ALBANY — Wall Street titan Maurice (Hank) Greenberg has filed a state ethics complaint against a top lawyer for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, alleging prosecutorial misconduct.
The complaint against Assistant Attorney General David Ellenhorn, obtained by the Daily News, was quietly submitted last month to the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
It charges Ellenhorn deliberately lied in the civil fraud case the attorney general’s office brought against Greenberg, the former CEO of American International Group, to keep the lawsuit alive.
The complaint argues Ellenhorn’s actions “raise suspicions among the public that he is violating the public trust, and accordingly, constitute violations of the Public Officers Law.”
It’s the latest move in a long, ugly battle between Greenberg and the attorney general’s office that started in 2005 when then-AG Eliot Spitzer brought the suit.
In a peculiar twist over the weekend, Team Greenberg found itself at odds with its own high-powered lawyer on the case.
The News reported Saturday that lawyer David Boies in 2009 offered Ellenhorn a lift back to New York from Nebraska on Greenberg’s private plane following a deposition in the case — a possible state ethics violation.
But Boies said he chartered the plane and that he did not charge Greenberg for the travel — a point those close to Greenberg dispute. Boies also said he was not aware that Ellenhorn might have violated ethics laws by not reporting the trip or paying reimbursement for it.
The flight is expected to be added to the complaint filed against Ellenhorn with the state ethics committee.
Schneiderman spokesman Damien LaVera dismissed the ethics filing as “the latest blatant effort to distract from facts of the case.”
Donald Trump last week filed an ethics complaint alleging that Schneiderman violated the law by seeking favors from Trump associates while his office was investigating Trump University.
Greenberg and Trump are represented in Albany by former state Lobbying Commission Executive Director David Grandeau, who insists there is no coordination.
Those close to Schneiderman are not so sure. “It would be a real problem if (the ethics commission) became the place where rich defendants go when judges won’t take their claims seriously,” said one source.
