Norman's Last Night of Freedom

"With all the support in this room, I wish I had 12 of you on my jury," Clarence Norman said at his going-away party in a small community room in a Crown Heights housing complex. "How many people can be convicted on two felony counts and have the kind of support that I do in this room?"

Norman, the former Democratic County Boss and now convicted felon, dubbed it a "fellowship, before going before Pharoah on Wednesday." That's when a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge will sentence him for up to five years in jail for pocketing $1,200 in campaign contributions for his race for Assembly and an additional $5,000 from petition expenses for an ally's race. The invitation referred to the party inside the Crown Garden's community room as a "community reception."

Whatever you call it, the Jan. 9 gathering was also a fundraiser for the Trust for Justice, which helps pay for the Democratic Party Boss' legal expenses. (A spokeswoman for the Trust declined to discuss any of its finances.)

Despite his legal troubles, there's one thing Norman said he doesn't have.

"I don't have any animosity to? [Brooklyn District Attorney] Joe Hynes. Why should I hate the devil? The devil does what the devil was created to do," said Norman, standing in front of some political allies sprinkled amidst the crowd of about 100, most of them members of his father's Crown Heights church.

Tied to Norman's troubles are the spiraling hopes of Brooklyn's black leaders who view Norman's case with an eye on America's history of racism. Add to that the "shift" in power from the mostly black area of central Brooklyn "to the south," where it's whiter, and you have everything you need for conspiracy, said Councilwoman Letitia James, a true believer in Norman.

"So all the elements related to Clarence Norman were there for the paranoia to thrive," she said, dismissing the idea that blaming The Man was a way to shift attention away from Norman's wrongdoing. "The fact is the paranoia is real. I walk the streets. I hear it. I hear it. I'm not explaining the paranoia. It's there. It's a reality. It was really multiplied as a result of this trial, particularly in Crown Heights." Although James conceded that the juries that convicted Norman were mostly black, she said that won't squash the conspiracy.

"We may not clearly understand what is going on right now, but I hope when we reach the other side of Jordan, God-willingly [we will]," Norman said at his party. "This is indeed my having to cross the Jordan River."

How he got on the wrong side of Jordan involves the aforementioned $6,200 in campaign expenses, which Norman admitted to me amounted to chump change. ("He's worth a lot more than that," said one supporter.)

Norman, the broad-chested, well-tailored preacher's son, explained to the party-goers that, "The first case involves me getting in-kind contributions, which are perfectly legal. A friend of mine who's a lobbyist, I asked him to pay some bills of mine. And he paid those bills. And even if you accept the DA's theory of my having accepted more than the campaign contribution limit, do you know what that excess was? $1,200." And "Instead of them sending me a letter to allow us to pay back that which they claim we were over, they instead sent an indictment." In the second case, Norman said he pocketed the $5,000 check made out to the political club he runs because it was a reimbursement. The person who wrote the check broke her promise to testify on his behalf after she was threatened with a perjury prosecution if she did so. Short even a single witness of substance, Norman's I-don't-know-nothin' defense went nowhere.

Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, who's had ethical troubles of his own, was sworn-in the night after Norman's going-away party. Hynes had tried leveraging corruption charges against Norman, Hynes' old ally, in order to squeeze him for information about Brooklyn judgeships widely believed to be for sale. (With almost no exceptions, the Democratic primary is akin to the judgeship, and Norman was the man who chose the party's candidates.)

But when Hynes applied the pressure, Norman, heeding the advice of the Stop Snitching t-shirts that were the rage this summer among real and would-be thugs, turned a legal threat into martyrdom. By going to jail, he's more popular than ever among the true believers. And whatever corruption is in the Brooklyn courthouses remains, for now, untouched.

"So many people asked me how I'm doing," Norman told the crowd. "I'm more concerned with how you're doing."

The upbeat, religious invocation aside, the party's main theme was re-affirming suspicions about the case against Norman.

"You know he's not a thief. You know he's not a criminal. You know he's being criminalized, okay?" said Councilman Al Vann. "And you know the system has always criminalized us. You know we've never gotten justice in this system?One day, we'll get the system to reflect our values. That's what politics is all about for us. That's why you have to get involved, so that we can control the mechanisms of the system, so the system will be just. We don't know how to be unjust?we're the morality of this country."

