Remember when the Hevesi scandal seemed somehow important but just not that exciting — i.e., yesterday? Turns out the story lacked one key ingredient: Hollywood star power. Voilà! At issue now is not only the comptroller’s providing a chauffeur for his ailing wife but also his top aide’s providing a chauffeur for ailing
Mod Squad star Peggy Lipton. This, we believe, is what Freud identified as “substitution,” one of the main devices of dream logic. Today’s
Post quotes an Albany source spilling the beans about Jack Chartier, Hevesi’s chief of staff, and his apparent friendship (or infatuation) with Lipton. The actress, like Hevesi’s wife, was unwell at the time — she was suffering from colon cancer, in fact — but the taxpayer-funded limo service extended far beyond chemotherapy to shopping trips, hairdresser visits, and airport runs. Hevesi, for his part, isn’t doing himself any favors by saying it was “logical” for Chartier to lend Lipton a hand. Subpoenas are already on their way. We can’t wait to see whom we’ll next learn they were
chauffeuring.
Hevesi Aide Eyed by Fraud Squad [NYP]
