- Last Updated: 2:54 PM, May 3, 2013
- Posted: 12:18 PM, May 3, 2013
Crooked former Queens state Sen. Shirley Huntley secretly wore a wire for the feds and may have helped snared a fellow senator and two other elected officials in a corruption sting, new court papers reveal.
Huntley recorded nine people – including seven elected officals, a consultant and a staffer -- after being wired-up by the FBI last summer, according to documents filed today in Brooklyn Federal Court.
"Recordings of meetings [Huntley] held separately with State Senator #1 and two other elected officials did yield evidence useful to law enforcement authorities," wrote Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney Daniel Spector.
Spector did not reveal the identities of the senator and the other two officials.
Huntley, 74, in January copped to funneling more than $87,000 in taxpayer funds to a bogus charity, the Parents Information Network, and then using the dough for herself and family members. She is slated to be sentenced next week.
Huntley agreed to cooperate with the feds before her August 27, 2012 arrest, after they confronted her with wiretap evidence of her participation in several corrupt schemes, prosecutors said. She made the secret recordings from June 2012 until August 2012. Huntley lost a Democratic primary in September after her arrest.
Recording of six of the nine people Huntley recorded “did not yield any evidence of criminal activity,” prosecutors said in the filing.
Huntley already has admitted involvement in a JFK Airport bribery scheme that allegedly involved the unnamed senator, according to the filing. She was paid $1,000 by a businessman to secure rental space for a cargo-handling business that wanted to expand at the airport, officials said.
She is the second New York pol this year to be revealed as wearing a wire for the FBI. Last month, Bronx Assemblyman Nelson Castro said he recorded conversations for the feds that led to last month’s stunning bribery arrest of Bronx Assembly Eric Stevenson. Castro resigned his seat after Stevenson’s arrest.
The development marks the expansion of an existing criminal probe by a team of FBI agents and prosecutors from the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn probing political corruption in southeastern Queens - a sprawling investigation that already has implicated several current and former members of the state legislature and businessmen seeking to buy political influence.
Huntley, who served in the state legislature from 2007 to 2012, plead guilty to felony mail fraud for an embezzlement scheme involving her charitable non-profit education organization, the Parents Information Network, and used tax money to buy personal items and benefit family members.
In that scheme, Huntley worked with New York state Assemblywoman Vivian Cook, who quietly funneled thousands of dollars in public money to PIN, sources said. Huntley then rewarded Cook with lavish shopping trips underwritten by taxpayer funds, The Post first reported.
Cook has not yet been charged with wrongdoing.
Huntley faces up to two years in prison under a plea agreement, and also must pay more than $87,000 in restitution to New York state to make up for the tax money she stole.
The embattled ex-legislator was initially indicted on Aug. 27 by the New York state Attorney General's Office on charges that she falsified documents to conceal the fact that her niece and an aide allegedly siphoned $30,000 from a sham charity she created.
Huntley also has pleaded guilty to felony evidence tampering charges stemming from the state corruption case against her that's still pending in Nassau County Supreme Court, a source said.
mmaddux@nypost.com
