Pension Kickbacker Pleads

Former political adviser Hank Morris last week pleaded guilty in a pay-to-play kickback scheme involving the New York State pension fund.

Morris was chief political adviser to former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who also pleaded guilty in the scheme last month.

Under a plea agreement reached with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Morris will forfeit $19 million — the amount of fees he personally received by steering pension investments as a placement agent to political associates — and is permanently banned from the securities industry in New York.

"Hank Morris used his influence at the New York State Comptroller's Office to stockpile millions in fees for himself from state pension fund investments," Cuomo said in a news release. "Through his scheme, Morris personified pay-to-play corruption. With this plea, funds will be rightly restored to the State of New York and justice will be served."

Morris is also prohibited from holding public office in New York or entering into contracts with governmental entities in the state.

Under the scheme, Morris, Hevesi and then-chief investment officer David Loglisci selected pension fund investments in order to generate sham consulting fees for Morris and as favors to campaign donors.

"I sought contributions to Hevesi's re-election campaign from, among others, those individuals whom I knew were doing or seeking to do business with the Common Retirement Fund," Morris said in his allocution. "I intentionally engaged in fraud, deception, concealment, suppression, false pretense, and fictitious and pretended purchase and sale, and made material false representations and statements with intent to deceive and defraud, while engaged in inducing and promoting the exchange, sale, negotiation and purchase within and from New York of securities."

Loglisci plead guilty to related charges earlier this year. Morris' plea was the eighth in a three-year investigation by the attorney general's office. Together with agreements with 16 firms and three individual implicated in the scheme, the state has recovered more than $158 million, according to Cuomo's office.

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