Official Albany has all but decided that colorful and controversial political consultant Roger Stone made a crank call to Governor Eliot Spitzer's eighty two year old father thus ending his advisory role with the New York Senate Republicans.
Stone was widely credited for getting Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno off defense and for capitalizing on the governor's missteps in the Troopergate matter. Stone, who is known for his combative style had helped Bruno inflict significant political damage on the Governor who saw his approval ratings drop over night.
Late last week Stone himself raised the possibility that professional impressionist and drug law activist Randy Credico had impersonated Stone in prank phone calls in the past and could be responsible for the threatening message allegedly left on the voice mail at Bernard Spitzer's office.
Credico told Newsday that he did not have a perfected
impression of Stone saying, "I'm good. But I'm not that good" and "if I
really worked on it I could probably do Roger Stone" and then he told
the New York Daily News that an impression of Stone would be "easy"
but said, "I'm good, but I'm not that accurate".
Stone worked with Credico in the 2002 Independent campaign for Governor by the Rochester billionaire B. Thomas Golisano. Most drug law reform activists credit Credico for persuading Golisano to support radical reform of the Rockefeller drug laws that year.
Now POLITICSNY has confirmed with three prominent Democrats that Credico had perfected a dead-on impression of Stone as early as 2002 and that Credico employed the impersonation of Stone in several late-night, booze-fueled telephone calls.
Democratic media consultant and former Chuck Schumer Staffer, Erick Mullen confirmed in a phone call from Europe where he is vacationing that Credico's impression of Stone was "eerie because it was so accurate". Mullen is an advisor to General Wesley Clark and has directed numerous winning Democratic Congressional races.
Charles Halloran served as former Traveling Aide to President Bill Clinton, Democratic National Committee Deputy Finance Director and the Independent Candidate for Governor Tom Golisano's campaign manager. Halloran, who elected Democrat Tim Mahoney to Congress in Florida in subsequently became Mahoney's chief of staff, also confirmed Credico's capability to impersonate Stone.
Former Erie County Democratic Chairman Steve Pigeon, now a major Hillary Clinton fundraiser also confirmed Credico's employment of a Stone impression in several prank calls that Credico placed. "He did it all the time. People thought it was uncanny how much he sounded like Stone", Pigeon told POLITICSNY. Pigeon said Golisano himself had heard Credico's impression of Stone during the time that Credico was advising Golisano on drug law reform issues in 2002.
Adam Powers, who worked as the Manhattan Volunteer Coordinator for the Golisano Campaign recalled for NYPOLITICS that Credico "fired him" in a late night phone call from "Stone" and was so convincing that Powers booked an airline ticket back to his home in Washington D.C. for the next morning figuring he was out of a job.
Anthony Papa who was convicted under the Rockefeller's drug laws for a drug offense he did not likely commit and now serves as the communication specialist for the Drug Policy Alliance wrote that, "Credico is a prankster who loves to call people up late at night and use a different voice to fool you. He almost got the great civil rights attorney William Moses Kunstler held in contempt of court when he mimicked Kunstler's voice to speak to a judge about a case Kunstler was working on."
Would a man who uses an impersonation of a lawyer to call a judge regarding a matter before the court use an impression to make a late night phone call to the Governor's father?
Papa also said that Credico confused Attorney General Andrew Cuomo while he was running for office by calling Cuomo and imitating former Senator Alfonse D'Amato on the phone.
Credico was a headliner in Las Vegas and Atlantic City who appeared on the Tonite Show with Johnny Carson. Credico's career as a professional comic and impersonator collapsed after a struggle with drug addiction, the subject of an award- winning documentary "Sixty spins around the sun", produced by actor Jack Black's wife.
Credico's animosity for Stone stems from an introduction Credico made to the Reverend Al Sharpton. After a dinner that Credico said was held at Gallagher's on 52nd street, Sharpton and Stone hit it off, strangely bound by a common admiration for the late Adam Clayton Powell, early civil rights advocate and political showman.
Credico subsequently demanded a fee for making the introduction. Stone, who had spend substantial time with Credico during the Golisano campaign and who reportedly feared that Credico might be turning to his earlier drug abuse habits, refused payment. This sent Credico on a rampage which resulted in multi-part series in the Village Voice by Credico friend Wayne Barrett which Stone said greatly exaggerated his role in Sharpton's presidential campaign. Credico claimed in the Village Voice that Sharpton used Stone's credit cards for campaign travel and that Sharpton stayed at stone's New York apartment. No proof of these charges has ever been offered.