"This is a test for us," said Eric Adams, founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, who went on to define just who he meant by "us": "Every person of color in this city, particular those who have any level of prominence better understand they're coming for my brother today. They're coming for you tomorrow."

"We have to remember these things," said community activist Clarence Robertson, who named other local black leaders brought down by corruption cases. "The reason this is happening now is that too many folks have short memories. And this will continue to happen as long as we exercise short memories. If somebody politically steps on you today, look for their children tomorrow."

One way to take this would be, everyone's in on the game; why's the black guy going down?

Brooklyn Blows It

How the city's most powerful borough lost the Speakership. Again.

In front of the crowd, James-a former lawyer for Al Vann, a close Norman ally-insisted that she's not a conspiracy theorist, but a realist. And the reality is, following Norman's conviction, there has been a "power shift" from central Brooklyn, which is mostly black, to "south Brooklyn," she said. That's the home turf of Norman's successor, Assemblyman Vito Lopez of Bushwick, who played a key role in electing the new City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn of Manhattan. In so doing, he also helped torpedo the hopes of most of Brooklyn's black council members who united behind Bill De Blasio of Park Slope.

Whether Brooklyn won anything when they helped elect a woman from Chelsea, instead of one of their own, as City Council Speaker is a matter of perspective.

"We got screwed," said one black Council member. "We got screwed because this county leader [Lopez] wanted anyone but Bill."

De Blasio, from Park Slope, should have had more than enough support from Brooklyn's 16 council members to dispatch with Quinn, from Chelsea. But that didn't happen. Central Brooklyn, which is where Norman drew his strength, went with De Blasio. The rest of Brooklyn, including the suspiciously-eyed south portion, went with Lopez.

Whether or not De Blasio's hopes of becoming City Council speaker got swept up in the "power shift" is debatable. De Blasio's Speaker-run, as it turned out, hinged on what he did back in late 2003 (within a few months of when Norman first got indicted). Back then, De Blasio-the tall, former Hillary Clinton campaign manager-marshaled support in Brooklyn and led a coup against the borough's then-delegation chairman, Lew Fidler, a friend of Lopez's.

(Fidler, one source said, was seen as offering "continuity" between the old leaders of Brooklyn, and the newer, younger and often more radical ones who came into the Council as term limits pushing the elders out.)

Lopez didn't forget. Nor did he forgive.

"It was anybody but Bill. And that's what they told me," said one De Blasio loyalist, who hung with the tall man until the Democratic Bosses from Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx chose the Manhattanite on New Year's Day.

The ascension of Lopez (who's been accused of hiding behind a Spanish surname, though his ancestry is the subject of argument, which itself speaks volumes about the borough's politics) only fanned the flames of power-shift paranoia. Lining up with Lopez and Fidler were the white, Spanish and Jewish Council members, while Brooklyn's six black Council members all hitched their wagon to De Blasio.

Brooklyn wasn't just split over the Speaker's race-it was fractured.

With that fracture went the chance for the County of Kings to regain the throne of the City Council Speakership.

Fidler, according to De Blasio supporters, helped steer as many as 11 of the 26 needed votes towards Quinn. Lining up behind De Blasio were 17 supporters. At the time, they say Quinn's numbers were in the single digits. Queens Democratic Party Boss Tom Manton wisely hadn't yet committed his votes (up to 14 of them) to either side.

And what a victory. The Council Speakership controls a vast empire of patronage, lucrative contracts and coveted committee chairmanships (and lulus, as the extra pay that goes with the chairs is called). Brooklyn, the largest delegation in the city and the largest Democratic organization in the country, has been feeding themselves on the "crumbs" for the past four years, since their candidate that time around, Angel Rodriguez, went from front-runner to felon in record time.

This was supposed to be Brooklyn's year, when the biggest borough (and as such the one with the most Council members) flexed its muscles and elected one of their own.

So how did they pull defeat from the jaws of victory this time, you ask.

One Brooklyn operative not in De Blasio's camp explained: "Would you rather have a speaker that's sort of independent and does what he wants but is your neighbor, or would you rather have a speaker who owes you, and promises you committees and hirings, staff and stuff, that lives in Manhattan? I think you go with Manhattan on that one."

