Ferraro Won’t Run for Senate, Cites U.S. Probe

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine A. Ferraro, blaming a still-incomplete Justice Department investigation of her congressional financial reports, announced Wednesday that she would not seek the Senate seat held by New York Republican Alfonse M. D’Amato.

“There was only one factor in this decision,” Ferraro told a news conference in her home neighborhood of Queens. “Had the U.S. Justice Department investigation been completed, I would have been a candidate.”

In Washington, a Justice Department spokesman declined comment. But a source familiar with the inquiry, who asked not to be identified, said the main item remaining was an interview with Ferraro. “Unless she comes in, has something askew and confesses,” the investigation is not expected to lead to any charges, the source said.

Chilly Reception

Recently, Ferraro had been testing sentiment for her candidacy within New York’s Democratic Party. Some of the reaction was decidedly chilly. Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said publicly that he would not raise money for Ferraro or campaign for her. He quipped that if she asked him for funds, he would ask to borrow money from her book royalties; Ferraro received an advance of more than $700,000 for her memoirs. Senior advisers to the governor stressed that Ferraro would face a difficult, uphill fight. And she found no great enthusiasm for her candidacy when she met with New York’s Mayor Edward I. Koch.

Ferraro’s confidants were also discouraged by polls that showed her with strong negatives resulting from her vice presidential campaign.

Ferraro’s decision not to run ended months of speculation and left Democrats scrambling to find a strong candidate to oppose D’Amato, who is well financed and who leads prospective challengers easily in early polls.

‘Final Decision’

“It is with great reluctance that I have concluded not to be a candidate for the United States Senate,” Ferraro said. “This is a final and unequivocal decision.”

When Ferraro was chosen by former Vice President Walter F. Mondale to be his 1984 running mate, the 50-year-old, three-term congresswoman immediately gained national prominence.

But controversy quickly followed. There was widespread attention on her family’s finances. After an investigation by Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat, Ferraro’s husband, real estate broker John A. Zaccaro, pleaded guilty in January to a misdemeanor charge of scheming to defraud in a property transaction. Before that, Zaccaro had been criticized by court officials for his conduct as a conservator in handling the funds in estates.

The scrutiny also included questions about Ferraro’s first campaign for Congress in 1978. The Federal Election Commission ruled that family loans to her campaign were improper, and her annual reports to Congress from 1979 to 1984 did not detail her husband’s finances. The House Ethics Committee found that she had committed “technical violations” of the Ethics in Government Act for not disclosing her family’s finances fully.

The Justice Department’s investigation involves $130,000 in loans to Ferraro’s 1978 campaign from her husband and from accounts held in trust for their three children. The Federal Election Commission ruled the loans exceeded the federal ceiling of $1,000 for an individual contributor and fined Zaccaro and the Ferraro campaign $750 in penalties.

Ferraro’s decision left a number of potential challengers to D’Amato, including consumer activist Mark Green, American Stock Exchange President Arthur Levitt Jr. and John Dyson, former chairman of the New York State Power Authority.