Exclusive: Tapes tie candidate for sheriff to ticket-rigging attempts
TROY -- Phone calls recorded at the Rensselaer County Jail reveal sheriff's candidate Gary Gordon discussed attempts to fix traffic tickets and planned campaign fundraising events with on-duty correction officers who are union leaders backing his campaign. In one conversation, a correction officer can be heard asking Gordon, who is an investigator with the district attorney's office, to help him with a relative's speeding ticket: "Will you take care of that East Greenbush court thing today?'' Gordon responded: ''Yeah, tell her to slow the (expletive) down, will ya?" Gordon then adds "And get some tickets sold today, will ya?" an apparent reference to the sale of tickets for an upcoming campaign event. "If there ain't 200 people there, I ain't running." "If there ain't 200 people there I will at least have 200 signatures,'' the officer replied. A series of taped recordings made at the jail and obtained by the Times Union features expletive-laced discussions about both Gordon's campaign against Sheriff Jack Mahar and the desires of jail guards to get tickets fixed. All calls to and from the jail are recorded.....read more...
Logged
