New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is accusing state Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. of siphoning $14 million from the senator's government-funded Bronx clinic.
Cuomo announced a lawsuit Tuesday against nearly 20 current and former officials of an Espada company known locally as Soundview.
The attorney general says Espada diverted charitable assets to himself, relatives and friends and for his political operation.
There was no immediate comment from Espada, who had called Cuomo's investigation a "witch hunt" to boost the attorney general's political career. They are both Democrats.
Espada is a freshman senator who was instrumental in a coup that gridlocked the chamber last summer.
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