it to attack political opponents and to help firms owned by his wife gain contracts.

According to the report:

“The Ethics Commission was used as a political sword, to attack enemies of county officials, and as a political shield to authorize questionable conduct by certain county officials.”

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said:

“This Grand Jury report exposes behavior by public officials acting in the name of the Ethics Commission that was unprincipled and wrong, but not criminal. Legislators must act to make certain that future public officials can be prosecuted for the behavior uncovered in this report.”

The report does not recommend any criminal charges, because there are no penalties this activity under the law.  It instead makes a series of reform recommendations for reform, including felony penalties for violating the county ethics code and prohibiting executive branch officials from interfering with the activities of the Ethics Commission.