lbany County District Attorney David Soares is appearing tonight on Capital Tonight, which airs on Time Warner Cable Channel 9, to discuss his report Friday that found former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was closely involved in trying to smear Republican foe Joe Bruno.

Soares said he gave Spitzer’s former communications director Darren Dopp immunity so he could focus his investigation on whether Spitzer initially lied when Spitzer said he wasn’t involved in the plot.

“Darren Dopp was not the person who, in my opinion, who was the person who should be prosecuted in this instance,” Soares says in the interview. “Darren Dopp provided us with information that would have allowed us to pursue the governor of the state of New York and that is what we did.”

But Soares has been heavily criticized for not pursuing Spitzer in his first report on Troopergate in September. Then Soares defended Spitzer and said Spitzer had nothing to do with attempts by aides to comply travel documents on Bruno’s use of state aircraft.

Now, Soares said he can’t pursue Spitzer because Spitzer is no longer a public official.

  Just taking a wild guess, it may be significant that there are more than 31,000 people who work in the state prison system, and just over 1,300 judges.

So today Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno sided with the prison workers on whether to close some prisons (he said no) and against the judges who want a raise for the first time in 10 years (he said no again). And the last time anyone checked, a prison worker’s vote counted as much as that of a judge.

Oh, and another number Bruno didn’t mention: there were 62,361 prisoners in state facilities yesterday – more than 9,000 fewer than nine years ago.  Seems like that means we should need fewer prisons and prison workers.

While a proposal to provide 3.2 percent cost-of-living pay hikes to mental-health workers is expected to be included in the budget, a number of proposed increases in the governor’s budget will be cut by 50 percent, mental-health advocates said today. (Budget talks are down to the wire in Albany—the deadline is midnight).

They include:
—Expanding the ambulatory care system and removing barriers to specialty mental-health treatment for children ($5 million);
—Expanding supported housing ($1.1 million);
—Increasing the number of efficiency apartment beds for people with mental illness ($145 million in capital funding);
—Managing the care of people with co-occurring disorders, such as mental illness and addiction or mental retardation ($1 million)

The Assembly partially restored a cut to state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities providers, and the Senate funded a number of local service initiatives and $150,000 for geriatric mental-health care, according to the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services.

While upstate communities have been fighting – and winning- to keep prisons open that the state wants to close, a Westchester lawmaker said she would love to get rid of a local prison.

“Too bad we just couldn’t move Sing Sing upstate,’’ said Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D-Ossining, musing that the prime riverfront property that the prison occupies could be used for far more productive purposes.

Alas, Sing Sing is a maximum-security prison, and the state has few empty beds in those. The ones that the Department of Correctional Services wanted to close – but was thwarted by the Legislature – were medium and minimum-security facilities.

Four upstate prisons that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer wanted to close will stay open, lawmakers said today.

The prisons were largely in the districts of Senate Republicans and in an election year, they weren’t about to let the facilities close and take the roughly 500 jobs with them.

Spitzer recommended the closing of Camp Pharsalia in Chenango County, Camp McGregor in Saratoga County, Camp Gabriels in Franklin County and the Hudson Correctional Facility in Columbia County.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said state budget includes $10.7 million to keep each of the facilities operating. Gov. David Paterson has also agreed to keep the facilities open.

“I am elated that we have come to an agreement to keep the Hudson Correctional Facility open,” said Senator Steve Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, in a statement.  “The people of Hudson and Columbia County have been living a nightmare since former Gov. Spitzer announced the decision to close the facility in January.  The prison is one of the largest employers in the area employing over 300 people. ”

   A veteran Albany lobbyist who earlier this week had heard lawmakers defend keeping open juvenile-detention facilities with no juveniles in them today heard a long discussion about the perfidity of the state Budget Division urging that some prisons be closed, since the number of inmates is shrinking.

“It almost makes your head want to explode,’’ he said. “I bet that if the stagecoach drivers had a union, they would pass a bill mandating stagecoaches.’‘

“The report released today by the Albany County District Attorney’s Office confirms what I have been saying all along, that former Governor Eliot Spitzer lied to the people of this State about his direct knowledge and involvement in the Troopergate scandal; that he was obsessed with conducting a ‘political hit job’ to damage me personally and politically; and that the administration enlisted favored members of the news media, principally the Albany Times Union to carry out their plot.

“The report represents a turnaround from the District Attorney’s report issued last September that cleared the Governor of any wrongdoing.

