Albany - Gov. Paterson's top aide has paid more than $200,000 in back taxes after failing to file his income taxes for five years - claiming he was suffering from severe mental illness, The Post has learned.
Charles O'Byrne (above, with Paterson), the governor's $178,500-a-year chief of staff, says he recently settled a debt that soared to at least $206,000.
The sum included $151,000 owed to the IRS and another $56,000 in state taxes, including various penalties and interest.
O'Byrne did not file state or federal returns in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. During part of that period, he was employed by the state.
O'Byrne disclosed the tax debt and his failure to file returns after being questioned by The Post about an outstanding $11,500 tax warrant listed by the Department of State.
A former Jesuit priest who officiated at both the wedding and funeral of John F. Kennedy Jr., O'Byrne said it all stemmed from two severe bouts with depression.
"Certainly, I'm ashamed of the fact that this has occurred in my life," O'Byrne told The Post. "But I'm clinically aware of the fact that it is a consequence of an illness over which I had no control.
"As anyone who's been through a clinical depression understands, parts of life fall apart," he added.
"Keeping up with the mail, frankly, and keeping up with the personal affairs of my life was the primary casualty of the depression I've suffered and have been treated for."
O'Byrne says he is no longer suffering mental illness and is not undergoing treatment. All outstanding state and federal tax claims have been satisfied, he said.
O'Byrne, 49, serves as the senior in-house adviser to Paterson, whose administration is currently cracking down on corporations, small businesses and individuals trying to cheat the state on taxes.
For his own part, Paterson said he was generally aware of O'Byrne's tax debt before he hired him as a speechwriter in September 2004.
Paterson learned the full details in 2006, when O'Byrne underwent a background probe in preparation for Paterson's run for lieutenant governor.
"He had to find ways of paying off the debt and arrange them and go ahead and pay the debt off," Paterson told The Post. "I'm satisfied that he did that as promptly as he could."
O'Byrne had racked up at least $65,000 in credit-card debt and personal loans, according to a financial-disclosure statement he filed in June.
The powerful Kennedy clan has served as a benefactor to O'Byrne since he attended law school with President John Kennedy's nephew Stephen Smith Jr.
The tax bills began to pile up in 2002. That's when the openly gay Manhattan native left the Jesuits to pen "Going My Way," his still-unpublished memoir about sexual confusion and repression in the Catholic Church.
During that period, O'Byrne, who had abandoned a promising career in corporate law for the priesthood, supported himself with legal work for nonprofits and a handful of personal investment funds and annuities.
Only the chosen few get away with excuses and no personal accountability. Although this guy did pay off his debt in the end. Ya gotta give him credit for that one, I guess.
But come on let's face it here...who would even think of going after a political, catholic, clinically depressed gay? That just wouldn't be politically correct in this day and age. The ACLU would have surrounded this guy like a wagon train and played him as the victim.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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