Due to a number of vacancies of the panel and a quirk in state law, at least six members needed to vote in favor in order to agree to substantiate the allegation, so it failed.<\/p>\n
An administrative judge also concluded Klein did not kiss Vladimer.<\/p>\n
![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/new-york-independent-democratic-conference-115970797.jpg\")
Former state Sen. Jeff Klein said he did not kiss a then-staffer against her will in an Albany bar in 2015. AP<\/p>\n
Klein, who lost his Bronx seat in 2018, the year he asked the ethics body to launch its investigation, hailed the commission\u2019s conclusion as a victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter fighting for nearly a decade to restore his reputation, Senator Klein is grateful that the truth has finally prevailed,\u201d his lawyer, Richard Portale, told The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis outcome affirms that the accusations against Senator Klein were without merit.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Vladimer, who has since gone on to advocate for protections against sexual harassment in state government by founding the group Harassment Free New York, blasted the commission\u2019s decision as \u201cunacceptable and utterly pathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA determination should\u2019ve left me feeling vindicated and affirmed. Instead, I am livid and disconsolate,\u201d Vladimer wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor more than seven years, I have done everything humanly possible to work within the state ethics system to hold Klein accountable,\u201d she said. \u201cState employees demand better from our public officials and from the oversight body that supposedly governs their conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Erica](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/erica-vladimer-former-education-policy-115970973.jpg\")
Accuser Erica Vladimer said Klein absolutely committed sexual harassment against her. AP<\/p>\n
Joseph Neuhaus, the administrative judge who also heard the case, acknowledged the evidence, or lack thereof, made his ruling in Klein\u2019s favor \u201ca close call.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klein was accused of kissing Vladimer against her will at Justin\u2019s, a bar in Albany, after the passage of the state budget in 2015.<\/p>\n
Nehaus wrote in his report that he didn\u2019t think Klein kissed Vladimer because of the presence of other potential witnesses at the bar that evening, including Klein\u2019s girlfriend, fellow state Sen. Diane Savino.<\/p>\n
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The also noted \u201cinconsistency\u201d in Vladimer\u2019s account of the timeline of the evening and the lack of other sexual-harassment allegations against Klein.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcknowledging it is a close call, I have, for the reasons stated above, reached the conclusion that the alleged kiss did not occur and that the Commission\u2019s charges therefore lack a substantial basis,\u201d Neuhaus concluded in his report.<\/p>\n
Klein had led the once-powerful Independent Democratic Conference, a group of Democratic state senators who conferenced with Republicans in order to give them control over the chamber.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe matter is now closed. The process played out as prescribed by law and the Commission\u2019s regulations,\u201d COELIG Executive Director Sanford Berland said in a statement of Klein\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe agency investigated and presented the facts, and the Commission acted based on the record as the process requires.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2013\u00a0The state\u2019s ethics panel has closed its investigation into former state Sen. Jeff Klein without substantiating allegations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4241,10917,27121,57,9,11,10,49,51,50,18571,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-47987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-albany","9":"tag-ethics","10":"tag-jeff-klein","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-state-news","18":"tag-new-york-state-senate","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}