Investigating One Type of Corruption, and Finding Another

William Sauro/The New York Times Meade Esposito

Why did State Senator Malcolm A. Smith allegedly bribe Republican officials to run in the party’s mayoral primary instead of doing it the old-fashioned way - by contributing to the party’s coffers

Under a 1947 state law, Mr. Smith, a Queens Democrat, needed the permission of party leaders to run. But previous candidates - Michael R. Bloomberg among them â€" have proved persuasive by bankrolling the party organizations instead of giving to their leaders directly. (Since 2009, when Mr. Bloomberg, as an Independent, needed permission to run for re-election as a Republican, he has donated about $800,000 to the five Republican county organizations in New York City.)

One answer to why the personal approach can be more appealing comes from Mark Russ Federman, who, decades before he wrote “Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes From the House that Herring Built,” performed a less appetizing role working for Maurice Nadjari, the state’s special criminal justice prosecutor, in the 1970s.

Mr. Federman’s target: Meade Esposito, the Brooklyn Democratic leader who, investigators suspected, was selling judgeships. They subpoenaed records of the county Democratic organization, and they discovered corruption, all right, but not what they expected.

The records revealed not that Mr. Esposito was profiting personally, but that two Democratic functionaries were helping themselves to proceeds from the party’s annual fund-raising dinner.

Mr. Esposito, the presumptive target of the investigation, did a turn instead as a star witness for the prosecution.