As news from Albany seems to involve little other than corruption and scandal, campaign finance reform advocates are putting pressure on Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York Times reported.

These advocates, 140 major political donors, including 50 fundraisers for Obama, want Cuomo to change state election laws to include public financing.

This proposal has some support from Democrats, but virtually none from Republicans.

In a letter to the governor, the donors expressed hope that a change in campaign finance laws in New York, with its “national prominence,” could have a larger impact nationally by sending “a strong message to Washington, D.C., that real change is possible.”

They referenced the recent Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, in which the nation’s highest court ruled that political donations by corporations are protected by the First Amendment, and should be unregulated to the same degree as those by individual citizens.

“We write to strongly encourage your continued active leadership in transforming New York State’s broken campaign finance system into a national model in the post-Citizens United era,” the donors said, emphasizing their “firsthand understanding of the country’s current money and politics law.”

“We believe dramatic change is needed so that our proud democracy lives up to the values of being ‘of, by, and for the people,’” the letter continued.

Cuomo has repeatedly called public financing “essential” and promised to push for change to the state’s campaign financing laws, but he has also noted the opposition that such measures will face from the state’s Republicans, who share control of the state Senate.

Donors are concerned that with only a month left in the legislative session, the governor will give up on the issue.

But David Magleby, a political scientist at Brigham Young University who is writing a book about donors, told the Times it’s in the governor’s interest, given his grander political aspirations, to pay attention to these letter-writers.

“These are the kinds of people that a Cuomo candidacy for president will need,” Magleby said. “They’re influencing Cuomo to go full-speed ahead on reforms at the state level, while knowing full well that he likely has national ambitions, and therefore he will be back to them should a set of circumstances arise where he is going to seek the nomination.”

The donors who wrote the letter include billionaire George Soros, “When Harry Met Sally” director Rob Reiner, and Robert McKay, the heir to the Taco Bell fortune.

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After he callously ate pretzels as she tried to tell him that a colleague had raped her, Elizabeth Crothers did not hold back slamming Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in interviews two years later, when it was revealed that the same colleague who raped her had raped another young woman.

The speaker’s office apparently sent Crothers a threatening letter in an attempt to shut her up when she started granting interviews vilifying him and her accused rapist, Assembly lawyer Michael Boxley, she told the Daily News.

The threatening letter was sent to her attorney from top assembly lawyer William Collins and appeared to suggest she would be trashed in the press if she did not back off.

The lawyer’s letter accused Crothers of lying, and said the interviews she had been doing waived her right to confidentiality under the assembly’s sexual harassment policy.

“I am compelled to conclude that Ms. Crothers has chosen to waive whatever protections would otherwise be afforded her by the confidentiality provisions … of the assembly’s sexual harassment policy,” Collins wrote in the June 30, 2003, letter, according to a copy obtained by the Daily News.

Assembly spokesman Michael Whyland reportedly dismissed the letter as “old communications.”

Boxley, the accused rapist, is still in Silver’s inner circle and reportedly played an integral role in the confidential settlement arranged by Silver’s office with two women who reported being sexually harassed by former Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

A recently released 68-page ethics committee report detailed sexual harassment claims against Lopez by several other female staffers. The accusations range from him forcing a staffer to massage his hand after she told him she was raped in college, to staffers contracting pink eye after being made to apply eye drops to Lopez’s infected eyes.

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Vito Lopez may no longer be Sheldon Silver’s colleague as of this morning, but it seems he may still be the Speaker’s problem.

Calls for investigation into Silver have developed into calls for a coup, as women’s groups, government watchdog organizations, and newspaper editorial boards across the state rail against the Speak.

Thursday’s New York Post covered featured the Speaker with Lopez under the headline “Dirty Old Men.” Silver is being criticized for arranging a confidential settlement with staffers who filed sexual harassment complaints against Lopez.

Assemblyman Micah Kellner, running for City Council, told the New York Times the investigation into the confidentiality agreement needs to include “who proposed it, who wrote it, and who required it.”

Lopez was cleared of criminal charges, but a 68-page report by the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics detailed shocking behavior.

Lopez reportedly pushed his hand “all the way up” the inner thigh of an employee, and two others contracted pink eye after consenting to apply eye drops to Lopez’s infected eyes. At a bar in Brooklyn he apparently grabbed the hand of an employee, and squeezed harder when she tried to pull away. She began to cry and he forced her to count to sixty before releasing her.

