Scarborough Out, Richardson In
As soon as one Assembly seat is filled, another one opens. William Scarborough (D – Queens) resigned his Assembly seat after pleading guilty to a $40,000 scam he perpetrated on the taxpayers by submitting travel vouchers and accepting reimbursements and per diem for days he was not at the Capitol in Albany.
The same day that Scarborough appeared in court, Diana Richardson won a hotly contested race for the Assembly seat left vacant by Karim Camara, who accepted a post with the Cuomo administration. The district covers parts of Crown Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, and East Flatbush.
There was no Democratic Party candidate on the ballot due to an election-filing mishap. Richardson ran on the Working Families Party line and received 51 percent of the vote. Menachem Raitport, a Republican who owns a kosher butcher shop in the district, garnered 21 percent of the vote.
Turnout amounted to a mere 12 percent, according to officials with the state Board of Elections, with 8,205 votes cast out of 67,883 active registered voters in the district.