| Sections |
September 20, 2010: Vol. 33, No. 39
Past issues
Feeds
The Paper in print
Twitter
Facebook
Contact
Email updates
JobsBoss Vito: I have cancer — Party leader reveals health scare to insiders
The Brooklyn Paper
Share on TwitterTweet
Share on FacebookSubscribe
Get our stories in your inbox, free.
Like The Brooklyn Paper on Facebook.
Assemblyman Vito Lopez — his cancer is apparently back.
Similar stories
PermalinkAssemblyman Vito Lopez, the most powerful politician in Brooklyn, has had his share of battles with political opponents throughout his career, but he is facing an even more formidable foe — cancer.
A source confirmed that Lopez has been telling political allies this week that he believes his esophagal cancer has returned after being in remission for several years.
Over the weekend, Lopez met with several South Brooklyn state committee members for breakfast in Bay Ridge urging them to support him for another term as the county’s Democratic Party leader, despite his health concerns and a widening city investigation into the nonprofit he founded.
“His cancer is back terribly,” said Delia Schack, a district leader in south Brooklyn. “I understand he was in the hospital recently.”
Lopez has fought with cancer before — and won.
He was first diagnosed with leukemia in 1993, ridding himself of the disease three years later after doctors from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan saved his life.
His cancer began reappeared in 1997, and he has been receiving periodic testing and treatments ever since — publicly urging his constituents to get tested themselves.
Speculation regarding Lopez’s health surfaced several weeks ago, when he appeared at his annual senior picnic in Long Island on Aug. 19, and at the funeral of a longtime political ally on Aug. 22 wearing a gauze bandage below his collar and looking exhausted.
But Lopez still made public appearances leading up to the primary, visiting seniors in nearly every senior center run by the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, the nonprofit that he founded 30 years ago.
The news about Lopez’s health has startled even his political opponents, including Marty Needelman, an attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services and a one-time friend.
“I visited him at Sloan Kettering with him a long time ago, it must have been early 2000,” said Needelman. “He had a rare form of leukemia. If it’s come back, that’s horrible.”
Lopez, the county’s party chairman for the past six years, defeated Esteban Duran in his state committee race last Tuesday by a 70 to 29 percent margin, but he has become embroiled in a widening fraud investigation that has ensnarled the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council and its top executives.
A Department of Investigation report, which became public two days after the election, found that Ridgewood Bushwick employees allegedly defrauded the city out of almost $340,000 through falsifying attendance sheets and attempting to bill the city for programs that it did not provide to Bushwick residents, without the knowledge of its clueless executives and its placid board members.
Earlier this week, several newspapers reported the nonprofit’s top executives, Christiana Fisher and Angela Battaglia, Lopez’s campaign treasurer and longtime girlfriend, received exorbitant salary increases of 182 percent and 73 percent, respectively.
On Friday, Ridgewood Bushwick agreed to follow the city’s recommendations to bring in an independent auditor and add new board members after the investigation found the nonprofit did not keep proper records and its board members did not demonstrate even basic working knowledge of Ridgewood Bushwick’s operations.
Lopez was not the subject of the city’s investigation but remains its most public figure as its founder and chief advocate.
So far, Lopez has not publicly responded to questions surrounding the investigation but in a New York Post article, he justified the inflated salaries of its executives as well deserved.
A state assembly source stated that the salaries were raised to provide a financial cushion for both Fisher and Battaglia — two of Lopez’s most loyal allies — in case something happened Lopez.
Lopez and his allies have repeatedly declined to comment about questions regarding his health.
©2010 Community News Group
|
|
|
Share on TwitterTweetShare on FacebookSubscribe
Get our stories in your inbox, free.
Like The Brooklyn Paper on Facebook.
anywho says:
It is a soap opera.....
Sept. 20, 2010, 6:54 pm
David N. from Williamsburg says:
Vito Doesn't have Cancer he is a Cancer
Sept. 20, 2010, 7:58 pm
Long Time Resident from Bushwick says:
Every time something controversial about Mr. Lopez comes up, he plays the cancer card. Shame on you! I'm not saying he probably doesn't have cancer, I'm just saying that you only hear about it when there's a problem that doesn't seem to be going his way. I personally know that if you don't vote the way he wants you to vote, you become persona non grata. And the lottery for apartments from Ridgewood-Bushwick is a farce, has been for years!
