Comptroller Pleads Guilty and Resigns Over Use of Driver
ALBANY, Dec. 22 — After calmly assuring a judge that he was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and agreeing to pay a $50 fee so that his DNA could be included in a statewide database of convicted felons, State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi pleaded guilty Friday morning to defrauding the government and resigned from office.

Mr. Hevesi, the state’s top fiscal watchdog, told the court in a hoarse voice that one of the state workers he had assigned as a driver for his wife, Carol, had done much more than provide security for her. Prosecutors filed court papers revealing that the worker had also watered her plants, driven her to Bloomingdale’s and dropped off her dry cleaning.

“I apologize to the court, but until this issue became a public matter, I did not plan to reimburse the state for his time,” Mr. Hevesi told the court under oath, in a reversal of the statements he made this fall during his successful re-election campaign.

In a deal with the Albany County district attorney’s office, Mr. Hevesi pleaded guilty to a single felony, agreed to pay a $5,000 fine on top of the more than $206,000 he has already reimbursed the state, and agreed to resign for the rest of his current term and for the term that begins Jan. 1. The agreement will spare him prison time.