He also made a staffer massage his hand after asking her if she “felt guilty” about being a victim of sexual assault in college. While she cried, he said, “I like that you’re holding my hand.”

A recent New York Post report stated that state government corruptions costs taxpayers at least $49,710,630.64. According to The Post, that amount of money could fund two new schools, 100 new fire trucks, or the New York Islanders.

The Post noted that the Lopez settlement cost taxpayers $103,000.

Past attacks against Silver have not been successful. Over a decade ago, Syracuse Assemblyman Michael Bragman attempted to overthrow Silver as Assembly Speaker, and Silver immediately took away Bragman’s title as majority leader. Silver’s allies crushed Bragman without Silver ever emerging from his office to come to the floor to defend himself.

A source apparently told the Daily News that Governor Andrew Cuomo is leaving Lopez’s seat vacant until a primary can be held in September, in order to prevent Lopez from being able to exert any control over his replacement in a special election.

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In another effort to boost tourism and the state’s economy, Governor Andrew Cuomo released Thursday a plan for resort gaming centers in upstate New York.

Only one casino, chosen through a bidding process, would operate in each of six designated regions, the state said.

Three regions already have casinos run by Indian nations, which the state said might qualify as the regional casino.

“Our state has a unique opportunity to revitalize the local economies of communities in Upstate New York and create thousands of new jobs where they are needed most,” the governor said.

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A former New York state senator from Queens secretly recorded seven lawmakers as part of a political corruption probe, according to a court document unsealed Wednesday.

Shirley Huntley, 74, a Democrat who pleaded guilty in January to embezzling $87,700 from a nonprofit organization, recorded and photographed the officials on multiple occasions in the summer of 2012 after meeting with federal prosecutors and agents, according to the filing in Brooklyn federal court.

The recorded lawmakers include New York state Sens. John Sampson, Eric Adams, Ruth Hassel-Thompson, Jose Peralta, Malcolm Smith and Velmanette Montgomery, and New York City Councilman Rubin Wills. Huntley also taped conversations with Melvin Lowe, a former political consultant and associate of New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, and Curtis Taylor, a former press adviser for Malcolm Smith.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment. However, it said in a separate court filing Tuesday that eight of the nine individuals recorded remain under investigation. No details of the investigation were provided. Huntley’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.

Wills said that his attorney had been informed by law enforcement that his client was not the subject of an investigation. Adams said he had not been contacted with regard to any investigation. Peralta he was confident authorities would find he did not engage in any wrongdoing.

Representatives for Sampson and Smith declined to comment. Representatives for the other senators did not immediately return a request for comment. The non-elected officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Two of the individuals who Huntley taped have already been named in federal criminal cases.

Last month, Smith was charged with bribery in connection with the New York City mayoral race. Sampson was charged Monday with embezzling funds from foreclosed properties in Brooklyn. Both pleaded not guilty.

The filing, a sentencing memorandum from Huntley, was originally filed under seal. After media outlets, including Reuters, requested that it be made public, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein unsealed the filing.

Huntley, who faces up to five years in prison, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

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HarperCollins has retreated from publishing an anticipated biography of Governor Andrew Cuomo by Fred Dicker, opting instead to go for a memoir by the governor himself.

Cuomo had agreed to cooperate with the biography originally, but the New York Times reports the governor’s relationship with the The Post’s Dicker has soured of late.

A Times source reportedly revealed that the publishing house felt publishing both books would be a conflict of interest.

A HarperCollins spokeswoman reportedly said that the company still has a contract with Dicker, but the Times notes there is no book projected on the 2013 publishing schedule.

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Cops should not be confiscating condoms, some are telling state officials this week.

Anti-trafficking advocates are in Albany this week to push for a law that would bar cops from confiscating condoms and using them as evidence in prostitution accusations.

Metro has previously reported that some transgender people in Queens say cops stop them and accuse them of prostitution, using any condoms they may have as proof.

Advocates say that police officers confiscate condoms, which are later used as evidence in prostitution cases. They want legislators to pass the No Condoms as Evidence Bill.

