Here’s the latest disgrace out of Albany: Ex-Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who had to resign after it was revealed that he just couldn’t keep his hands off the pretty young things he liked to hire, has been fined $330,000 by the state Legislative Ethics Commission for his harassment of one young woman after another.

“Disgrace?” you ask. “What disgrace? Sounds like justice to me.”

State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) dropped out of the race for Queens borough president last Friday.

The move follows the Queens County Democratic Organization’s endorsement 11 days earlier of Melinda Katz, a former city councilwoman and state assemblywoman, for the job.

State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) quit the race for Queens borough president on Friday.

The move follows by 11 days the Queens County Democratic Organization's endorsement of Melinda Katz, a former city councilwoman, for the job.

It doesn’t say all that much for our political situation when it’s worth going out of our way to congratulate an honest politician. But that’s how it is.

“Shocker! Post finds honest NY politician” a New York Post page 2 headline blared last Saturday. That politician is Queens City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), who blew the whistle on a builder’s alleged efforts to bribe him.

The recent spate of arrests and criminal investigations involving public officials has ensnared a high percentage of minorities in the state Legislature, leading some in the community to ask if black and Hispanic lawmakers are being targeted.

State Sen. James Sanders (D-Jamaica) decided last week that the question of conspiracy or corruption was far better-suited for an open, frank and free-wheeling debate before nearly 200 people at the Black Spectrum Theatre in Roy Wilkins Park in Jamaica.

If published reports are right, state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) and seven others were taped in former Sen. Shirley Huntley’s home either at the request of the FBI, or at Huntley’s recommendation to the bureau.

In an interview following Huntley’s sentencing to prison last week, Peralta said he is at a loss to explain why either would consider him a possible target for a corruption probe.

The New York Post is reporting that former State Senator Shirley Huntley has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison in federal court in Brooklyn on a corruption-related charge.

Huntley, 74, pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud in connection with the embezzlement of nearly $88,000 from a phony nonprofit organization.

Preet can’t be beat, unless you think Loretta is better. The U.S. attorneys for the southern and eastern districts of New York, respectively, Preet Bharara and Loretta Lynch, are in the midst of stellar work that should do more to clean up the political corruption that seems endemic to Albany than most so-called reforms have ever managed.

They’re going after corruption in case after case and knocking down one elected domino after another. Any city or state lawmaker who’s on the take and hasn’t been charged yet must be very, very nervous.

Former state Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica), who agreed to wear a wire for the FBI in 2012 as state and federal prosecutors closed in on her, is scheduled to be sentenced today on a wire-fraud charge in federal court in Brooklyn.

The disgraced former senator provided “evidence useful to law enforcement” during conversations she had with three elected officials while wearing an FBI wire in July and August of 2012, all after she was cornered by the bureau and federal prosecutors for her role in siphoning money from “a bogus nonprofit.”

The names of six Democratic state senators and a city councilman from Southeast Queens were among those contained Wednesday on a list of people who had their conversations with then-state Senator Shirley Huntley recorded by an FBI listening device in 2012.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York declined to comment on Wednesday on the names, contained in a sentencing letter connected to Huntley’s case, or U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein’s order to unseal the letter.

Powerful state Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) allegedly contacted an employee of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn in an effort to identify potential witnesses in a mortgage fraud investigation, and to determine if Sampson himself was being investigated.

A nine-count indictment of Sampson unsealed on Monday alleges the senator told an associate who was a defendant in the case that if witnesses could be identified, Sampson could arrange to “take them out.”

The names of six Democratic state Senators and a city councilman from Southeast Queens were among those contained Wednesday on a list of people who had their conversations with then-state Senator Shirley Huntley recorded by an FBI listening device in 2012.

Those on the list engaged in recorded conversations with Huntley in 2012.

Powerful state Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) surrendered to the FBI on Monday morning ahead of the unsealing of a nine-count federal indictment charging him with embezzlement, obstruction of justice and making false statements to FBI agents.

Sampson, an attorney, allegedly took the money to finance a run for Brooklyn District Attorney.

Former state Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica) wore a wire and gave at least partial cooperation to federal prosecutors after FBI agents confronted her with the results of court-approved wiretaps of her cell phone in 2012.

Huntley, 74, is expected to be sentenced on May 9 in federal court for her guilty plea in February to wire fraud. The charge was connected with her admission to embezzling nearly $88,000 from a bogus nonprofit organization.

The former treasurer of City Comptroller John Liu's campaign for mayor and one of his fundraisers were convicted of attempted fraud and other federal charges yesterday for their roles in accepting illegal contributions and attempting to rip off the taxpayers of New York City.

Jia "Jenny" Hou and Xing Wu "Oliver" Pan were each found guilty of playing a role in taking campaign contributions from straw donors — people whose names were entered as contributors even though someone else had provided the money — and could each face decades in prison.

Shot in Southeast Queens, “Let’s Get Bizzee” is a feature film that is said to truly inspire youngsters to make a change and be a part of the political process, according to director Carl Clay.

Clay’s re-released film will be featured on May 10 at the Black Spectrum Theatre followed by a panel discussion hosted by state Sen. James Sanders Jr. (D-Laurelton) on “Attack on Black Leaders: Corruption or Conspiracy?” at the event.

“Preventing public corruption is essential to ensuring that government works and can effectively keep the public’s trust,” a top state official said Tuesday.

Once you’re done laughing, consider this: That official was Gov. Cuomo, and that line was just the first in his statement introducing a new bill, the Public Trust Act, that’s designed to cut down on the kind of corruption Queens lawmakers Malcolm Smith and Dan Halloran, and four other people, were accused of on April 2.

It might be laughable if it weren’t so serious — Republican operative Vince Tabone of Bayside was “less skilled at conducting a patdown than he was at conducting a shakedown.” That’s how the FBI described the GOP apparatchik’s failed attempt to find the wire an undercover agent was wearing when he handed Tabone a wad of cash as part of an alleged bribery scheme.

But it is serious. Deadly serious. The case unveiled Tuesday against Tabone, Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith of Hollis, Republican City Councilman Dan Halloran of Whitestone and three other alleged conspirators does indeed, as U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said, “demonstrate, once again, that a show-me-the-money culture seems to pervade every level of New York government.”

State Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Hollis) and Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) were both arrested in an alleged plot to bribe GOP officials in an attempt to gain support for a potential Republican primary candidacy by Smith for mayor this year.

The power of the local press was on full display in the tight 2009 City Council race between Democratic nominee Kevin Kim and Republican Dan Halloran.

Halloran did not allow Multi-Media’s role in the race to go unnoticed. In September 2009, the Tribune ran a story originally headlined “Democratic Victor vs. Pagan Lord” that detailed Halloran’s unconventional religious practices.

A probe by the city’s Department of Investigation has uncovered a number of alleged fraudulent and irregular financial transactions involving two executives at the South Ozone Park-based United Hindu Cultural Council of USA North America Inc. and a food vendor to the UHCC, the DOI and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Monday.

The DOI’s findings include an alleged scheme involving fraudulent invoices submitted by the UHCC to the City Department for the Aging for nonexistent lunches supposedly served to seniors at the group’s South Ozone Park center.