Did Mikey Suits (R-Staten Island) Bring In A New Lawyer For The Plea Bargain?

Domenic Recchia is one of the worst of Steve Israel's awful, garden variety mystery meat careerist candidates for Congress, a scandal in-waiting. When Israel recruited him, there was little chance he could have beaten Staten Island's Mafia-connected incumbent, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm. And that despite a district that has been rapidly turning bluer and bluer-- in 2008, McCain bested Obama there, 51-48% and 4 years later Obama beat McCain 52-47%-- voters, particularly of the Staten Island variety, were happy enough with their dumbed-down tough guy, thuggish congressman. And then the first set-- more are coming-- of 20 indictments rolled out. They included tax evasion, obstruction of justice and perjury. That might be even too much for NY-11 voters. Maybe not though.

Grimm's fundraising has come to a screeching halt, although he still had $1,012,581 cash on hand left as of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline. Recchia's fundraising has taken off in a pretty good way and he's now got more cash than Grimm: $1,282,267. Between June 5 and June 30, Grimm raised $23,430. That's bad. And the Beltway Republicans have told him, "good luck, you're on your own." No one has stuck with him by an ailing and degenerate Guy Molinari.

Grimm's campaign manager and entire staff quit his campaign. Many also left his congressional office. His attorneys also quit-- no not the Patton Boggs guy (William McGinley; he quit long ago when Grimm stiffed him on payments). The new legal team quit. That's inconvenient since his next court procedure is... tomorrow morning. He found some guy from Miami, Daniel Rashbaum, who specializes in getting white collar criminals off.

Meanwhile, Grimm is finding it difficult to find anyone who wants to work for him.

Are you a thrill-seeking aspiring politico with a taste for danger and a penchant for self sabotage? Then look no further! Staten Island Representative Michael Grimm is seeking a new employee for his office, and his deputy chief of staff, Blaire Bartlett, sounds pretty defeated by the task.

An email, acquired by Politico, was sent by Bartlett to Washington D.C. asking associates for help in filling the role of a health and education legislative assistant.

“As you can imagine it hasn’t been easy to find a qualified candidate who wants to live on the edge and take a chance working for Rep. Grimm,” wrote Bartlett. “Ideally this person would have legislative experience. Hill experience would be great and NYC experience would be amazing, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

It is hard not to feel sympathy for Grimm's staff because the representative has not made their jobs easy. The Congressman is best known for several pretty terrible things, like being accused of wire and tax fraud, for which he was indicted in April.

If that wasn't enough to scare off potential staffers, Grimm is also known for threatening to throw a New York 1 reporter over a balcony, and to break him in half "like a boy." Both of these incidents sparked some angry ridicule from John Stewart, who lambasted the congressman on The Daily Show, not once but twice.

The latest blow to the Grimm camp has come in the form of money, or lack thereof. Recent fundraising numbers from June 5-June 30th show that the Republican representative raised less than $24,000. Fundraising in the second quarter were equally dismal, bringing in just over $67,000. In contrast, his Democratic opponent, City Councilman Dominic Recchia, has raised over $407,000.

So anyway who wants to apply for the job? The ideal candidate should be willing to work for low pay and have no fear of heights.

My favorite outcome would be to see Grimm sentenced to a long, appropriate prison term, and win reelection from his cell. You think that's impossible? Have you ever been to Staten Island?

UPDATE: Grimm Trial To Start In October

Grimm's reelection prospects are bad enough but now the Feds want to start his trial a month before Election Day. By the end of September motion procedures and hearings in the case should be complete.