Albany DA under investigation over bonuses

Albany County District Attorney David Soares is under investigation right now, accused of giving himself a hefty bonus from a state grant.

Albany County Comptroller Susan Rizzo just confirmed to NewsChannel 13 that her office has reached out to the Attorney General’s Office and the state comptroller to investigate Soares.

She said they are in the early in the process of the investigation and audit and trying to determine if there were any laws broken.

In a statement, Soares said that his office was able to use grant funds to fill nine vacant assistant attorney positions and improve the morale of team members.

Soares said the use of grant funds was approved by the county’s audit and finance committee on Sept. 28 and by the full Albany County Legislature.

Soares said that while the word “salary” has been used to describe the distribution of funds, there was no request for salary increases.

“Bonuses are not salary increases, and we did not represent them as such during discussions with the Legislature. If we were given notice of this concern, we would have addressed that issue, as the specific concerns raises seemingly have not been well-litigated,” he said.