Charles J. O’Byrne has had many roles in life, including that of lawyer, Jesuit priest, friend of the Kennedys and the most powerful non-elected public official in the state of New York.
Now, it would seem, he has a less welcome title, that of tax deadbeat.
The New York Post and
The Times Union of Albany have revealed that O’Byrne, the chief of staff and secretary to New York Gov. David A. Paterson, had owed as much as $200,000 in unpaid federal and state taxes.
The back taxes and accumulated penalties and interest for the years 2001-2005 have been reportedly paid off. (Update: According to news reports on Oct. 24, O’Byrne is leaving his position in the Paterson administration.)
“During several periods in my life I have suffered from clinical depression,” O’Byrne said in a released statement. “As those who suffer from this disease understand, I became neglectful of certain responsibilities in my personal life. This is a part of my past for which I take full responsibility.”
The revelation of O’Byrne’s tax problems comes at a time when Paterson is calling for the state to get tough on people and firms that owe back taxes.
Paterson has expressed “full confidence” in O’Byrne. He told the Post that he was aware of O’Byrne’s tax problems when he hired him in 2004 to work as a speechwriter. Paterson, a Democrat, was then minority leader of the state Senate.
Paterson learned more details in 2006 when he was elected lieutenant governor. He became governor in March after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer and named O’Byrne to his current position, one that pays $178,500 a year.
O’Byrne has emerged as Paterson’s “enforcer,” someone who can play bad cop to the governor’s good cop.
Born in New York City, O’Byrne, 49, graduated from Columbia University in 1981 and Columbia Law School in 1984.
While he was in law school, O’Byrne met and became friends with Stephen Smith Jr., the nephew of former president John F. Kennedy.
After law school, O’Byrne worked at a law firm in New York City for a few years, but left to join the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order, in 1989.
He took his vows as a Jesuit in 1991 and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1996.
That same year, he officiated at the wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in a ceremony on Cumberland Island, Ga.
In 1999, O’Byrne was the presiding priest at a memorial Mass in New York City for John and Carolyn Kennedy after they died in a plane crash.
Later in 1999, O’Byrne unofficially left the Jesuit order. He was dismissed officially in 2002.
In September 2002, O’Byrne, who is now openly gay, wrote a first-person article for Playboy magazine entitled, “Sex & Sexuality: One Man’s Story About Religious Life and What Seminaries Really Teach About Sex.”
O’Byrne worked for the Howard Dean presidential campaign in 2003 before going to work for Paterson in 2004.
According to a spokeswoman from Paterson’s office, O’Byrne paid off his tax debts with a combination of his own assets and personal loans and some help from relatives and friends.
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