One Grand Jury Down, One to Go

We have been following the ongoing investigations involving political figures in Rensselaer County. Over the weekend, there was an update from the Times Union which you can read here.
Briefly, a Special Prosecutor was named to handled the principle case in Rensselaer County involving allegations brought forth in sworn affidavits by former GOP legislative employee Colleen Reagan. Her allegations expose a company run from the county office building on county time using county staff. That company called Victory Lane, collected payments from GOP candidates to run their campaigns. It was run by the highest paid county legislative staffer in history, Richard Crist, and Legislator Robert Mirch.

If true, the company was run right under the nose of the GOP Legislative Chairman Mr. Kelleher and other GOP legislators. The group even ran an assembly campaign for Martin Reid, one of the most partisan voices in the legislature.

Our interest brought the local connection which involved the running of the 2005 North Greenbush town races on behalf of Lou Desso and Robert Ashe and the primary campaigns waged by the pair involving hundreds of absentee ballots they gathered from voters many of whom were home and ineligible to vote absentee.

This is being handled by Albany County D.A. David Soares whose office confirms the case is open for the Times Union. This would also potentially drag in the new town assessor, Mr. Harkin, who did the taxes and accounting for the questionable company. Some say he even advised them to use their profits to buy laptops to avoid the need to pay taxes on the income. Who knows, but were sure Mr. Soares will get to the bottom of it.