Close Political Allies? Partners in Crime? Strange Bedfellows?

Less than 2 years ago…

October 19, 2006 -- The feds say he got his wife a Mercedes, himself a posh home, and his mistresses out of debt. But to his staff, powerful union chief and Queens politician Brian McLaughlin was the cheapest boss on two feet.

At the time he's accused of plundering millions from tax payers, he refused to pay Christmas bonuses and argued over paying a staffer's health insurance. And one day in 2004 - as McLaughlin explored running for mayor - he skipped out on an interview with a New York Times reporter, after hiding out in his office with Elizabeth Crowley.

She's his close political pal and a failed City Council candidate. "Brian wouldn't come out of his office - I was banging on the door," said a former staffer at the New York Central Labor Council, which McLaughlin headed.

Asked about the incident, McLaughlin's lawyer, Jonathan Bach, would not comment.

Crowley told a Post reporter, "Brian is a political ally and I know nothing of any alleged wrongdoing" and would not comment further. Life in McLaughlin's employ was never boring. But it could be short. At the time he's accused of ripping off a local Little League, McLaughlin fired dozens of workers.

As the feds allege, McLaughlin hit up the United Way charity to fund a "Commission on the Dignity of Immigrants" program - but put a relative in charge who funneled his $94,000 salary back to him. Union workers were compelled to serve as his personal drivers - an older man, Rocky, worked all night as a foreman before slipping behind the wheel.

Around this austere time, McLaughlin found $8,000 a month to hire Carolyn Daly to get him good press. "I'm feeling a lot of sadness and confusion" by the indictment, Daly told me.

The whistle-blowing staffer believes McLaughlin never should have been al lowed by a state ethics panel to simultaneously run a union and serve as state assembly man. "In some twisted way, he thought it was OK."

I guess you can justify anything - even robbery.

NY POST