It should also be noted that Credico is a close political associate of Bruno antagonists Senator Eric Schneiderman and Senator Tom Duane. Duane told the Village Voice in the wake of modest reforms in the Rockefeller drug law in 2003 that "Randy Credico really, deserves a lot of credit"
Stone seemed dazed by the initial charges by Bernard Spitzer's lawyers and claimed that a voice tape could easily be faked and that the colorful Republican consultant had a running battle with his landlord, Dale Hemmendinger, a major Spitzer fundraiser and Spitzer appointee to the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Stone claims the landlord has access to his apartment and could have had someone place a call to Spitzer's father to create a phone record.
While NYPOLLTICS was able to confirm Hemmendinger's ownership of 20 Central Park South, Stone's apartment building, we are skeptical about any entry into Stone's apartment to make a call to Spitzer's father in order to create a phone record. Political consultants working in New York have long known that simple technology exist to create a false caller ID number to appear. This technology, known as spoofing can be further explored at www.spoofcard.com and www.telespoof.com
That Stone himself did not consider this possibility when first confronted seems beside the point. Credico has the voice and anyone can access this technology and Credico is no friend of Stone.
Listening to the audio tape posted by the Albany Times Union, one can't help but notice a substantial pause after the voice says "this is a message for Bernard Spitzer...". There's a noticeable increase in volume and pitch when the voice alleged to be Stone's begins message.
Curiously, Bernard Spitzer's lawyer's released three recordings for head phone use to the media. The alleged phone message, a recording of a Stone television interview and a mixed tape in which each voice is heard in one ear "for comparisons purposes". Professional voice analysts interviewed by POLITICSNY universally condemned this method of analysis. An expert on voice analysis who currently works for Federal Bureau of Investigation told POLITICSNY that it would be "virtually impossible to ever with certainty whether the voice on the recording produced by Bernard Spitzer's lawyer was indeed Stone".
Interviews with attorney's specializing defamation and communications law all admitted that they could not find any law broken by who ever either place the call to the elder Spitzer or created records that would indicate that such a call had been placed. Because no laws were apparently broken, no formal investigation is under way in this entire affair.
When questioned by the New York Daily News, Credico denied making the call, but on the record that this would get him invited back on the Tonite Show. If Randy Credico pulled the ultimate dirty trick- one that appears to be perfectly legal- he should be invited back on the Tonite Show.
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Official Albany has all but decided that colorful and controversial political consultant Roger Stone made a crank call to Governor Eliot Spitzer's eighty two year old father thus ending his advisory role with the New York Senate Republicans.
Longtime Pataki fundraiser and confidant Laurance "Laury" Gay has told PoliticsNY that he distinctly recalls drug law activist and professional impressionist Randy Credico doing an impression of political consultant Roger Stone at a 2002 birthday dinner for Gay at Sparks Steakhouse in New York City. Also present was long-time Gay friend, actor/comedian, Rip Torn.
"Stone brought this guy Credico to dinner," said Gay. "He had an incredible talent. He could listen to anyone and within minutes do a credible imitation of them, using their voice inflection and mannerisms. He did an impression of Rip Torn after meeting him for the first time."
Gay, who openly clashed with Stone during the 2002 New York Governor's race when Stone worked for independent B. Thomas Golisano saidÊCredico was weird and annoying because he would not stop with the impressions." He did them all Ð Nixon, Clinton, Koch, D'Amato, Strom Thurmond, Sheldon Silver, Charlie Rangel ....and Stone. He was obnoxious."
Gay, a Connecticut native, is a veteran of Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign where he served as Field Director for the Northeast. He also directed former U.S. Senator James L. Buckley's unsuccessful come-back bid and served as Deputy Political Director for the Reagan/ Bush reelection campaign in 1984.
Gay is widely credited with working with William F. Buckley Jr. to spearhead the Republicans for Joe Lieberman effort which helped topple Weicker in 1988.
Friends of both men say Stone and Gay fell out in 2002 when Gay criticized Stone for his support of Rochester billionaire Golisano over New York Governor George Pataki. Gay served as a key Pataki fundraiser and advisor in all three of the Governor's successful campaigns.
Gay joins a bi-partisan group of political professionals all of whom have confirmed to PoliticsNY that they heard Credico, who appeared on the Tonite Show with Johnny Carson, impersonate Stone.
Those confirming the professional comic and impressionist's uncanny imitation of Stone include Senator Chuck Schumer's former Press Secretary, the former Erie County Democratic Chairman and the Chief of Staff to a Florida Democratic Congressman.
All have confirmed that Credico regularly employed an impression of Stone in prank phone calls without detection as early as 2002.
