Just an unfortunate confluence or concatenation of otherwise unrelated matters for Hynes, Scotto and Messineo in the 2009 and 2013 campaigns ?

Brownstone Republicans, as unlikely a bunch of Republicans as exist in Brooklyn, invite DA Hynes to speak   —   Some see “Republican” chickens coming home to roost   —   2009 petitioning blunders seem to have been forgotten  —   possibly  repeated in 2013

Ironic twists of fate for Hynes, Scotto and Messineo ?

This small and atypical sampling of Republicans in the Brooklyn GOP is often in the middle of controversy, sometimes with petitioning problems; sometimes it’s other things. This is nothing new and these kinds of problems go back to the days when the Republican leaders in the area  included the likes of the venerable and long-deceased Margaret Divine. As Tevye might sing out in “Fiddler...”:  “ TRADITION ! - - - TRADITION !”

Little has changed when the names are morphed into Joseph Messineo and Sandra Chase....

That’s what makes the recent appearance of DA Charles “Joe” Hynes at the Brownstone Club so problematic for his campaign for re-election as Brooklyn’s DA as the Republican and Conservative Parties’ candidate. It highlights an unfortunate confluence or concatenation of otherwise unrelated matters in the 2009 and 2013 campaigns   —   or maybe, it’s just BAD  KARMA or  BAD JOSS.

You see that it looks like many petitions were collected  by the Brownstone Republicans on behalf of many City- and/or County-wide candidates this year, like they have done for many years in the past.  In 2013, that would mean candidates like Joseph Lhota for Mayor and Charles “Joe” Hynes for Kings County DA; in 2009, it would have been Mayor Bloomberg and DA Hynes.  And so on, back through the years.

Not that long ago, in 2009 to be exact, many, if not all, petitions very similar to this year’s petitions contained some obvious and near obvious problems.  Remember, fully executed and filed election petitions are verified legal documents filed to influence the actions of a governmental agency, in this instance, the NYC Board of Elections.  Among the less-than-subtle problems with the Brownstone Club’s 2009 petitions involved those witnessed by one or two  key club officials who are still listed on the club’s website as leading members of the Brownstone Republicans. It seems that a very large number of their petitions in 2009 contained a very high percentage of signatures that looked very much alike and did not resemble the signatures on record at the Board of Elections. In short, based on the look of many of the sheets submitted by the Brownstone Republicans in 2009, a significant part of the petitions looked like it was  permeated with possible, even probable, forgeries. As I said, those problems were less than subtle.

There was another problem that permeated almost each and every sheet of the petitions submitted by the Brownstone Republicans in 2009.  That problem went far beyond less-than-subtle  —  it was patent. Virtually all the sheets listed as a proposed Member to the Republican State Committee — Joseph Messineo; and here’s the problem, it gave Mr. Messineo’s address as being in the same building as the Scotto Funeral Home on 1st Place and Court Street in Carroll Gardens. You see almost everybody knew then, and knows now, that Mr. Messineo lives in Sunset Park, not Carroll Gardens, where he has been registered to vote for some time.  One of the people, who especially knew then, and knows this now, is Salvatore “Buddy” Scotto, who has a very close connection to the building listed as Mr. Messineo’s address both in 2009 and now, as well as being a person with an historic familial connection to the Scotto Funeral Home. [Because of the way that the Brownstone Club petitions were handled in 2013, the bulk did not contain the names for Chase and Messineo as members of the GOP State Committee. Nonetheless, some sheets were filed  without proper cover sheets that did include Chase and Messineo’s  names and addresses to be Members of the Republican State Committee, it has been impossible for my source to track all of the candidates listed on  those sheets or to determine whether they had been filed “by the Brownstone Club” as had the others for Lhota and Hynes.]

As to DA Hynes and Mr Scotto’s recent appearance at the Brownstone Republican Club, here is some background. Mr. Scotto was once a key Republican in the Carroll Gardens area, when he, Pat Kenny, Margaret Divine and others were active in the local GOP club. However, Scotto long since had become an active Democrat; and he was only visiting the Brownstone Republican Club the other night because DA Hynes was there. However, little did Scotto or Hynes or any of the Brownstone Republicans know how precarious and embarrassing this gathering, and any Scotto introductions there, might be for DA Hynes. That is because in 2009 Hynes’ name had been listed on each and every petition sheet gathered by the Brownstone Republican Club and filed in 2009 along with State Committee Member Messineo’s name and Carroll Gardens address. [Also in 2013, immediately before petitioning, all of the same names and addresses were printed and proofread on a full set of petitions that had been delivered to the Brownstone Republican Club].

Why would any of this be embarrassing to Hynes, Scotto and Messeneo ?  Well,  one of DA Hynes’ more questionable and heavily criticized cases as Brooklyn DA involved the long and tortured political prosecution of John Kennedy O’Hara, which went through three trials and countless appeals to make stick. In fact, Hynes’ Democratic challenger Kenneth Thompson specifically mentioned the O’Hara thrice-repeated prosecutions during at least one of their pre-primary debates.

You see, O’Hara like Massineo lives in Sunset Park. O’Hara like Messineo put his name and address on and filed many election petitions. Both O’Hara and  Messineo were registered to vote at their addresses for a long time. What is different is that O’Hara’s alleged landlord, a former girlfriend,  never introduced DA Hynes at the Brownstone Republican Club or any other club, the way that Buddy Scotto did at Brownstone. What is different is that O’Hara didn’t file petitions containing the name of Charles Hynes on them for Brooklyn DA like the Brownstone Club did, in both 2009 and 2013. What is different is that O'Hara is not a key member of the Brownstone Republican Club, whose name and address are on all of the Hynes’ petition sheets gathered by the members of that club in 2009 and on a complete set of petitions delivered to the club at the beginning of petitioning in 2013.  What is different is that Hynes prosecuted O’Hara for being registered and voting out of a so-called “sham address”; and it doesn’t look like Hynes has or intends to do the same in the case of Joseph Messineo, who has and continues to be registered to vote at the Scotto Funeral Home on 1st Place and Court Street in Carroll Gardens.

Now, is all of this an unfortunate confluence or concatenation of otherwise unrelated matters for Hynes, Scotto and Messineo in the 2009 and 2013 campaigns ?   Or is it an ironic twist of fate ?