UPDATE: Turner goes after Weprin over 2008 council slushfund scandal

The Empire | Mar 29, 2012

NY-9 Candidate Bob Turner

Republican Bob Turner's campaign is going after Assemblyman--and former head of the city council's finance committee--David Weprin over the 2008 slush fund scandal, claiming "[Weprin] has never satisfactorily explained how fake charities were created by the Council -- directly under his watch -- to funnel taxpayer dollars to political pet projects without the public knowing about it[.]"

If you recall, the city council was embroiled in scandal over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars being funneled through fake non-profits, a practice that some said went back decades. The scandal sent one councilman, Miguel Martinez of Manhattan, to jail and nearly derailed the political career of Speaker Quinn.

Weprin told the Observer in 2008:

I’m not proud of these scandals or these misappropriations of some small amount of money in a very large budget, but in the end I think the process is stronger for it, and we’re all better off for all the scrutiny that came out of this.

"David Weprin either knew about these fake charities or he wasn't doing his job; there is no in-between," Turner campaign spokesman William O'Reilly said in statement from the campaign.

UPDATE

The response from Weprin's campaign:

Bob Turner is lying about David Weprin in a sad, pathetic attempt to distract the people of Brooklyn and Queens from his extremist tea party-inspired plan to slash trillions from Medicare and Social Security.

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