Gov. Paterson hit with $62,125 fine for 2009 World Series tickets

Whenever the World Series rolls around and we see stories about tickets selling for over $10,000, I always wonder who's doling out those kind of dollars for just one baseball game.

Thanks to the stingy outgoing governor of New York and the state ethics commission, I now have an answer.

The panel announced on Monday morning that David Paterson is being fined $62,125 for accepting five tickets to Game 1 of the 2009 World Series between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies.

That works out to a bill of $12,425 per seat for Paterson, two aides, his son and his son's friend to be in attendance for the gem that Cliff Lee pitched that night at Yankee Stadium.

Yeah, that'll hurt the ol' pocket book.  

Paterson contended that he intended to pay for the tickets himself and it would have only cost him a total of $2,125 had he made good. But the commission's findings (PDF here) noted that his staff refuted the governor's claimed intention and that he had been insisting that his attendance at the game was a matter of official state business.

Because the Yankees often have many matters before the state, the commission believed the tickets created an unlawful conflict of interest between the governor and team.

Yes, even if Rudy Giuliani was at every Yankee game during his time as mayor. (For the record, Giuliani has said that he paid for his own tickets — and his championship rings! — when he wasn't there in his official capacity as mayor.)

From the commission's final report:

When Mr. [Peter] Kauffmann [the governor's communications director] counseled the Governor that from a press perspective "the smartest thing to do was to pay for all the tickets," the Governor's "general response was no, no, no, that's not how this works. Rudy Giuliani went to free Yankees' games for eight years as mayor. This is the way it works. And a widely attended event of ceremonial importance, special occasions for the state, in official capacity you don't have to pay."

Unfortunately for Paterson, the ethics board didn't see it that way and he's being hit with a pretty awful going-away present as he hands over the office to Andrew Cuomo at the end of the year. Paterson expressed anxiety about re-entering private life in a good New York Times profile on Sunday and part of his fears center on his financial situation. The blind governor will no longer have the perks of political life (ie: aides, security detail) and might need to hire a private assistant to help him navigate his post-office career.

"I am not a billionaire, in case you hadn't heard," Paterson told the NYT.

Certainly this unexpected bill for five World Series tickets isn't going to help matters much. 

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