Two decades after Robert Morgenthau forced a guilty plea from Geraldine Ferraro’s husband on fraud charges, she returned the favor – by endorsing the Manhattan district attorney’s opponent, Leslie Crocker Snyder.
Ferraro, the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee in 1984, came to City Hall yesterday to throw her support behind Snyder, a former judge who, like Ferraro, had served as an assistant district attorney.
“For over 35 years, Leslie Crocker Snyder has been fighting crime to protect the safety of all New Yorkers,” Ferraro said, hailing Morgenthau’s opponent as a longtime reformer and advocate for innovative law enforcement.
In 1985, Ferraro’s husband, John Zaccaro, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of scheming to fraudulently obtain financing on a real-estate deal.
The charges against Zaccaro clouded Ferraro’s vice-presidential bid.
At the time, Ferraro said her husband had made a mistake in judgment.
Morgenthau, 85, is regarded as a heavy favorite in the Democratic primary challenge he is facing from Snyder.
Snyder, 63, who was appointed to the bench by Mayor Koch in 1983 and is now with a private law firm, has said if elected she would bring the DA’s office into the 21st century.
Ferraro, who now works as a consultant, last week endorsed Fernando Ferrer’s candidacy for mayor.