A Perp Walk of Outstanding New York Politicians

With 2012 just about over, we in New York have reason to hold heads high. We showed over the past year that we remain a leader when it comes to political corruption. It's not easy staying at the top of your game. But we New Yorkers proved, once again, that we have what it takes.

It must be said, though, that New York politicians lack imagination when compared with a fellow named Wang Baolin. More on him in a bit.

First, let's raise a cup to those this year who met the lofty standards of George Washington Plunkitt, the turn-of-the-last-century Tammany leader with a worldview that he neatly summed up this way: “I seen my opportunities and I took 'em.”

Here's to Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx (or maybe Westchester), who used to insist that corruption charges against him amounted to a satanic plot. Mr. Espada blithely threw Albany into turmoil when he was a State Senate leader. He wasn't quite so cocky after a jury in Ma y found him guilty of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from his own health care network. Then in October he pleaded guilty to tax evasion. He is likely to be headed soon to federal prison. Buh-bye.

When Mr. Espada was riding high, so was another state senator, Carl Kruger of Brooklyn. In April, a federal judge sent him to prison for seven years for helping to keep Albany's kleptocracy a thriving enterprise. One saving grace is that Mr. Kruger did not blubber at his sentencing as he did last December, when he admitted he was guilty of corruption. “I have no one but myself to blame,” he told the judge. As i f that were a revelation.

Let's give a cheer to Hiram Monserrate of Queens, another state senator who helped make Albany synonymous with dysfunction. In various ways, Mr. Monserrate has been a source of almost as many charges as a Triple-A battery. Two weeks ago, he was sentenced to two years in federal prison for having misused $100,000 of taxpayer money for his political campaign. All he'd wanted, Mr. Monserrate told the judge, was to be elected so he could help the poor and the disenfranchised. Guess he just took the maxim about charity beginning at home a tad too literally.

A toast should go to Richard J. Lipsky, a well-connected New York lobbyist whose reach included the likes of Mr. Kruger. He pleaded guilty in January to bribery charges, then “cooperated” with the government - i.e., he kissed and told. His federal reward in Se ptember for having blabbed was a light prison sentence: three months.

Yet another state senator, Shirley L. Huntley of Queens, called a new conference in August to announce not that she had a bill to propose but, rather, that she was about to be indicted on corruption charges. Give her points for clairvoyance. Two days later, she was arrested, accused of dipping sticky fingers in the public till. A few weeks later, voters in her district gave her the electoral heave-ho. In the Bronx, other voters did the same to Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera, the subject of investigations into whether she was a little too nice to her boyfriends, misusing public money to hire them.

Joseph L. Bruno, the former State Senate majority leader, was under indictment once more, charged in May with taking bribes and kickbacks. Another Albany fixture, Assemblyman William F. Boyland Jr. of Brooklyn, was also indicted yet again on bribery charges.

Jimmy K. Meng, once a Queens assemblyman, admitted in court last month that he'd solicited $80,000 to help a friend get off lightly in a criminal case. Mr. Meng's lawyer told the judge that it was the only time that his 68-year-old client had ever had such a “lapse in judgment.” He did not add , “Scout's honor.”

Let's hear it for Larry B. Seabrook, a Bronx city councilman convicted in July of orchestrating a corruption scheme. And for Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez of Brooklyn - Gropez in New York Post headlines - who is under criminal investigation for alleged sexual harassment. And for Representative Michael G. Grimm of Staten Island, also being investigated, in his case for possible campaign illegalities. Comparable allegations swirl around the city comptroller, John C. Liu. Two of his associates, Xing Wu Pan and Jia Hou, are already under indictment.

In short, it was a banner year. Still, New Yorkers could learn from Wang Baolin. We didn't forget him.

Mr. Wang, a former official in Guangzhou, China, somehow built for himself a bank account of $3.3 million. Asked how he'd managed that on a government salary, he acknowledged having taken bribes - but only because he was a model of politeness. “If I didn't take them,” he said at his trial, “I'd offend too many people.”

We sure hope that New York politicians are taking notes. No doubt, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall would've been proud.