Sources have also confirmed for PoliticsNY that Kroll & Associates, owned by Marsh Insurance, which is headed by Spitzer mentor Michael Cherkasky, provided the "spoofing technology" to make it appear that Stone had placed the call by causing a fake caller ID to appear on the elder Spitzer's phone.
"At least Spitzer is now using Kroll instead of the New York State police to do his dirty work," said a reliable source with knowledge of the Kroll Ð Credico connection.
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March 3, 2008 Edition > Section: Opinion > Printer-Friendly Version
After that unfortunate episode involving a nasty message left on the voicemail of Eliot Spitzer's octogenarian father, Senate Republicans no longer pay Roger Stone for advice. Mr. Stone used to collect $20,000 a month from Republicans before they terminated his contract last year amid allegations that he threatened Bernard Spitzer. Over the weekend though, from his home in Miami Beach and between puffs on a Cuban cigar, the political operative was feeling generous enough to offer Joseph Bruno and his besieged colleagues a few pointers, this time free of charge.
As the "Weekly Standard" noted in a recent cover-story profile of him, Mr. Stone goes by the motto: "Above all, attack, attack, attack Ñ never defend."
Mr. Bruno, the boss of a fading majority, is losing to Mr. Spitzer because attack, attack, attack has become whine, whine, whine, Mr. Stone told me.
The 78-year-old Senate leader "has no strategy other than whining about Troopergate," he said, referring to the protracted saga over the Spitzer administration's botched attempt to nail Mr. Bruno on charges that he abused his state-subsidized transportation privileges on fund-raising trips to New York City.
Don't get him wrong: Mr. Stone, or "political animal" as the Weekly Standard called him, isn't going soft on Eliot. He says he's convinced that the governor and his senior aides "acted egregiously" and probably perpetrated a cover-up that deserves to be investigated and perhaps prosecuted.
Still, he believes Mr. Bruno has gotten carried away in recent months Ñ to the point where it isn't clear if the majority leader and his fellow Republicans stand for anything other than exposing the administration's misdeeds.
"You can't just fight on one front. You have to have an agenda," he said.
On Friday, in the wake of his party's humiliating defeat in a special Senate election in a northern district, Mr. Bruno accepted the resignation of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee's longtime director, Edward Lurie, who was in charge of the campaign's field operations. Calling Mr. Lurie a "mechanic who never had any strategic authority," Mr. Stone insists that Mr. Bruno pinned the blame on the wrong guy. The man, he said, who ought to have taken the hit is John McArdle, Mr. Bruno's tough-talking communications director whom Mr. Stone described as the primary force behind the Senate's Troopergate monomania.
"John McArdle is a believer in one thing: Troopergate," he said. "Anything that distracts from Troopergate, he's against. Bruno needs to fire McArdle."
So what should be the Republican agenda? Mr. Stone replies with two issues: taxes and crime. Those are areas he says where Mr. Spitzer is most vulnerable to attack and on which Republicans have failed to exploit.
"Mr. Bruno should be pounding on the fact that the governor wants to tax illegal drug transactions to balance his budget, instead of arresting drug dealers and getting them off the street," he said.
"You have record numbers of violent criminals being paroled. The governor insists he has nothing to do with it, but his parole board is putting violent criminals back on the street. It's a Dukakis. It's an attitude about violent crime that is very typical of Manhattan liberals. 'These people are victims.' I'd be pounding on that," he said.
He said Republicans, by dwelling on Mr. Spitzer's ethics, have failed to focus attention on the hundreds of millions of dollars in fee increases and tax loophole closures that Mr. Spitzer put in his budget despite pledging not to raise taxes.
I point out that Mr. Spitzer is the one who supports placing a cap on school property taxes Ñ an idea that has the backing of conservative policy groups like the Manhattan Institute Ñ not the Republicans, who are siding with organized labor. "If Bruno cannot agree to a tax cap based on his relationship" with labor unions, Mr. Stone said, "then he needs to put a different tax proposal on the table that gets him back to his principles."
He added, "There's no question that the current Republican leadership has decided that they needed to co-opt a number of electoral funders who would not normally do business with Republicans."
It's a relationship that Mr. Stone suspects may have hurt Republicans in the end. "It's fair to say, they are probably not maximizing their Republican turnout É because the Republican Party is perceived as a more moderate party."
For now, Mr. Bruno has yet to signal any significant change in thinking but is open to fresh advice, if the hiring of a national pollster, Neil Newhouse, on Friday is any indication.
"They don't need a new consultant. They need a strategy," Mr. Stone said.
jacob@nysun.com