Indicted Senator Ran On ACORN, Union Ticket

Judicial Watch has uncovered an interesting twist—unlikely to get any mainstream media coverage—involving the New York state senator who just got charged for stealing taxpayer money earmarked to help the needy.

Known as an advocate of education equality for poor minorities, Democrat Shirley Huntley got hauled away in handcuffs last week and slapped with a 20-count indictment that includes felonies such as tampering with evidence and falsifying business records. Huntley stole nearly $30,000 she steered to a fake charity that claimed to help poor parents navigate the city’s school system, according to the indictment.

The 74-year-old state senator named her sham nonprofit Parent Workshop, according to the New York Attorney General’s office.  The fake charity claimed to help low-income folks deal with the city’s huge and complicated public school system. Instead, authorities say, the money was pocketed by Huntley’s niece, who served as the group’s treasurer, and another man, who is listed as president. 

It turns out that Huntley ran for office on both the Democratic and Working Families Party (WFP) tickets, according to New York State election results reviewed by Judicial Watch. This is relevant because the WFP has very close ties to the famously corrupt nonprofit with close ties to President Obama, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). In fact, JW found that the WFP shares office space in Brooklyn with two ACORN spinoffs, New York Communities for Change (NYCC) and the Mutual Housing Association of New York. 

When ACORN finally got busted for fraud, Congress cut its federal funding (Defund ACORN Act) and the group simply rebranded, creating a series of spinoffs operated by the same crooked people. Read all about it in a Judicial Watch special report born out of an extensive investigation that tracked the group and its affiliated organizations throughout the United States. The probe also revealed that tens of millions of dollars in ACORN’s funds and other assets are still unaccounted for.

Additionally, Huntley’s WFP is essentially a political operation of various unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  In fact, the WFP was co-founded by Patrick Gaspard, the SEIU’s political vice president before moving on the White House and the Democratic National Committee, former ACORN chairwoman Bertha Lewis and two other union bigwigs. Between 2006 and 2010, the SEIU gave $29,000 to Sen. Huntley’s campaign, JW’s probe found.

Here’s an interesting side note on the indicted state senator; in a show of solidarity with a black juvenile delinquent shot in Florida by a Hispanic man after an altercation, Huntley posted an amusing photo of herself on her official government website. She appears in a hooded sweatshirt, similar to the one worn by the teen, who had been suspended from school, when he got shot. In the caption, Senator Huntley claims “I am Trayvon Martin.”