Talk:Ray Donovan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.
This article has been automatically assessed as Stub-Class by WikiProject Biography because it uses a stub template.
  • If you agree with the assessment, please remove {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page.
  • If you disagree with the assessment, please change it by editing the class parameter of the {{WPBiography}} template, removing {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page, and removing the stub template from the article.

[edit] Scope of accusations

Cut from article:

The Schiavone Construction Company was required to subcontract part of the work to minority firms as part of an Affirmative action program. Some of the minority owners were accused of being fronts for real owners who were not minorities. (emphasis added for discussion)

Who was on trial here? Only Donovan, right? Where the "minority owners" accused of anything? Is it a crime to be a front? Who was accused of what?

I'm not trying to assert that wrongdoing did or did not occur. But people are looking to Wikipedia for a reference, and this isn't clearing anything up. --Uncle Ed 15:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

  • NY Times April 9, 1987: Prosecutors from the Bronx District Attorney's office called 40 witnesses in the trial that began in September. Mr. Donovan, State Senator Joseph L. Galiber, a Bronx Democrat, and seven other men are accused of participating in a scheme to defraud the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4 million in the construction of a subway tunnel. The accusations are unrelated to Mr. Donovan's tenure as Labor Secretary but he resigned the post in 1985 after being indicted on the state charges. [1]
  • The 10 men and two companies are accused of defrauding the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4 million on a Manhattan subway construction project. Key evidence in the case, Bronx prosecutors said, will be tapes that had previously been suppressed. [2]
  • NYT October 31, 1987: A special Federal prosecutor said yesterday that a reinvestigation of former Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan had found insufficient corroborative evidence to indict Mr. Donovan on new allegations that he had lied about seeking a $250,000 kickback while in private business. [3]

[edit] Motivation for prosecution

Was this an instance of gotcha politics? That is, "get Donovan" merely because he worked for President Reagan?

Or were people genuinely concerned about corruption in the minority setaside programs which mandate a certain percentage of government contracts be given to reverse discrimination against minorities? (Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying discrimination. But I want to know WHY they went after Donovan - when I haven't heard of anyone else actually CONVICTED on similar charges.) --Uncle Ed 15:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reputation back

I've updated the section on Ray's trial and subsequent quote, cleaning up the English and fixing the quote. The source is The Natural by Joe Klein, but alas I don't know how to reference a printed book. Jersey72 22:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)