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Diversity stagnating
>Jobs Suzuki Reno gets feisty >Cars Golfing in Scotland >Travel |
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Friday, Jul 22, 2005, 9:38 AM EDT
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NEW YORK NOW: |
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Disgraced ex-Giuliani official claims mental illness, judge prescribes prison
STAFF WRITER July 22, 2005
A former top
Giuliani administration official insisted mental illness made him do
"all these wacky things" -- like embezzling hundreds of thousands of
city dollars -- but a federal judge Thursday didn't buy it, sentencing
him to 63 months behind bars.
Russell Harding, 40, former president of the New York City Housing Development Corp., pleaded guilty in March to stealing more than $400,000 for his personal use and possessing child pornography.
As part of the probe, the child porn was found on his computer. Harding suggested his prosecution was politically motivated by the Bloomberg administration, and he noted that in 2001, he picked up the tab for dinner with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his girlfriend that included "copious amounts of wine." Harding said he wasn't a pedophile, and he added, "I fell into the wrong crowd. This is a fact. It simply happened." Harding's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, told U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan his client had "never been able to come to terms with his sexual identity." Then Harding, a rumpled, pasty man wearing orange and khaki prison fatigues, spoke for 40 minutes. He described his successes at the agency -- until Kaplan interrupted him, saying he was "starting to sound like a stump speech for election for president of HDC." He also minimized the significance of the 10 child pornography images out of 1,500 porn images he owned, saying, "It is a rounding error, a percentage. Again, I'm not making excuses." He called his online pornographic chats "fantasy" and said he was like "millions" of people who daily engaged in such virtual discussions. Harding's voice choked with emotion as he insisted he already suffered enough. "I'm destitute, I'm penniless, I'm loveless," he said. "My future is goose egg. Zero. I am never going to head an organization again ... I am deeply embarrassed, and I accept responsibility." Kaplan replied, "I am not entirely persuaded that the defendant has fully accepted responsibility for his actions. I think he raised as many doubts in my mind as he satisfied this morning. He has failed to appreciate there there's a fundamental difference between the use of HDC funds." Kaplan said he was not convinced of Harding's claims of mental illness, saying they were "excuses for conduct for which the defendant is fully responsible." He ordered him to pay $366,799 in restitution.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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