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Originally appeared in the Associated Press on Monday, March 26, 2001.
NEW YORK
Isabel Miranda, who was named acting treasurer of New Jersey on Friday, was
director of trusts and estates for Citibank's private banking unit until 1996.
Co-workers say she was forced to resign and escorted from her office in
Manhattan, The New York Times reported Monday.
Miranda denied the firing Sunday through DiFrancesco's chief spokesman Tom
Wilson, saying she left voluntarily because of a dispute with her boss.
''She and her supervisor had a significant disagreement that only grew in its
intensity over time and resulted in a decision that they could no longer work
together,'' Wilson said.
Citicorp auditors found evidence that Miranda and Donald Browne Jr., an
executive in the company's San Francisco office who later transferred to New
York, had charged the bank for cross-country trips to visit each other and for
trips together, the unnamed co-workers told the Times.
Court documents suggest that DiFrancesco, known as a good friend to Miranda,
knew of the firing, if not the reasons for it, within weeks after her dismissal.
He notarized Miranda's severance agreement, but did not read it, said
DiFrancesco's chief spokesman, Tom Wilson.
He also swore Miranda into the New Jersey bar when she passed her exam, and
in 1992 he named her to the commission that redrew New Jersey's Congressional
districts.
Philip M. Butterfield, now chief administrative officer of the Bank of
Bermuda, said Citibank concluded Miranda and Browne had shown ''lapses in
judgment'' and that their departures from Citibank were a ''byproduct'' of that
conclusion.
According to court records, Miranda, married for 17 years, began an affair
with Browne, who was also married, on or before September 1993. Both received a
divorce and they married on June 28, 1995, in Palm Beach, according to their
Florida marriage license. The couple live with Miranda's two teen-age daughters
in Scotch Plains, N.J., less than a mile from DiFrancesco's home.
Miranda's name was added on Friday to a list of nominations to be considered
for confirmation on Monday by the State Senate Judiciary Committee. When he
nominated Miranda on March 19, DiFrancesco asked that the Senate confirm her by
the end of the month, an unusually short deadline.
In January 1997, Miranda was hired as a senior vice president at U.S. Trust
Company of New Jersey in Princeton Junction, where she oversaw a smaller group
of employees, according to former co-workers.
The Senate also may consider the terms of Miranda's departure from U.S. Trust
to join the DiFrancesco administration. Wilson confirmed Sunday that Miranda had
taken an unpaid leave of absence from U.S. Trust, which will allow her to
reclaim her job after ending her government service. As acting treasurer,
Miranda oversees all bond issues by state agencies.
The Charles Schwab Corp., which bought U.S. Trust last year, has recently
been expanding its role in the underwriting of municipal bonds. It helps to
distribute bonds issued by state and local government agencies and the company
has said it hopes to become a lead underwriter of bond issues.
Wilson said that Miranda had recused herself from anything to do with U.S.
Trust and that her leave and the recusal had been approved by the director of
the state's Executive Commission on
ethical Standards.
Acting New Jersey Gov. Donald DiFrancesco's nominee for state treasurer was
fired from a high-level job at Citibank after auditors confronted her with
evidence she used her expense account to travel with her lover, according to
current and former employees of the bank.
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