New York Racing Association Vice Chairman James Heffernan says he was asked to pay $100,000 in campaign contributions to former Governor George Pataki in exchange for the influential post.

Heffernan says he refused the criminal solicitation, but was appointed anyway. A Pataki spokesman says it never happened.

According to the Saratogian, Heffernan level the charge at the annual Saratoga Institute on Racing and Gaming Law in Saratoga. Asked by an audience member why he never reported the incident to authorities, Heffernan said, "I didn’t feel it was my responsibility."

The attorney and corporate restructuring expert said he offered his services to then-Governor Pataki, and later met with representatives of the governor who offered the job for a $100,000 contribution, Heffernan said.

Heffernan said he had previously attended a $1,000-a-plate dinner for Pataki, and that he told the Pataki aide he wouldn’t pay another $99,000 to join NYRA.

Pataki spokesman David Catalfamo e-mailed the Saratogian saying “Heffernan’s claims are absurd, shameful and untruthful—period.”

Heffernan also accused Pataki of deliberately stalling a deal NYRA had with MGM to run Aqueduct’s racino so another party could take over New York racing. If the racino had opened earlier, he said, NYRA would have had no trouble winning a new racing franchise, because it would have been on firm financial ground. Instead, two other firms challenged NYRA for the racing contract, which NYRA eventually got anyway in September 2008.

Pataki now works for Chadbourne & Parke, an international law firm in New York City. Heffernan, elected to the NYRA board in 2008, has helped to negotiate the authority’s bankruptcy, win a new racing franchise, and also deal with the state’s selection of the Aqueduct gaming operator.

By Staff