Mike Green Must Want that Federal Judgeship REALLY Badly

... to curry favor with his party by indicting a man he knows to be innocent.

We've been looking at the story behind the indictment of Monroe County GOP Executive Director Andrew Moore.

It's well known in political circles that Democratic District Attorney Michael Green badly wants the federal judgeship that's open in Rochester.  He's campaigned for the position with both U.S. Senators.

Green's a former Republican who flipped parties when he couldn't get the GOP nomination for DA.   He's always been somewhat suspect among Democrats in the party heirarchy, on "Not really one of us" grounds.   He lives in that most Republican of places, Pittsford, where his wife is a Republican member of Town Council.   To his new party, Green still had something to prove.


Consider:

The Robutrad investigation is a case of federal origins. It was a federal complaint that was filed against former county employee Robert Morone.

The feds, being professionals, had no interest in Andrew Moore.   They said so.  Here's their complaint against Robert Morone.   Look at page 27, where they allege it was Morone who pressured fellow-worker Chris Gorman into signing an endorsement letter.   Not Andrew Moore.   Moore is mentioned in the federal charge against Morone only as an afterthought, as a campaign volunteer who wrote a draft of an endorsement letter.

That's why the feds indicted Morone -- not Moore.   As the feds said on page 27 of their indictment of Morone:   it was Morone who pressured another County empoloyee into signing an endorsement letter.   Not Moore.   The feds recognized Moore was innocent of wrongdoing.

Yet now -- months after the feds left Moore alone because he had done nothing wrong -- our Democratic District Attorney indicts Mr. Moore.   An indictment described by a former prosecutor teaching criminal law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice   -- in the Democrat and Chronicle no less --   as not fitting the charge brought against Moore, and as " ... funny, except for the fact that the person indicted has to go through this ordeal."

The charge brought against Moore is a local claim, originating in the County DA's office.   Not federal.   The feds knew better.

According to the Democrat and Chronicle article, Moore took a polygraph test.  It showed he was telling the truth.   He said he hadn't pressured anyone to sign any letter.   (The DA's case against Moore is based on an allegation of such pressure.)   The polygraph backed Moore up completely.  District Attorney Green, and the Assistant DA involved in the case, William Gargan, who's looking to become a City Court judge and needs the Democratic nomination, didn't want to hear about it.

Trivialities like truthfulness and innocence are irrelevant to a couple of ethically flexible prosecutors on the make.   Their job was to provide the pretext for Joe Morelle to be able to say that Robutrad wasn't just the brainchild of one low-level county employee like Robert Morone, but an act of the Republican organization itself.   They delivered.

Up to this point, Robutrad had been a bust for the Monroe County Democratic Party.   Some rogue County employees who stole from taxpayers were indicted.   But there was no link to Republican headquarters.

In this regard there would have been no more potent symbol than an indictment of the man who built the GOP organization here, Steve Minarik.   But Minarik managed one last time to poke the County Democratic organization in the eye, by dying before the DA got around to contriving an indictment against him.

Minarik's successor as GOP chairman, Bill Reilich, had only recently become GOP chairman.   Nothing to indict there.   The feds, it is rumored, might be interested in a former GOP staffer, but any federal charges might not come before this November's elections, in which Democrats are making their big push to take over the County Legislature.

That left only Andrew Moore.   If Moore had held any job in the world except Executive Director of the Monroe County GOP, Mike Green never would have sought to indict him.   He, better than anyone else, knows Moore to be innocent.

District Attorney Green's Democratic Party credentials are now stamped "Paid in Full."   Maybe he'll get his judgeship, as reward for an act of corruption.

Whether he does or not, for the rest of his days may his conscience ask him, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"