Republican state Senator Robert Ortt (Niagara Falls) replaced the retiring Republican George D. Maziarz in 2014. Everything was going fine until people got all interested in law and corruption. Now that honeymoon is over.
The senator, Robert G. Ortt, was arraigned in the Albany County courtroom of Judge Peter Lynch. Mr. Ortt succeeded George D. Maziarz, a Republican who retired in 2014, who faces similar charges and will be arraigned on Thursday afternoon.
State Sen. Ortt insists that this is a partisan “hit-job” on the part of New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman. Like most Republicans, state Sen. Ortt is super touchy when it comes to being charged with things—especially after allegedly doing super dubious stuff.
Specifically, the indictment alleges that Mr. Ortt wanted to make up a $5,000 reduction in salary from his previous job as town clerk and treasurer and so arranged a deal for his wife, Meghan Ortt, a graphic designer, to be paid for more than $20,000 over four years for work she did not actually do, with that income falsely reported as payments to a “pass-through entity.”
This is the kind of corruption you usually hear in a voiceover of a Scorsese film as you stead-camera your way through the lobby of a Mafia-run hotel in Las Vegas. Ortt’s predecessor Maziarz sounds like your run-of-the-mill New York politician these days, spending a reported $75,000 of his campaign funds on attorneys to deal with his own problems. Maziarz “abruptly” retired a couple of years ago as these allegations began to bubble up to the surface.
A former state senator at the center of an investigation by federal prosecutors spent $74,881 of his campaign cash on defense attorneys, a new campaign-finance filing shows.
The spending was detailed on a state-mandated filing Friday with the Board of Elections.
And while state Sen. Ortt says he will not resign his position, things aren’t looking good in the Niagara Republican corruption scene these days.
Former Niagara County Republican Chairman Henry F. Wojtaszek pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a misdemeanor as part of a deal, according to two sources familiar with the situation. Details of the Wojtaszek plea are yet to be revealed.
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Ortt’s wife, Meghan, a design specialist from North Tonawanda, was among those who testified before the grand jury on March 9, according to sources familiar with the investigation. She, like all who appeared before the panel, was granted immunity.
Ruh-roh!