New York politicians and political appointees are falling faster than bank stocks these days.
The latest to be criminally charged is former U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello, who pleaded not guilty Tuesday to forcing state employees to work overtime to handle her personal chores when she was New York’s health commissioner from 1999 to 2006.
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In a case reminiscent of the one that ended the career of former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to using state workers to chauffeur his wife, Novello faces a 20-count indictment charging her with theft of government services, defrauding the government and filing a false instrument.
Now an executive with Disney Children’s Hospital at Florida Hospital in Orlando, Novello, 64, could face up to 12 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
It is a huge fall from grace for the politically connected physician and public health administrator. When George H.W. Bush appointed her Surgeon General in 1990, she was the first Puerto Rican and the first woman to serve in that job.
Novello has long been a darling of the Republican Party, as well as a star in the public health world. During her tenure as Surgeon General, which continued until 1993, Novello focused on the health of women, children and minorities, as well as on underage drinking, smoking, and AIDS.
But she was controversial among abortion rights advocates for supporting a policy prohibiting family planning program workers who received federal aid from discussing abortion with their patients.
When former New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, appointed her health commissioner in 1999, she was considered a catch for New York.
But almost from the start, there were complaints from those who worked with her. A scathing, January, 2009 report by state Inspector General Joseph Fisch found that she habitually abused the services of four state health department employees, requiring them to serve as her personal chauffeurs for shopping trips, driving around visiting relatives, buying her groceries, moving furniture and even watering the plans in her apartment when she was out of town.
Medicaid fraud investigator Noreen Schifini, told state investigators that she was too busy driving the commissioner to Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, among other destinations in New York City, to carry a portfolio of investigations.
On numerous occasions, the report found that Novello had state workers drive her or her mother from the Albany area to Newark Liberty International Airport, roughly 300 miles round trip, to fly to Puerto Rico for personal business.
On one occasion, she purchased a heavy statue of Buddha during a shopping excursion in Troy, N.Y., then required a Health Department security guard to move it into her apartment, and then a few days later move it to another spot in her home because she didn’t like how it looked, according t the report.
Security guards who acted as her drivers said in interviews with state investigators that she would embarrass and yell at them if they did not do things the way she wanted and expected them to be at her beck and call at all hours.
Fisch referred the case to Albany County District Attorney David Soares’ office, which brought the case to a grand jury.
Novello’s attorney, E. Stewart Jones, said the charges were politically motivated and should have been addressed in a lawsuit, not a criminal case.
“She is here because she has a bull’s-eye on her back,” he told the Asssociated Press. “Because politics is a contact sport. Because there are people who are vindictive and who wanted to get her ever since she left the state.”
The investigation against Novello started in July 2007 under former Inspector General Kristine Hamann, an appointee of Democratic former Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Soares, Albany County’s district attorney, is also a Democrat.
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