WHEN it comes to political scandals, the one that erupted in New York yesterday just about has it all: the candidate, her cheating husband, a plot to record him on an adulterous “love boat”, the city’s disgraced police chief and the Mob.

Jeanine Pirro, a Republican and one of New York state’s most high-profile politicians, admitted that she discussed with Bernard Kerik, New York city’s disgraced former police commissioner, the possibility of secretly taping her husband to see if he was cheating on her.

Ms Pirro, who last year abandoned plans to run against Hillary Clinton for her New York senate seat, told a press conference that she was under FBI investigation for allegedly plotting to bug her husband, Albert Pirro, on his boat.

A highly emotional Ms Pirro, who is striving to be elected as New York’s Attorney-General this November, the state’s highest legal official, said that she never went through with the 2005 plan to eavesdrop on her husband, a convicted fraudster whose has frequently damaged her political ambitions.

Ms Pirro called the press conference after it emerged that a local television station had obtained FBI tape recordings of her conversations with Mr Kerik, who now runs a private security company.

Federal investigators had tapped Mr Kerik’s phone during an unrelated investigation. Since he left the police commissioner’s office, a host of ethical problems have emerged, including the free renovation of his Bronx home by a company with alleged Mafia ties.

Ms Pirro, who at the time was the district attorney in the New York suburb of Westchester County, is quoted on transcripts as saying to Mr Kerik: “What am I supposed to do Bernie? Watch him f*** her every night? I can go on the boat, I’ll put the f****** thing on myself.” She said yesterday that she had her husband followed, but never secretly taped him — which would be a criminal offence.

Albert Pirro, a lawyer, was jailed for tax fraud in 2000. He has also embarrassed his wife’s political carrer by fathering a love child, alleged mob links and picking up two speeding tickets.

Just a year ago, she was viewed as a rising star in the Republican party.

She vowed to continue her campaign for attorney-general, but is trailing badly behind her Democrat opponent, Andrew Cuomo.

She suggested yesterday that the timing of the tapes being leaked to the press, just five weeks before the election, was politically motivated. She also said investigators had no business involving themselves in her “matrimonial discord”.

“There is no way . . . that I am going to be pushed out of this race because somebody wants to delve into the personal lives of my husband and myself. I am standing up for myself and I’m standing up for women.”

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