Rockland County Executive Democratic Candidate David Fried once again found himself answering questions Wednesday regarding a donation of the use of office space by Joseph Klein's Empire Management.
The matter was first brought up by Fried's opponent, Republican Ed Day, in a press release Tuesday pointing out that Fried's campaign received the donation when he was running for Spring Valley Justice in 2009. Fried's campaign responded by saying that he did not know the source of the donation until months after the election was over. Read more about that here.
Day sent out another release late Tuesday with comments from Spring Valley Judge Alan J. Simon, who claimed that Fried did know during the 2009 campaign that Klein had made the donation. Simon said that he told Fried he would not be part of using the office space and that Klein and Empire Management "was one of the biggest housing violators in Spring Valley."
"Judge Simon's statement demonstrates that not only did David Fried have direct knowledge of the ugly source of the donation at the time, but that in his recent statements claiming, among other things, that he had already taken his seat on the bench and his campaign committee had been disbanded before he heard of the donations were complete falsehoods."
Fried said that Simon was lying and that Simon did use the office space in 2009. He said that Simon facing an ongoing ethics investigation and that he holding it against Fried that he testified in the case.
"Judge Simon, as a spokesman for the Day campaign in this matter, due to his being disgruntle by an open ethics investigation that is looking into his professional work as a judge, he has targeted this issue because I was called, along with many other people, as a witness in the case against him.
"He is accused of very serious and egregious violations of the standards of judicial ethics. I recognize these as the desperate statements and acts of a very desperate man facing very serious allegations by the state."
Fried said he has reported Simon's comments to the state Commission on Judicial Ethics, saying that a judge should not be involved in a political campaign when he is not the person running.
"I have reported yesterday's violation to the state for inclusion into the ongoing investigation into Alan Simon," Fried said.
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