When condoms are confiscated, it discourages trafficking victims and LGBTQ people from carrying them, which could lead to increased HIV rates, they said.

Advocates point out that condoms keep New Yorkers safe, and that confiscating them is a waste of the roughly 40 million condoms given out each year.

“Using the presence of condoms on people or premises to arrest prosecute anyone puts everyone’s lives at risk,” said Mitchyll Mora at Streetwise and Safe, which works with LGBTQ youth.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice banned the use of condoms as evidence in prostitution cases earlier this year, saying the public health impact of losing condoms was not worth the “limited courtroom gain.”

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Legislators in Albany have apparently taken to playfully “frisking” one another, according to a New York Times report.

The practice comes at a time when several lawmakers have been indicted on federal charges of corruption, and were caught due to incriminating conversations recorded on wires worn by colleagues.

“You run into them, and you feel them up and down,” said Queens Assemblyman David Weprin.

All four lawmakers involved in the recent corruption scandals hail from the five boroughs of New York City. They are also all Democrats.

Queens Sen. Malcolm Smith is charged with bribery in an attempt to run for city mayor.

Two assemblymen from the Bronx, Eric Stevenson and Nelson Castro, are also in hot water. Steveson is accused of taking bribes from developers of adult day care centers in his district. Castro resigned in a deal where he agreed, in exchange for avoiding prosecution for perjury, to wear a wire to record conversations with fellow lawmakers.

And Brooklyn Assemblyman William Boyland was recently taken in for bribery, among several other charges.

Weprin, a Democrat, noted the need to “make light of” the situation, as other Congress members similarly complained of the frustration caused by their allegedly felonious colleagues.

“These people make our lives impossible,” said state Sen. Martin Dilan, reportedly over a game of darts and some drinks with a fellow senator, 28-year-old Rafael Espinal. The two both hail from Brooklyn.

Espinal agreed: “We’re all angry. We’re angry at the fact that we have to, the good ones or most of us, deal with the backlash.”

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Last Monday, an unidentified 10th-grade English teacher at Albany High School assigned her students a “persuasive writing” exercise telling them to pretend their teacher was a Nazi, the New York Times reported.

The students were reportedly told to use historical propaganda and a traditional high school essay structure — “five paragraphs long, with an introduction, three body paragraphs containing your strongest arguments, and a conclusion” — to argue that Jews were “the source of our problems.”

“You do not have a choice in your position,” the instructions reportedly read. “You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!”

The Albany schools superintendent, Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, reportedly met with Jewish leaders in Albany and apologized, insisting, “that’s not the assignment that any school district, and certainly not mine, is going to tolerate.”

“Obviously, we have a severe lack of judgement and a horrible level of insensitivity,” she said.

But she added, “No one here believes that malice was the intent.”

According to Vanden Wyngaard, the assignment was meant to connect with a history lesson on the Holocaust. The Times noted that this echoed an earlier incident in a Manhattan elementary school, where math problems featuring the whipping and killing of slaves were assigned, reportedly in an effort to tie in a social studies lesson.

The instructions indeed said to use “what you’ve learned in history class,” as well as “any experiences you have.”

The assignment was given on Monday, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The teacher was reportedly not in class on Friday and is facing disciplinary action that could include termination.

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The Cuomo administration is going over the $135.1 billion state budget with a fine-toothed comb, scrutinizing the almost 1,900 appropriations legislators tried to renew.

They have so far vetoed 202 items for a variety of reasons, from one “duplicate item” to 102 deemed “fully cashed out.”

Vetoed items vary from funds requested for “services and expenses of the federal internet crimes against children program” to money for “security measures implemented to prevent, deter or respond to acts of domestic terrorism,” both of which Governor Andrew Cuomo apparently disapproved of on the grounds that the item had already been fully expended.

Reappropriations over seven years old appear to have been dismissed out of hand, on the grounds that “in general, seven years is more than enough time to fund and implement services.”

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised Monday that all Long Island state parks and beaches are on track to open by Memorial Day weekend, despite the ravaging effects of superstorm Sandy in October.

Construction has been underway for the last six months, repairing roads, landscaping and infrastructure, and trying to remedy the effect of drastic dune and beach erosion. More than 20 emergency contracts are in progress across Long Island.

“Our parks and beaches are not only popular destinations for vacationers, but they are also important economic drivers for our communities,” Cuomo said.