“That report was done after a so-called “investigation” in which the DA did not place anyone under oath and was clearly issued as cover for then-Governor Spitzer and his administration”.

“I feel it was a serious mistake not to present this information to a grand jury and proceed with a prosecution, as there is clearly evidence of criminal conduct.

“I urge Governor Paterson to take appropriate action against those involved in the plot and cover-up, and who should not continue to represent him and the Executive Chamber.

“This scandal was a blatant abuse of government power.  This time it was aimed at me.  However, these abuses should present a concern to all New Yorkers.  It also illustrates the importance of having checks and balances in State government and avoiding one-party rule and power.

“While we will continue to move forward with measures to address some of the legislative issues raised by this scandal, this report sheds more light on a sad and disgraceful chapter in New York State history and on a Governor who clearly had his priorities wrong and, as I said so often, lacked the temperament to govern.”

Here’s the most pertinent point of the Soares report on Troopergate and shows former Gov. Spitzer’s deep role in the scandal, after saying he knew nothing about it.

Former Communications Director Darren “Dopp stated that he walked from Baum’s office to the Governor’s office and said to Spitzer, ‘boss, you’re okay with the release of the plane records?’”

“According to Dopp, the Governor replied ‘yeah, do it.’”

Still inquiring further, Dopp asked Spitzer “are you sure?”

Spitzer replied that he thought Dopp wanted to release the records.

Dopp said “Joe probably will be pissed.” To this, the Governor replied, in reference to Senator Bruno: “f—- him, he’s a piece of s—-t, shove it up his ass with a red hot poker.”

Dopp stated that during this conversation with the Governor, the Governor was “frustrated” and “angry” and “he was letting it rip against Mr. Bruno.”

Dopp also testified that the Governor had “turned a little red and . . . he was drinking a cup of coffee and . . . as he was saying it, he was like spitting a little bit. He was spitting mad.”

Dopp explained that, in an effort to try to defuse the Governor’s anger, in reference to the “shove it up his ass with a red hot poker” comment, Dopp jokingly inquired “sideways” boss?”

Dopp stated that no one else was present during this conversation.”

Here’s the link and Albany County District Attorney David Soares statement:

Report

“As a prosecutor, I am a servant of the law. Every action taken by this office is to determine whether a law has been broken and, if so, to hold the offending party accountable. During this investigation, we reviewed thousands of documents, interviewed key witnesses under oath and subpoenaed materials to a Grand Jury.

“As I have previously expressed, the people of Albany County and New York State have a right to a full airing of events surrounding this case. After careful consideration and advice from several legal experts including the Solicitor General, we are releasing our findings to the public.

“The report issued by my office today illustrates the process by which we have made our final legal conclusions. This process is not intended to make news happen, it is intended to further the goals of justice. These conclusions are based solely on the laws of New York State.

“Due to the terms of the limited waiver agreements executed by the District Attorney and the Executive Chamber, we are unable to release the complete analysis until privilege issues of first impression are resolved with former Governor Spitzer and Governor Paterson. Further, any materials obtained pursuant to grand jury subpoena are not included in this report.

“This report is not a review of ethics and this report is not a review of political behavior, it is a non-partisan dispassionate review of facts. The report contains the sum and substance of relevant facts uncovered during our investigation.

“It is my hope that the findings released in this report satisfy the questions surrounding the timeline, facts and sequence of events that have become known as ‘Troopergate’. Even more important to me, is that there have been thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on determining that crimes have not been committed. It is now up to our states political leaders to determine the best and most appropriate next steps.”

The budget fight is fueling two dueling radio-ad campaigns on Albany airwaves.

Getting in the first blow was a group called “Better Choice for New York,’’ a coalition of labor, non-profit and faith-based groups that favors raising taxes on millionaires to close the budget gap.

“Special interests must come second to the interests of New York citizens,’’ an announcer intones on its plug, which ha been running most of this week.

In response the state Business Council has launched a campaign urging spending cuts rather than tax hikes.

“Tough fiscal times call for tough budget choices, right?” the radio ad begins. “Well, not here in New York. While states like New Jersey and Florida are biting the bullet with budgets that keep spending in line with falling revenues, New York thinks it can tax and spend its way out of a $4.6 billion deficit. It can’t.’’

The “millionaire-tax’’ idea looks all but dead at this point, but other tax hikes are being considered as the state nears the April 1 deadline for adopting a budget.