NY-Gov: State Police, Paterson May Have Interfered in Abuse Case Against Top Aide

It looks like the NYT finally broke the big story it was rumored to be working on about New York Gov. David Paterson, and it does not look good:

Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man.

In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it. The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor’s personal security detail.

Then early this month, days before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer. She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed.

The aide in question is David W. Johnson, whom the Times recently profiled at length, describing his history of “altercations with women.” A report last fall by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo exposed a decade-long history of improper political interference by the State Police. This track record, among other things, included erasing a police report of a domestic violence complaint against then-Rep. John Sweeney and replacing it with a “phony, sanitized” version. Paterson has asked Cuomo to investigate this latest incident as well.

15 thoughts on “NY-Gov: State Police, Paterson May Have Interfered in Abuse Case Against Top Aide”

  1. must resign asap. This is a disgusting abuse of power and a slap in the face of every law biding citizen in the state of New York. If the New York senate which is even more of a joke than the US Senate at times can expel a senator caught on tape beating his girlfriend, there should be no problems forcing Paterson to step aside.

  2. I remember the day Spitzer resigned, I thought it was a good thing he was leaving as he had been a disaster as a governor. He roared into office with the biggest election victory in New York history and managed to squander it all in a little more than a year. Now his replacement has done nothing but embarass the state on a regular basis with his general ineptitude and inability to govern. This doesn’t even account for his general arrogance.

    Thank God we have Andrew Cuomo on deck or we’d have to seriously consider the possibility that Rick Lazio could become governor.

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