ALBANY – Gov. Pataki has vowed to “shame” Assembly leadership into passing tough new video voyeurism legislation.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, Pataki expressed frustration that two weeks of negotiation between his office, the Senate and Assembly has yet to get an agreement.
Pataki blamed the Assembly of trying to water down the legislation with weak language and “poison pills.”
“I don’t understand why the leadership and staff at the upper levels of the Assembly always try to protect the criminals ahead of the safety of the people of New York,” he said.
“We’ve just got to shame them into it,” he added, saying he will not agree to a weaker bill just so officials “can hold a press conference and take credit for doing something.”
Pataki and Senate officials, who labeled the talks “slow but tortuous,” are being encouraged to hang tough by Stephanie Fuller, the Long Island woman whose landlord secretly taped her in her apartment.
Because video voyeurism wasn’t a specific crime, the landlord, William Schultz, ended up receiving a slap-on-the-wrist sentence for trespass.
Citing The Post’s continued coverage of the issue, Pataki expressed optimism the Assembly will eventually agree to a tougher bill.
“The experience has been that when their actions are held up to the light of day, they can’t sustain their positions,” he said.
While all sides agree that secretly taping a person who has a reasonable expectation of privacy should be a felony, they disagree on how to punish those who distribute the illegal material.
Pataki and the Senate want to make the act a felony in all cases, while a new Assembly bill introduced Friday would in some cases make dissemination a misdemeanor and in others a felony.