Leah Hebert
Disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s alleged sexual-harassment victims include his former chief-of-staff, who was paid at least part of a secret $103,000 settlement, The Post has learned.
Leah Hebert, 29, worked for more than a year in
Lopez’s Brooklyn office until she was terminated June 7 — the same day that an invoice for that settlement was submitted to the Assembly, records show.
The taxpayer-funded money was paid out six days later to a Manhattan law firm connected to LA sexual-harassment attorney Gloria Allred.
The settlement was covered by a confidentiality agreement authorized by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has since apologized for the veil of secrecy and is now a target of a state ethics probe.
A political source told The Post Hebert received at least a share of that payout.
Hebert refused to comment yesterday as she walked into a Brooklyn apartment building where she bought a co-op in May.
A friend earlier in the day declared, “She’s a victim here!”
Hebert was first hired by Lopez as a legislative assistant in March 2011 at a salary of nearly $45,000 a year.
She was promoted to chief-of-staff just five months later — at a salary of $75,000, records show. Her salary was slashed, for unknown reasons to $49,842 in January.
Two months later, Hebert was transferred out of Lopez’s office to an undisclosed assignment in the Assembly — although her termination wasn’t complete until June 7.
Records show that on top of her salary, Hebert was paid four times by the Lopez campaign in 2011 for “reimbursements” totaling $4,774.41.
In addition to the
$103,080 paid by the Assembly to two women, Lopez also doled out $32,000, according to The New York Times.
It was not clear if the money came from his personal or campaign accounts.
The scandal is a black eye for Silver, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats.
Publicly, he welcomed an investigation yesterday by the Gov. Cuomo-created Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) — although privately, sources said he and his staff are “panicking” about the probe.
Silver defiantly stated the inquiry would “allow all the facts to come out.”
He also said the Assembly was “asking for a release from any confidentiality clauses that may exist” so it could disclose details about sex-harassment allegations against Lopez separately from the JCOPE probe.
But behind closed doors Silver and his aides “are under fire,” a source said.
“They can get hit in a lot of ways on this,” the source said, noting that Silver is also concerned about attacks from women’s groups angry about the settlement.
“Shelly made a crucial mistake here,” said another source, who believes the scandal weakens Silver’s position in dealing with Cuomo.
Last Friday, Silver’s Assembly Ethics Committee censured Lopez, 71, and stripped him of his leadership positions. That came after two more Lopez staffers accused him of groping and other sexual-harassment incidents in June and July.
Some Albany insiders wondered why Silver made the move, which only served to draw publicity to the settlement.
“There are a lot of things here that don’t make sense,” an official said. “What happened here that made Shelly have to do this? Why go public with this censure?”
When asked about Silver’s stunning apology for mishandling the situation, Mayor Bloomberg said, “The speaker said clearly that he, in retrospect, thought he should have handled it differently and would do it differently in the future. And I think that’s what he should have said. I think he’s probably right in that.”
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sounded a similar note, and said Silver “has made appropriate reforms going forward.”
Hardly anyone else wanted to take on the powerful Assembly speaker on the issue.
Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson said it would have been better to make the matter public right away.
“Taxpayers deserve assurances that their dollars are not being wasted,” he said. “In the end, sunlight is not only a disinfectant, it is a deterrent to the abuse of women in the workplace.”
That echoed a statement Tuesday from Allred, who said a probe should be conducted not only to “protect past victims of sexual harassment, but also to ensure that discrimination and harassment come to an end for current employees.”
Lopez protégé Frank Seddio — the favorite to replace Lopez as Brooklyn Democratic leader — yesterday expressed doubt that the alleged harassment occurred, despite the settlement payout and the Assembly committee’s censure vote.
“If they’re true,” the sex-harassment charges are “abhorrent,” Seddio said.
“He’s indicated to me that these charges were unfounded,” Seddio said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman clarified the role the state’s top lawyer played in the six-figure settlement.
The spokesman said the office “received unsolicited drafts of a settlement agreement, made one recommendation clarifying that the Assembly was the employer, and provided a model prelitigation settlement agreement, which included neither a confidentiality agreement nor any monetary terms.”
NY POST
