Queens, NY – Federal prosecutors on Thursday grilled a City Councilman who claims guilt-stricken snow workers came to him to confess a work-slowdown during the post-holiday blizzard.
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The claims by Dan Halloran (R-Queens) triggered several investigations, including one by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who summoned Halloran to testify before a grand jury yesterday.
Sources say the testimony was postponed because weather prevented many jurors from reaching the court.
Halloran instead met briefly with prosecutors, but invoked attorney-client privilege in refusing to reveal the names of three Sanitation workers. He claims they came to him in his role as a lawyer – not as a Councilman.
“I will not endanger them in their careers or put them in harm’s way,” he said.
City ethics rules bar elected officials from doing even unpaid legal work pertaining to city matters.
A spokesman for Halloran said the Sanitation workers approached the Councilman on Bell Blvd. and that he spoke to them only briefly before advising them to find another attorney.
Halloran told a different version of events to CNN last month. He told the network that the workers called him, needing to speak with him. He said he invited them to sit down with him the next day.
His actions are raising eyebrows. “He can’t wear two hats at the same time in meeting with city employees,” said Citizens Union director Dick Dadey.
But the NY Post is reporting that the Queens councilman has revealed the identity of a whistleblower he says told him Sanitation bosses were directing workers to slow down snow removal during the Christmas blizzard to protest budget cuts.
Carl Curto, one of two Department of Transportation supervisors Councilman Dan Halloran said spilled the beans to him, is now catching grief from his colleagues and has backed off his claims despite being questioned by state investigators, the lawmaker said.
Halloran said both DOT supervisors are “under tremendous pressure” from their co-workers to keep their mouths shut.
The alleged work slowdown is being investigated by the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office, the Brooklyn and Queens DAs’ offices and the city Department of Investigation.
The Republican councilman said he believes none of the investigations are “getting traction” because “the problem is getting someone [with knowledge of the slowdown] to go on the record and talk about it.”
Curto told The Post he had no comment yesterday.
Meanwhile, Halloran said he met with Brooklyn federal investigators and turned over video and photos that could back claims that plow operators were told to slack off during the blizzard because of Sanitation budget cuts.
Halloran expects to return to Brooklyn federal court on Monday to continue talking to investigators, who are putting the case to a grand jury.
How much faster did they work on Thursday if we still are climbing mountains of snow in Brooklyn?
Here you go, you have the Obama Justice Dept. that is very cozy to the unions engaging in a massive cover up. If anyone thought that the Justice Dept would have a real investigation was naive. Obama and most Democrats are bought and paid for by all the Unions. The administration will never come out and say the unions did something wrong.
The snow disaster last time was clearly a deliberate slowdown and it will now be swept under the rug. At the City Council hearing a few weeks ago, whenever someone brought up the slowdown, the chairwoman interrupted them right away and said “We cannot talk about this, there is a federal investigation”. So there was no discussion about it then, the Justice Dept will ignore it, the unions win again and the people (as usual) lose.
There may be some truth to the claims, but unfortunately Dan Halloran is not a credible witness based on his beliefs and past activities. I hope that credible witnesses come forward since it certainly appeared to be a slowdown in December.