News Item: DA taped specific officials

For two months last year, detectives assigned to District Attorney Thomas Spota's office secretly recorded conversations in Brookhaven's building department after planting a court-ordered listening device, court records show.

That revelation came as detectives served a raft of Brookhaven Town and political officials with notices informing them that they had been picked up on tape as part of a wide-ranging investigation of government corruption in Suffolk County (Long Island).

News Item: Powerful NY State Senator Pleads Guilty In Kickback Case

Guy Velella, who quit his powerful state Senate post last week at the brink of his bribery trial, pleaded guilty Monday to one felony charge and accepted a year in jail.

News Item: D.A. Warns Parents Not To Let Daughters Get State Pol Internships

The Albany County district attorney - reacting to the intern sex scandal at the state Capitol - issued an extraordinary warning yesterday about the program. EP "Any father who would let his daughter be an intern in the state Legislature should have his head examined," Albany DA Paul Clyne told The Post.

As Ed Koch once said - in the shadow of the New York City Parking Violations Bureau scandals during the 1980s: "Corruption has been around since Adam and Eve." And, judging by recent developments, it will be around for much, much longer.

If this keeps up, it may be time for another Moreland-style or Knapp-style commission on corruption in New York state. It seems there is at least one of them every decade or so.