Dennis Gallagher

 

Democratic City Council candidate Elizabeth Crowley, who is running against Anthony Como and others for the seat vacated by Republican Dennis Gallagher, is going after the pet-owner's vote.

Michael Bloomberg just announced that the special election to fill the City Council seat vacated by Republican Dennis Gallagher, who pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct, will be on June 3. The winner of that election will serve until the end of the year. Another election will be held in November to choose a candidate to fill out the remainder of Gallagher's term--until the end of 2009.

But whoever wins on June 3 is likely to hold onto the seat in in November.  read more »

From The Sun:

Council member Dennis Gallagher of Queens has plead guilty to "forcibly touching and sexually abusing" a 52 year-old woman, and will resign from the City Council, according to the Queens District Attorney. Mr. Gallagher will also undergo treatment for alcohol abuse.

More here.

This Presidents' Day, City Council members Dennis Gallagher and Joe Addabbo expressed their respect in a pair of ads that appeared in the February 14 edition of the The Queens Ledger.  read more »

The judge handling the grand jury hearing in the rape case against Dennis Gallagher, Sheri Roman, today dismissed the grand jury, saying in her ruling that the assistant district attorney handling the case was “improper” and caused not only “a risk of prejudice” to the grand jury, but “created actual prejudice.”

District Attorney Richard Brown said he would bring the case before another grand jury.

Gallagher’s lawyer, unsurprisingly, told me he hoped Brown could be persuaded otherwise since, “there never was a rape to begin with.”

A spokesman for Brown could not immediately tell me how many times in the previous year a judge had made a similar ruling.

Here’s an excerpt from Judge Roman's decision, which Gallagher's lawyer emailed to me:  read more »

Kate Lucadamo got word that Dennis Gallagher has been cleared of rape charges.

Gallagher's district office said they're not commenting just yet. But the lawyer who initially handled the matter for the Gallagher, Stephen R. Malher, told me just now, "I would estimate that two-thirds of the questions asked [in front of the grand jury] were totally improper. They had nothing to do and had nothing to do with the issues facing the guy and no one could survive that."

He added, “Now [Queens] D.A. Brown, he has to decide whether to represent the case to the jury, which he has the right to do.”

Malher said he thinks that's unlikely to happen.

A spokesman for the Queens D.A. said a statement is expected in the next half hour.

Councilman Dennis Gallagher, who was indicted for rape earlier this year, came in last place in a race to become a Republican judicial delegate in the Queens district he’s represented since 2001.

 

The unofficial results for the three positions there, according to the city Board of Elections, are:

John Haggerty-320

Marguerite Adams-319

Matt Hunter-258

Bart Bruno-235

Richard Metzger-290

Dennis Gallagher-207

It’s little bit of a blow for organization Republicans, some of whom hoped Gallagher could run to keep the state Senate seat there in Republicans hands. And the top voter-getter in this obscure race was John Haggerty, who, along with his brother, Bart, have been waging a years-long war against county leaders Phil Ragusa and his predecessor, Serph Maltese.

(I’m still waiting to get results on Gallagher’s re-election bid for his County Committee position).

While Ragusa won his race for State County Committee (which functions the same as being a district leader in other counties), another Maltese ally was knocked off the ballot and another is trailing by 28 votes.

Marguerite Adams – executive vice president of the Queens GOP and a senior member of the state committee – is trailing in her State County Committee race to Haggerty ally Virginia Donnelly by 28 votes, according to Bart Haggerty.

Another Maltese ally, Karyn Peterson, was knocked off the ballot and replaced by Janice Bar, Haggerty said.

The City Council just voted 37 to 0 to temporarily remove Councilman Dennis Gallagher from his committees and leadership post following his indictment on rape charges. Another committee is meeting now at 250 Broadway to consider other possible sanctions, which could include removing Gallagher from office (although that seems unlikely since his criminal case is ongoing).

At a press conference before the vote, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that Gallagher had asked to be removed from his positions.

A reader passed along this email that was sent to City Council members a few minutes ago:

Dear Council Members:
Please be advised of the following: Addition

Monday, August 6, 2007

Addition
Committee on Standards and Ethics 12:00 p.m.
Agenda to be announced
Hearing Room – 250 Broadway, 14th Floor

Inez Dickens, Chairperson

The meeting, according to the reader, will deal with Dennis Gallagher's indictment on rape charges. A list of the committee members, who probably will have a much better idea about what happens now, is here.

Councilman Dennis Gallagher was indicted just now by a grand jury in Queens on charges that he raped a woman in his district office.

Gallagher’s lawyer said he will move to dismiss the indictment because of “prosecutorial misconduct" when he appears with Gallagher in court tomorrow.

Gallagher’s lawyer, Stephen R. Malher, told me that his client was “subject to a grossly unfair grand jury presentation. He was sandbagged. I will make a motion at the beginning of the case to dismiss the indictment because of prosecutorial misconduct.”

How so?

“Two-thirds of the questions they asked of him were improper and designed to embarrass him in front of the grand jury,” Mahler said. When asked if the questions were of a sexual nature, Mahler said, “Some of them.

“There were questions that were irrelevant to the subject matter at hand and improper and designed to prejudice the jury.”

This morning, City Councilman Dennis Gallagher arrived for work at City Hall -- the first time he's done so since a woman accused him of raping her at his Queens office.

According to a person at the scene, "Gallagher briefly addressed reporters and said he is innocent, but was advised not to discuss the details of the case and said he has been working in his district office.

"When asked directly if he committed the crime he said, 'Absolutely not. I will be fully vindicated.' "

Here's a story that broke too late for the dailies: The police have raided the district office of Councilman Dennis Gallagher of Queens.

According to NY1 News, the NYPD would only say that it was part of an ongoing investigation. Gallagher's lawyer said he was unaware of what the police may be investigating. Gallagher had no comment, according to the station.

Gallagher is one of only three Republicans on the City Council, and was a former chief of staff to Queens Republican Tom Ognibene (who later ran a primary against Michael Bloomberg).

Councilman Dennis Gallagher is having a fund-raiser next week at Russo’s on the Bay featuring billionaire John Catsimatidis on the finance committee.

So, what is Gallagher running for? He’s term-limited and, he told me, he’s not interested in running for Congress.

“Washington isn’t the type of place where I would want to be an elected official," he told me. "In the city and on the state level you could accomplish a great deal more impact on people’s quality of life. For me, all politcs is local.”

Your speculation is welcome.

Today was a good day for both for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Republican Minority Leader James Oddo.

Oddo's bill to ban metal bats from high school baseball games passed (with Quinn's blessing).

And Quinn scored a victory on a domestic partnership bill requiring that any benefit given to "a spouse" by the city also be given to "a domestic partner." 43 members voted in favor of the bill.

Three members voted no: Simcha Fedler, Dennis Gallagher and Vinny Ignizio. Two abstained: Darlene Mealy and... James Oddo.

-- Azi Paybarah