Storobin has a lot of explaining to do. He isn't only fending off accusations by his democratic opponents, but also has to respond to the republican party chair. Yesterday, Storobin told the court that his petitioning was handled by the republican party, and the petitioners reported to the chair. Chair Eaton disputed this in a conversation with the Daily News, telling that Storobin ran his own operation and he want to use the party as a "scapegoat." "Clearly, the Brooklyn Republican Party is not responsible for any indiscretion, fraud or irregularities relating to any of the petitions circulated or collected by the Storobin campaign or for any of the actions of the candidate himself," he told Celeste Katz.
The Daily News further followed the hearing today. Jacob Kornbluh, who ran Storobin's petitioning, testified. Jacob explained to me that Chair Eaton was wrongly informed in what Storobin said: "Storobin just said that the overall supervision of the petition effort was done on behalf of Eaton which is true."
He told the court that: "I was the one handling the petitions for David Storobin. I feel like my honesty is being challenged because [the senator] really has nothing to do with the petitions." He said that except for some petitioning to show his personal efforts and some informal briefings, Senator Storobin wasn't involved.
Gene Berardelli, the republican Law Chair whom some accuse for not helping Storobin enough, was subpoenaed by the Felder campaign, and according to Korbluh he corroborated his account.
UPDATE: BTW, a source who earlier criticized Berardelli for shaving off Storobin signatures, is now faulting him, speculatively, for the Danger signature... It's a bit bizarre. Another valuable source who is no friend of Berardelli pointed out to me that by shaving off questionable signatures he may have done a favor for the candidates, because one fraudulent signature may jeopardize a whole sheet. The current proceeding proves him right, and I'm sure the Storobin camp would have wished Berardelli would have withheld one more signature...
To explain the Danger signature, a guy named Mikhael Isaak turned up in court to testify that this was his signature. As per the campaign, the forgot to add his address, and they later looked it up and confused him with Danger, and filled in her information, although Isaak lives on a different address. The guy presented his signature, which will be examined by a hand writing expert who will testify in court on Friday.
Felder's campaign manager, E. O'Brien Murray, pounced on Issak's testimony as to the fact that he is not a U.S. citizen. "Storobin went to a Russian-speaking non-citizen man who needs an interpreter [to testify in court] to commit a fraud and sign the signature of a dead woman. You explain that."
According to the Daily News, the same Judge handled the Pometko case where Storobin prevailed against Lew Fidler challenges. The judge is now handling a second fraud accusation against Storobin.
Dov Hiklind, who already lose the republican line may also lose, may lose the conservative line as well. The judge is expected to decide tomorrow, according to a reliable source.
And here is a fun fact: Avrohom Shlomo Tischler who is opposing Felder in the democratic primary unveiled his website. Listed as a coordinator is, Avi Rosenberg, who left the Meyer campaign after a short stint. He once ran as a conservative against Carl Kruger, and was hailed as the youngest candidate to run for the senate. He received 9,000 votes. He was also listed as a delegate for Rick Santorum and helped the last Storobin campaign. Now he's coordinating for a democratic candidate.
***
I hope that Helene Weinstein will prove me wrong on the Special Ed issue. Instead of pushing for an override, she's saying that she and others will press for a revised bill to pass in the legislative session.
For notification of new posts, follow me @opundit.
No comments:
Post a Comment