FRAUDscoop

ALBANY — Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday put the brakes on state Thruway Authority members receiving free E-Z Pass tags, saying the embattled authority doesn’t have the legal right to hand out the freebies.

After Cuomo’s office notified the authority Wednesday of their illegal move, the authority quickly relented and agreed to take away the E-Z Pass tags from seven current and former members.

“The public authorities in our state have enormous power, and it is vital that they act within the law and are careful with how they spend taxpayer dollars,” Cuomo’s top aide Benjamin Lawsky wrote in a letter to Sharon O’Conor, the authority’s counsel.
Several former chairmen of the authority and some top aides to former Govs. George Pataki and Mario Cuomo had their E-Z Pass tags revoked, according to the authority.
“The Authority will no longer be providing non-revenue E-ZPass to any current or former Thruway Authority/Canal Corporation Board members,” said spokeswoman Sarah Kampf.

Those who had the free passes included Erin Crotty, former commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation under Pataki; Kevin Plunkett, a lawyer at a Westchester County firm with ties to Pataki; and E. Virgil Conway, former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Others included Jeffrey Williams, a Buffalo area businessman; Howard Steinberg, former Thruway Authority chairman; Peter Tufo, former authority chairman under Cuomo and Pataki; and Lou Tompson, also a former authority chairman and a top Pataki aide.

Cuomo’s decision comes after he sought earlier this week to take away free E-Z Pass tags from members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Yet the MTA indicated Wednesday that it will ask a court to determine whether E-ZPass benefits should be considered compensation.

“If the MTA wants to litigate, we are totally prepared to do so,” said Cuomo spokesman John Milgrim.

Lawsky said that a 2007 decision from Cuomo’s office found that most public authorities in New York are not authorized to provide benefits to their members, which would E-Z Pass.

Lawsky said that Cuomo’s office will continue to investigate to ensure that other public authorities — which are independent agencies that oversee important public services but have often flown under the public’s radar screen - aren’t giving out unwarranted benefits to its members.

The move by the Thruway Authority comes after the agency has been criticized for voting last month to raise tolls starting in July on the 641-mile long superhighway.
Some state lawmakers said that board members raising tolls while some of them are getting free passage on the Thruways is hypocritical.

“It’s something that’s not acceptable and to have that on the taxpayers’ dime is just inappropriate,” said Assemblyman Bill Reilich, R-Greece, Monroe County.

Reach Joseph Spector at jspector@gannett.com