Espada Found Guilty

Pol Faces 44 years in Jail for Health-Center Embezzlement

By Michael Horowitz

BRONX, NEW YORK, May 14- Former State Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., faces up to 44 years in jail following his conviction, Monday, on four counts of embezzling $210,000 from the Soundview Health Centers to support a lavish lifestyle that has included private-school education, lavish dinners, and extravagant vacations for his family.

The federal jury in the Espada case, sitting in Brooklyn's Federal Court, deadlocked on charges that the former State Senator's son, former City Councilman Pedro G. Espada, conspired with his father to siphon away funds from the Soundview Health Network.

The jury in the Espada case, which had, at one time, been ready to give up on reaching a verdict, deliberated for 11 days before reaching a verdict in the former State Senator's case.

Following the older Espada's conviction on embezzlement charges on Monday, The former State Senator's two remaining health centers, at White Plains Road and Westchester Avenue, were open, but patients were not being seen at either center.

Espada, who once served as majority leader of the State Senator, wielded power in the State Legislature as both a Democrat and a Republican, switching sides at various times to increase state funding for his health centers.

In recent years, state and federal funding for Espada's health centers had been cut off or limited, especially after the election of Andrew Cuomo as the state's governor.

In its heyday, the Soundview Health Network ran five centers in the southeast, southwest, and northeast Bronx, serving some of the poorest New Yorkers with free medical and dental care that was available in few other places.

The seeming collapse of the Soundview Health Network, which Espada founded in 1978, raises serious questions about how the void in medical and dental care for the poorest Bronxites will be filled.

Another health network for poor Bronxites, the Hunts Point Multi-Service Center, has fallen on hard times in recent years, following the death of Ramon Velez, the founder of that network of centers.

In the wake of the illness and death of Velez, one of the borough's most successful organizers of programs and services fopr4 the poor, members of Velez's organization have been fighting over the spoils of the Hunts Point Multi-Service.

Espada, a power in the Bronx who frequently crossed swords with regular Democrats in the borough, ran unsuccessfully for Bronx borough president in 2001, a year after he was acquitted on charges of siphoning away money from the Soundview Health Network for a political campaign in 1996.

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