| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 5, 2026 Contact: Dan Kranz Hernandez for New York(315) 751-1771 press@hernandezforny.com NEW YORK, NY — Republican candidate for State Comptroller Joseph Hernandez is calling on Tom DiNapoli to answer the question he passed on during last night’s Spectrum News debate: why has he taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the law firms that make money off the state pension fund he controls? When Hernandez pressed him on the donations, DiNapoli asked the moderator for help. “I think, I think the moderator has a question,” he said. Watch the clip here. Since 2008, DiNapoli has accepted nearly $850,000 from lawyers at 13 firms that file lawsuits on behalf of pension funds. Almost three-quarters of it came from eight firms he hired to litigate for the state pension fund. Those firms only get paid when the fund picks them to lead a case and wins. DiNapoli knows the rule should exist. Early in his tenure, he barred investment advisers who donated to his campaign from managing pension money for two years. He never applied the same rule to the law firms. His own Democratic primary challenger called it a longtime pay-to-play scandal. New York has seen where this leads. DiNapoli’s predecessor, Alan Hevesi, went to prison after investigators uncovered a pay-to-play system built around the same pension fund. “I asked Tom DiNapoli a simple question on live television and he asked the moderator to bail him out,” said Hernandez. “New Yorkers deserve an answer. As Comptroller, I won’t take a dime from any firm that does business with the pension fund.” |
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