The latest study by the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts found that visitors to state parks pay for as much as $1.9 billion in output and sales annually. Last year, four of Long Island’s state parks ranked in the Top 10 most visited in the entire 179-park system in New York state.

“When you have more people visit just one of our attractions such as Jones Beach State Park every year than they do the Grand Canyon, it helps many to identify with just how important how facilities are in people’s lives,” said State Park Comissioner Rose Harvey.

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Rob is a Navy veteran who lives in Woodstock, NY. In 1986, he was on a Navy ship off of Libya, pulling watermines out of the Gulf. Rob was one of two men on the ship authorized to carry a loaded firearm.

Sometimes the watermines were on the surface of the water. Other times, Rob recalled, “they put ‘em on anchors, so they’ll be 50 feet below the surface, so you can’t even see ‘em, so they’re very difficult to find.”

“It was a very, very stressful, super high stress time,” Rob said.

Rob is one of the U.S. veterans using marijuana to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

It was first suggested to him by a Veterans Affairs doctor at the end of an appointment, who started the illicit conversation by saying, “Now I want to talk to you frankly.”

Cannabis has helped him “tremendously,”Rob said said, with his anger issues, anxiety, sleeping disorder, and ”just generally not being able to concentrate, my mind would often wander back into situations I didn’t necessarily want to always be remembering.”

Rob also did anger management and talk therapy, but was opposed to taking pharmaceutical medications, especially anti-depressants.

“I didn’t like how they made me feel,” he said.

When he started talking anti-depressants, he found himself growing increasingly depressed, reclusive, withdrawn from society, and even suicidal. Before the drugs, depression had never really been a factor in his PTSD.

When he first got out of the Navy, he was supposed to be an air traffic controller, but he “couldn’t handle the job,” he said.

He ended up not working for a while, then took on occasional landscaping and construction odd jobs, but couldn’t keep a regular schedule with his anxiety and sleeping issues.

Once he started using marijuana in 1991 or 1992, Rob said, he was able to get a 40-hour-a-week job with a construction firm “and progress my life to where I wanted it to go.”

“My ability to interact with the regular world was back,” he explained. ”It was helping me re-integrate into society after being in the military and being in situations in the military that were clearly uncomfortable.”

Rob said the marijuana helped him be able to talk to a therapist about the overwhelming guilt and anger that was plaguing him.

Back then he used it on a daily basis, but now he said it’s “probably more like once a week, if it’s been a rough week, maybe two or three times a week.”

“Honestly, knowing it’s there as an option makes it less necessary, but it nice to know that it’s there,” he said.

Rob is one of the New Yorkers, and also one of the U.S. veterans, who is hopeful for the legislation being looked at in the NY State Senate that could legalize marijuana for medicinal use in NY State.

“Basically, I’m telling you I do a criminal act to treat myself,” Rob emphasized. “And I will indeed break the law to make sure that I’m a better society member, but if that’s what the government forces me to do, then that’s a shame.”

“It’s a shame that I can serve my country and not get the treatment that even my doctors say I need,” Rob said.

But then he added: “I’m not ashamed, and I’m very proud to have served by country in the US Navy. I just think our government is fearful of something that maybe they should just let physicians take command of instead of a law enforcement aspect.”

Medical marijuana: the political

Medical marijuana: a doctor’s perspective

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New York State Senator Diane Savino had been a co-sponsor of the New York state medical marijuana bill since she first joined the Senate, and credits her interest in the cause to the “thousands and thousands of New Yorkers who suffer from chronic, debilitating conditions like multiple-sclerosis, epilepsy, diabetes, and cancer.”

“Unfortunately for them, the options that are available to them are high addictive, very deadly narcotics—oxycodone, vicodin, ativan,” she listed. “[These drugs are] a lot more damaging to you than marijuana but because of the laws in New York state, they can’t sit down with their doctor and come up with the best treatment plan for them.”

Savino said the New York bill would be the most regulated marijuana statute in the country.

“California is the worst model, there it’s like the Wild West, literally,” she said. “There’s almost no regulation, there’s almost no discernment on the part of medical professionals [about] who should and shouldn’t have marijuana.”

“It’s exactly the opposite of what we want in New York,” she added.

