New York Senator Carl Kruger, and a man he lives with and has an “intimate” five-year relationship with, were charged yesterday in a 53-page indictment that details a million-dollar bribes-for-political-favors scheme that helped the sixteen-year New York State Senate veteran to live in a two-million dollar home and drive a Bentley. Also charged were Assemblyman William F. Boyland Jr., lobbyist Richard Lipsky, and four others.
Corruption is all-too common in New York state, as U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara  said yesterday, “Every single time we arrest a state senator or assemblyman, it should be a jarring wake-up call. Instead, it seems that no matter how many times the alarm goes off, Albany just hits the snooze button.â€
The New York Daily News calls Kruger today, “sleaze,” adding “in the [2008 NY Senate] perk shakedown he joined with then-Sens. Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate. Espada also stands indicted on federal charges, and Monserrate was booted from office after a conviction for roughing up a girlfriend. Talk about a gang of cruds.”
While Kruger has repeatedly denied he is gay, the living arrangements and the details in the bribery indictment led some, like The New York Post, to call the sixty-one year-old “gay,” and “closeted,” and to identify his live-in companion Michael Turano, also indicted, as Kruger’s “secret longtime companion.”
U.S. Attorney Bharara told reporters, “Senator Kruger had a close and intimate relationship with the entire Turano family, which includes one of the defendants, Michael Turano, along with his mother and brother.”
In 2009, after the Kruger’s “no†vote on New York’s marriage equality bill, the New York Democrat became the most-hated of the “Hate 38†— the New York senators who voted against the bill — as his sexual orientation has been the subject of rumors for years. Kruger found marriage equality advocates protesting in front of his home in December of that year, and one, Corey Johnson, has been especially active, both in-person and online.