Sept. 20, 2010, 9:06 pm
mitch from bushwick says:
Not buying it!!!!!!! sorry Kng Lopez !!!!!! back off!!! we hate you!!!! get it????????
Sept. 20, 2010, 9:20 pm
Long Time Resident from Bushwick says:
Time for some one else to run against him for every office he holds...any ideas anyone? There are many long time residents who can do so...you don't have to be a big shot people...just someone who cares...and wants the best for everyone here...what i love about Bushwick is that has always been a very mixed community...always has been and always be....no matter what the mix :)
Sept. 20, 2010, 10:58 pm
IamBUSHWICK from Bushwick says:
vito does not have cancer, he has publicly said at community meetings that he has had some complications but nothing related to his cancer. the fact that short writes that lopez "believes" he has cancer proves this story is a farce!
moreover, what does the rest of this article have to do with the headline!! this is all an attempt to get people's attention and then have them read these lies.
the only thing these papers are good for are whipping our ass!!!
lastly, you truly are an arrogant, low self-esteem, creepy slime ball for writing such a horrible story!
moreover, what does the rest of this article have to do with the headline!! this is all an attempt to get people's attention and then have them read these lies.
the only thing these papers are good for are whipping our ass!!!
lastly, you truly are an arrogant, low self-esteem, creepy slime ball for writing such a horrible story!
Sept. 21, 2010, 1:24 am
johnny from brighton beach says:
Just because someone has cancer doesn't change the facts of how Vito used his power to control people & organziations.
It's called corruption.
Maybe it's just karma. It's a ——. Put the handcuffs on him & while they are at it put them on his friend Carl Kruger who's under FBI investigation.
It's called corruption.
Maybe it's just karma. It's a ——. Put the handcuffs on him & while they are at it put them on his friend Carl Kruger who's under FBI investigation.
Sept. 21, 2010, 9:05 am
Claire from 11222 says:
He looked like hell last night.
His phalanx of goons was more to hold him up than keep press away, I suspect.
His phalanx of goons was more to hold him up than keep press away, I suspect.
Sept. 21, 2010, 1:09 pm
ch from bh says:
vito's laying the groundwork now so that when he's convicted for corruption, he can claim a "terminal illness" and avoid being sent to jail like the criminal he is.
Sept. 21, 2010, 4 pm
Upset from Brooklyn says:
Please stop ning people who have nothing to do with this problem. Look at the people who enjoyed the fruit from the poison tree. Especially family members of familes.
Sept. 21, 2010, 9:14 pm
Citizen from Queens says:
I'm just upset at the monies that was misused, we have so many familes who are in need of food/housing and we have individuals earning so much money, and not really work for it. One thing I have to say let OIG continue this investigation, and they might find where and who was involve in this big fraud. They still need took look at the director of hope gardens family, did they enjoy the monies? How was a house payoff so fast? How come so much money was left for the family? I could continue to write, it could turn into a book
Sept. 21, 2010, 9:24 pm
Luis A. Ramos from Bushwick says:
Wait until sunday's ny post comes out. more scandals to follow. voter fraud.. management mixed in election poll site..doing illegal ballot stuffing. 29 million of work not done. and the one that no one knows about, NEWSFLASH!!!!!! supplies that were to be used to rehabilitate the himrod senior building is stashed in a different vito lopez property on wilson avenue......
Sept. 27, 2010, 10 pm
Rebecca from Williamsburg says:
Vito uses some housing organizations he directs state money to as Chair of the Housing Committee to do his field work. At one where I used to work, it was expected that all employees would campaign for him. They also wheeled every last senior from the Vito retirement homes to the polls (and probably pulled the levers for a few of em).
Sept. 28, 2010, 10:48 pm
Enter your comment below
By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms: You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed. |
|
This week’s featured advertisers