The way Savino describes it, legalizing marijuana could even be a profitable endeavor for the state.

“We want to license it, we want to tax it, we want to derive a significant amount of revenue from it,” she said.

Savino said there would be a licensing fee imposed upon growers and dispensers, and an excise tax that has yet to be determined.

As for whether medical marijuana will be available to veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a potential use floated by advocacy group the New York Cannabis Alliance, Savino said she’s “not sure.”

“I don’t believe we’re listing that,” she said. “Unfortunately, unlike other drugs, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, marijuana is still going to be considered illegal by the federal government, so we have to list specific conditions.”

Savino said that public opinion is a factor in how restrictive the criteria in the bill is.

“Unfortunately the public is a little leery about what this substance could be used for, so we have to proceed a little bit carefully,” she explained.

But the senator said she knows this legislation is vitally important to many New Yorkers.

Savino said she gets letters and phone calls not just from her own constituents, but from “people all over the state who have been living in pain, and if they just lived across one of the three bridges that connect us to New Jersey, they would have that option [to use medical marijuana].”

“Unfortunately, some people aren’t going to live long enough to avail themselves of this options, but for those people that are, we have to move,” Savino said.

The senator hopes to have a vote on the bill before the end of the legislative session.

Medical marijuana: the personal

Medical marijuana: a doctor’s perspective

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New York State Senator Diane Savino introduced a bill today that would legalize medical marijuana in New York state. 

Under the Compassionate Care Act, doctors will be authorized to give out certifications for marijuana use for patients with serious medical conditions.

Certified patients or designated caregivers will be allowed to possess up to two-and-a-half ounces of marijuana.

People with medical marijuana certifications would be issued registry identification cards by the Department of Health.

The authorizing document is a certification, not a prescription, because “prescription” is a federal Drug Enforcement Agency term, so it legally cannot be prescribed until it is no longer classified as a Schedule 1 drug, according to Evan Nison at the New York Cannabis Alliance.

Nisan said that “advocates feel confident that this might be the year New York finally joins the other 18 states around the country that have medical marijuana laws.”

Adam Scavone, president of the New York Cannabis Alliance, has worked with veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and says that researchers are increasingly having success using marijuana to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“In this country, 22 veterans per day are committing suicide, a 20 percent increase from just five years ago,” Scavone said. “We know cannabis is useful in treating PTSD and we can save veterans lives, by passing this law.”

According to Scavone, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists around the country are laying the groundwork for a market that could reach $1.5 billion in legal sales in 2013 alone.

The equivalent Assembly bill was introduced today as well. They Assembly has passed similar legislation previously, so advocates don’t anticipate any problems in that chamber, Nison said.

It will likely be two to three months before there is a vote, however, as the bill makes its way through the committee process.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has previously expressed opposition to legalizing marijuana for medical use.

When asked if the governor would veto the bill if it was passed by the legislature, his office responded, “We will review the bill if it passes the Legislature.”

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top lawmakers outlined Thursday an agreement for the state budget that closes a $1.3 billion gap with no new taxes or fees.

This budget, if it passes by the April 1 deadline, will be the third consecutive on-time or early budget under the Cuomo administration.

New York has not had a budget on track this far in advance of the deadline since 1976. The last time there were three consecutive on-time budgets was in 1984.

The budget affords $1.125 billion in new tax cuts to middle class families over three years, as well as a new child tax credit of $350 per year for three years for families earning between $40,000 and $300,000.

It also includes nearly $800 million over three years in tax breaks for businesses, a move the lawmakers hope will “help reverse New York’s longstanding reputation as the tax capital of the nation.”

Just as the New York City Council recently approved a measure to help veterans get licensed for employment when they return home, the state budget adds additional incentive for hiring those just home from serving: a permanent tax credit for hiring veterans.

Lawmakers have also allocated $181 million in tax credits over three years for businesses hiring young people, and the minimum wage is set to increase to $8 per hour by the end of this year, and ultimately to $9 by the end of 2015.

Some more experimental education initiatives are receiving a support from the Capitol, including $4 million for early college high school programs, like Bard High School Early College on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, once of the first such programs established in partnership with Bard College and the Department of Education in 2001.

