Cuomo Subpoenas Espada's Phone, E-mail Records

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is getting phone and e-mail records and other documents in his investigation of state Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada.

Espada says he will fully cooperate with the subpoena seeking records held by him, his Bronx health clinic, and the Democrat-led Senate. Cuomo has been probing state grants provided to the Soundview Health Care Network, a Bronx clinic for the poor founded by Espada.

The Democratic senator said he suspects some political motivation behind the subpoena issued by Cuomo, a fellow Democrat widely viewed as planning a run for governor.

The subpoena was issued an hour before Gov. David Paterson's State of the State address Wednesday, when he railed against corruption in Albany and called for reforms.

"If acceptance really is the prelude to recovery, then we have to accept that the old way of doing budgets is unsustainable, and so do the special interests who intimidate, who badger, and who push when they don't get their way even when they're aware that the cupboard is bare," Paterson said in his speech. "The time for that type of politics is over."