Update: Karben responds to blog on his Spitzer 'advice'
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UPDATED March 12, 2008:
Ryan Karben responded to yesterday’s blog. In an e-mail, Karben wrote that he never stated that “Spitzer should (or should not) resign.”
He wrote that he’d simply responded to a reporter’s “what-if” question.
“I was asked what would happen IF Spitzer chose to fight and responded he’s a resilient person with lots of fight in him,” Karben said in an e-mail. “I was not asked by the paper, and did not opine publicly, on what he should do.”
As we all know, Spitzer didn’t stay resilient too long. He resigned today.
ORIGINAL POST, March 11, 2008
Ryan Karben just can’t stay out of the newspapers – even if he’s being quoted in his old stomping grounds in Albany.
Karben was quoted giving advice to the beleaguered Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a fellow Democrat, in the Albany Times-Union (You have to go to page 2 of the article to find Karben’s quote.)
Karben told the newspaper Spitzer should fight for his job, even after it was revealed the governor supposedly was the man caught on a federal wiretap making arrangements for a high-priced prostitute to meet him in Washington’s famous or infamous Mayflower Hotel. Federal agents were investigating the call-girl service operating on the Internet. The costs top $1,000 an hour.
“This is a very smart, extraordinarily capable man with tremendous resilience,” Karben told the newspaper. “If he’s determined this is a battle he wants to fight, I think he’s got a lot of fight in him.”
The paper identifies Karben as a former Democratic Assemblyman from Rockland County and a lobbyist on Spitzer’s finance committee, showing Karben had close ties to the governor. What the paper left out was that Karben left the Assembly in 2006 under the cloud of a sex scandal, albeit different than Spitzer is facing. Accusations of improper behavior with male interns followed Karben, 33, forcing Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to bring down the hammer on the young Assembly member.
While Karben is advising Spitzer to fight, Karben didn’t fight the sexual accusations against him. Karben never even answered the charges – and hasn’t to this day. His has simply said he resigned the Assembly seat representing Orangetown and parts of Ramapo because he wanted to spend more time with his wife and three young daughters.
What Karben is fighting is a DWI charge, hiring as his attorney high-profiled former Rockland DA Kenneth Gribetz, who had to resign his post in his own sex scandal.
Karben, if he goes to trial, will be contesting at least two Ramapo police officers, who already have testified that, in their opinion, Karben was drunk when they questioned him after he crashed his car into a utility pole and drove off the night of Jan. 30. One officer also has testified that Karben failed sobriety tests and refused to take a chemical breath test, leading a judge to revoke his driving privileges for a year following an adminsitrative hearing. Karben didn’t testify in his own defense at the hearing.
The defense Karben has offered for his DWI trial in South Nyack Justice Court: As he was driving home alone to Monsey from a local country club, where he supposedly admitted to police that he’d had two drinks, a deer ran across Brick Church Road in Ramapo and he veered off the road into a pole to avoid the animal.
UPDATED on March 12, 2008:
Ryan Karben responded to yesterday’s blog. In an e-mail, Karben wrote he never stated that “Spitzer should (or should not) resign.”
He wrote he just responded to a reporter’s what if question.
“I was asked what would happen IF Spitzer chose to fight and responded he’s a resilient person with lots of fight in him,” Karben said in an e-mail. “I was not asked by the paper, and did not opine publicly, on what he should do.”
As we all know, Spitzer’s resilency didn’t last long. He resigned today.
Photo of Ryan Karben with his attorney, Kenneth Gribetz, by Vincent DiSalvio/The Journal News/LoHud.com
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 4:41 pm by Steve Lieberman.
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Karben giving Spitzer advice? That figures. Next they will both undoubtedly make a pilgrimage to Chappaqua to consult their godfather of scandal, William Jefferson Clinton.
When even Sheldon Silver (who never saw a Democratic scandal that bothered him) abandons you politically, you're totally toasted baby.
This is further proof that Karben lacks character and more importantly integity. Obviously, he and Spitzer suffer from the same genetic defect – abject egotism. If Karben had any self-worth he would flee in the night and start anew somewhere else, or finally take responsibility for his actions. Personally, I would prefer never to hear from this sorry excuse for man again. Sad.
Birds of a feather are sleaze together! Both of them should leave NY. But it's something, Karben giving advice. Pathetic
[...] פרומער אידישער מאנסי ערוויילטער אסעמבלימאן משכב זכר מ... [...]
HEY KARBEN, I'M WRITTING IN CAPS, BECAUSE I'M SHOUTING THIS TO YOU. YOU MAKE ME SICK TO MY STOMACH. YOU WERE ACCUSED OF SEXUAL MICONDUCT OF A MALE INTERN, I SAID MALE. YOU NEVER ANSWERED ABOUT THIS PUBLICLY. YOU THEN END UP, DOING I DONT KNOW WHAT IN SUFFERN ? WITH YOUR BUDDY DAGAN. WHAT DO YOU THINK, YOU JUST CAN GO FROM TOWN TO TOWN AND NEVER ANSWER ABOUT ANY OF THE THINGS YOU HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF. REMEMBER, OUR POLICE OFFICERS ARE TRAINED TO TELL IF SOMEONE HAS BEEN DRINKING. I ACTUALLY FEEL BAD FOR YOUR FAMILY. AND I MEAN THAT.ONE DAY PEOPLE ARE REALLY GOING TO GET FEED UP WITH ALL THE STUFF THAT GOES ON, I JUST HOPE IT IS REAL SOON. WAKE UP ROCKLANDERS.