Another $15 million is going to “an innovative program designed to transform schools into community hubs that integrate social, health and other services, as well as after-school programming to support students and their families,” a seemingly salient allocation in light of the calls for more community programs for young people in areas like East Flatbush, where violence broke out last week following the shooting of allegedly armed 16-year-old Kimani Gray by plainclothes NYPD officers.

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State lawmakers reportedly reached a tentative deal on Monday to raise the minimum wage in New York state over the next three years, according to the NY Times.

The state minimum wage is current $7.25, which Governor Andrew Cuomo and Democratic members of the legislature have argued has not kept up with the rising cost of living.

The new plan would result in an eventual raise of $9 by the start of 2016.

The minimum wage would increase to $8 per house next year.

Republicans, reportedly concerned that raising the minimum wage would hurt businesses in a fragile economy, apparently agreed to the increase in exchange for tax breaks, according to the NY Times.

But Mike Durant, New York State director for the National Federation of Independent Business, said the tax breaks are not enough.

“Does it help?” he asked. “Sure. Does it mitigate the damage completely? Absolutely not.”

Conversely, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union President Stuart Appelbaum said the increase is not enough.

“People in New York are struggling to survive, with 21 percent of all people in New York City, a city of extraordinary wealth, living below the federal poverty line,” Appelbaum said. “$8 per hour is still better than $7.25 per hour, although New York’s working poor need and deserve more.”

Appelbaum wanted an immediate $9 per hour increase.

Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos said that the plan negotiated on Monday would include $700 million in new tax cuts for businesses and families.

The negotiations are part of an overall state spending plan that must be finalized by April 1.

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A motion for a preliminary injustice of the controversial Cuomo gun law was denied by a state Supreme Court judge on Wednesday, reported the Democrat and Chronicle.

The plaintiffs, numbering over 1,200, sued the state over Governor Andrew Cuomo’s use of a “message of necessity,” alleging that passage of the law on the first day of session was unconstitional.

Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara shot down the motion because he “constrained” by previous decisions of the state’s highest court, he said.

He said that the courts are not allowed to intervene with a message of necessity, as decided by previous Court of Appeals rulings.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal, and said they expect the lawsuit to go before the Court of Appeals.

The governor’s office reportedly declined to comment.

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Governor Cuomo announced a mediation service for homeowners whose Sandy insurance claims have been denied, offered through the Department of Financial Services.

The program was established by an emergency amendment to Regulation 64, to be administrated by AAA. The amendment obligates insurers to notify homeowners of their right to mediate eligible claims.

Insurers will have to participate in mediations in good faith and foot the bill for the AAA’s costs.

After Hurricane Andrew, a Florida Department of Insurance program mediated 2,400 claims with a 92 percent settlement rate.

After Katrina, a similar program in Lousiana processed 15,000 cases, successfully settling 74 percent of them. Mississippi saw 5,000 cases, 82 percent of which were settled.

The mediation can be face-to-face or via video conference or over the phone, by agreement between the insurer and homeowner.

The governor’s office noted that homeowners are not bound by the results of the mediation: they can still request an appraisal or file a civil suit, or exercise other legal rights.

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Governor Cuomo is reportedly “supportive” of a “Rape is Rape” bill proposed by the survivor of a brutal sexual assault by an NYPD officer, according to the Daily News.

26-year-old schoolteacher Lydia Cuomo went to Albany on Tuesday to push for legislation classifying forced anal and oral penetration as rape. Cuomo was viciously attacked by a drunk off-duty police officer named Michael Pena in Inwood on August 19, 2011 while waiting for her principal to pick her up before her first day teaching at Bronx elementary school.

Pena held his department-issued 9-mm handgun to her face and threatened to kill her before raping her. The jury convicted Pena of forcing anal and oral sex, but not rape. Eventually Pena pleaded guilty to two rape charges.

Pena was convicted of predatory sexual assault, which is even more serious than rape, according to local prosecutors. Rape is currently defined as vaginal penetration.

A criminal sex act conviction, which is what Pena received, applies to anal or oral sex, and is the same level felony as rape.

Prosecutors expressed concerns that the change Cuomo is lobbying for could make it more difficult to obtain convictions, as the existing rape code requires proving penetration.

The Manhattan DA’s office is supportive of a Senate version of the bill that would remove the requirement of penetration in rape cases.

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