Raymond Harding, a former chairman of the state's Liberal Party, was arrested yesterday on charges that he accepted more than $800,000 in "finder's fees" from two investment firms seeking to manage the state's $122 billion pension fund. He's also accused of helping to "clear" a Queens Assembly seat so that comptroller Alan Hevesi's son Andrew could run for it in 2005. The fees were directed to Harding by the elder Hevesi's office in exchange for that, as well as decades of other favors, according to the criminal complaint. The former comptroller has yet to be implicated in this ongoing investigation. [NYT]