Celeste Katz of the Daily News Politics Blog reports:

Today’s statement from Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan has a twist: He wants to make sure everyone knows he’s NOT prosecuting Assemblyman and Democratic Party boss Vito Lopez.

The Brooklyn powerbroker’s Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council came under heavy scrutiny over questions about how its money was being spent.

Today’s release from Donovan’s office notes: “Tyess Crespo of Bleecker Street, Brooklyn, an employee of Ridgewood Bushwick Senior CitizensCouncil/Hope Gardens, has entered a guilty to a charge of Criminal Facilitation in the 4th Degree, a Class A misdemeanor, in Brooklyn Criminal Court before Judge Suzanne M. Mondo, who sentenced the defendant to a Conditional Discharge, acondition of which is that the defendant can no longer be employed by Hope Gardens.”

(Basically, Crespo was fiddling with timesheets ” to support approximately $4,080 in alleged expenses incurred by a Hope Gardens anti-gang youth violence program.”)

But here’s the interesting bit from Donovan’s statement:

“In recent months numerous media accounts have reported that my office has been conducting an investigation into Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who has been affiliated with the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior CitizensCouncil/Hope Gardens organizations. Although it is my office’s policy to not confirm or deny the existence of any investigations, I believe the intense interest in this matter compels me to clarify the public record.

“My office was appointed as Special District Attorney following the arrest of an individual by the New York City Department of Investigation, accused in a criminal court complaint by the Kings County District Attorney, of photocopying and altering attendance sheets of a youth program to seek support a request for reimbursement of expenses allegedly incurred by the program.

“Both investigations by the DOI and KCDA into Tyess Crespo’s actions, later continued by my office, as well as a review of possible criminal irregularities in the funding of Ridgewood/Hope Gardens produced no actionable evidence of criminal conduct beyond those in the initial criminal charges. This was the extent to which the judicial order allowed my office to investigate.”

(Source: NY Daily News)