ALBANY – State Comptroller Alan Hevesi arranged for a staffer to be his wife’s personal chauffeur during the past three years – with no reimbursement to the state, his office admitted last night.
The surprise disclosure came after Democrat Hevesi’s little-known Republican opponent, Christopher Callaghan, accused the state’s top fiscal officer of misusing the public funds he’s sworn to safeguard.
Callaghan said a confidential informant had provided him with the information and that he had then called Hevesi’s own “comptroller’s hot line” to report “more waste of state tax money.”
Hevesi spokesman David Neustadt, in response to press inquiries, confirmed that his boss had authorized Nicholas Acquafredda, a $61,000-a-year member of the comptroller’s “security detail,” to work as a driver for the comptroller’s wife, Carol.
Neustadt said Carol Hevesi, 64, suffered many medical problems in recent years and has been confined to a nursing hom💙e for the past three months.
Neustadt said Acquafredda always drove Mrs. Hevesi’s own car and not a state-owned vehicle.
Neustadt said Hevesi provided the chauffeur only after💮 getting the go-ahead from the state Ethics Commission in May 2003, which told him that some of the cost to the state would have to be reimbursed.
But Neustadt conꦅceded that no reimbursements had yet been ♍made and admitted that the pledge to make the payments now had come only in response to the revelation by Callaghan.
“It would have been better if it had been done on a regular basis but what’s important is that the state will now be reimbursed,” he continued.
When Hevesi was New York City comptroller in 2001 he allowed a city driver – the same Nicholas Acquafredda – to ferry his wife to and from medical appointments.
Hevesi halted the practice shortly after The Post began making inqui🦋ries about it and paid the city $6,439 i♔n reimbursements.
Neustadt contended that “security” concerns justified some of the chauffeur services, noting that Hevesi’s office has been involved in blocking state contracts to mob-related companies and in freezing some Iraqi assets as evidence of security threats.