Bharara vs Cuomo emerges as battle of two NY sheriffs

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara and then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo once teamed up to take down members of the Lucchese organised crime family, a mortgage-fraud ring and a crooked dermatologist.

They were building careers fighting for justice from Manhattan to Albany. Bharara, known as the sheriff of Wall Street, was the head of New York's Southern District, the highest-profile federal prosecutor's office. Cuomo was using the attorney general's office in Albany as a stepping stone to the governor's mansion, calling himself the sheriff of State Street.

The sheriffs aren't working together anymore. Bharara is investigating the Cuomo administration after the governor disbanded an anti-corruption commission he created before its term was over. The probe has put Cuomo on the defensive as he gears up for a re-election campaign that was supposed to have been an easy ride.

"Everyone is watching this dance to see what happens," said George Arzt, who was press secretary for former New York Mayor Edward Koch in the 1980s, when Rudolph Giuliani had Bharara's job. "It's reminiscent, for those of us around a long time, of Rudy. There is no one else who has been this outspoken." Bharara's office has provided a prelude for political careers. Giuliani used it to prosecute insider traders and the heads of New York's five crime families before becoming mayor and later running for president.

Elihu Root, who ran it in the mid-1880s, went on to become the US secretary of war and a senator. Bharara, 45, says he has no such higher ambition. He said he knew while attending Columbia Law School that he wanted to be prosecutor.