Koch Admits Giving Inaccurate Information in Bess Myerson Case

Mayor Edward I. Koch, testifying against his one-time aide Bess Myerson at her alimony-fixing trial, admitted under defense questioning Tuesday that he gave inaccurate information to a federal prosecutor investigating the case.

However, Koch insisted that he answered “to the best of my recollection at the time,” when the prosecutor asked him in a 1987 deposition whether he had discussed Myerson’s situation with one of his top aides, special assistant Herbert P. Rickman.

Myerson, a former Miss America and the city’s former cultural affairs commissioner, is alleged to have put the daughter of a divorce judge on the city payroll in 1983, in an effort to influence the judge to lower the alimony payments required of Myerson’s companion, Carl A. Capasso.

Capasso and the former justice, Hortense W. Gabel, also are on trial.

Koch’s testimony contradicted both the account he gave the prosecutor earlier and Rickman’s testimony in the trial.

The mayor insisted Tuesday that he had first discussed Myerson’s hiring of the daughter with Rickman after the New York Daily News made it an issue in a 1986 story. In his interview with the prosecutor, Koch had said that his first conversation with Rickman on the subject occurred in 1987.

However, Rickman testified earlier this month that he had complained to Koch about the appearance of impropriety as early as 1983, after the issue was reported in the New York Post.