In other words, what's the point of getting the job if all the perks go to everyone else? Better, then, to be on the receiving end of all the promises. And for the Democratic bosses who direct the votes of their delegations, losing some limelight to Manhattan is no sweat, so long as the promised lucre is delivered.

"As the last mayoral election proves, the power of the speakership is nothing compared to the power of the bosses," said a pro-Quinn operative in Brooklyn. "It's not even close. Gifford didn't get anywhere," he said, referring to Quinn's predecessor, Gifford Miller. After a four-year reign as Speaker during which he expanded the campaign finance program, tweaked term limits so he could stay until he ran for mayor and used more than $2.8 million taxpayer dollars on campaign-looking fliers, he came in dead last out of four in a Democratic primary.

Queens, which for the second time demurred to Manhattan, is expected to again take home the top prizes: chairmanships of the land use and finance committees. And "that's where all the power is," said the Brooklyn Quinn supporter. "It's not in the speakership. It is in those committees."

Why? "The real reason why those are powerful committees is because the City Charter says that certain things have to happen in those committees. It's not up to the discretion of the Speaker when we vote on land use items, once the clock starts. It's not up to the Speaker when we [as a City] put out a budget, because we have to."

While the media focus may be on the Speaker, the lobbyist, union leaders, real estate developers (and anyone else who can conceivably write a big campaign contribution check) know to leave their consideration with the committee chairmen.

Then again, it's the speaker who appoints those chairs.

The penalty for not lining up with Quinn includes the loss of committee chairs, which is reportedly what might happen to Charles Barron, until now the Higher Education Chair, and the only member to abstain when Quinn was elected on January 5. Once it was clear who was winning, everyone had always been for her. Minus Barron, Quinn was voted in 50-0.

Barron has threatened to go buck wild if he's stripped of his chair. Seriously-he told me the police will have to be called in if he's punished for his vote. (Yvette Clarke, another Norman-De Blasio supporter, was left off the Rules Committee. This is an oversight-and a perceived slight-that is expected to be fixed when Committee assignments are announced on January 18.)

Forget 50-0-De Blasio and his supporters were just 11 votes shy of the 26 they needed, more than halfway there. What blew it was the unhealed rift in their own backyard.

"I thought we could have won," said Barron, recalling the briefly-elated faces of his fellow De Blasio supporters-until the bosses weighed in. "What happened was Vito Lopez took his four or five Brooklyn votes [to] Queens with Tom Manton and his 15 votes, made it about 19. Then they went and sat down with Jose Rivera and cut some deals. Quinn was sitting there with seven or eight votes and that was a wrap."

In fact, De Blasio was told by Queens that they were ready to go with him, if Lopez was, one De Blasio supporter told me. "Manton had told Bill on Friday, and that's when Bill had assembled all of us, [and repeated Manton's message.] 'Bill, all you need to make this happen is a nod from a leader, a county leader and had we had a county leader that was supportive, if the county leader would have nodded in his direction, it would have been over.'"

The selection of the City Council Speaker only exacerbated the paranoia about the political shift in the borough. While the coalition made up of Brooklyn's black council members lost, Vito's walks away with a Committee Chairmanship seen widely to benefit him personally, at the expense of the borough.

"Dilan will get Housing, which means Vito will get Housing," said one operative in that coalition, referring to Erik Dilan, a Brooklyn Council member and Lopez ally. Coincidentally, Lopez chairs the Assembly committee that oversees Housing, unifying the housing jurisdiction under one man. One Brooklyn-based newspaper already dubbed Lopez the "housing czar."

There racial ripples are making waves in the congressional race to fill the seat now held by Major Owens. In the race now are four black candidates (Major's son Chris, Assemblyman Nick Perry, Senator Carl Andrews, Councilwoman Yvette Clarke) and one white, Councilman David Yassky.

One Norman supporter noted that "losing" that seat (which was once held by Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to congress) to Yassky would be another step in the power shift. And given four black candidates to split the vote, that's a real possibility.

How does the man at the center of the shift, Clarence Norman, feel? At his party, he told me he had his going-away bag all packed. It's Lopez's mess now.