Friend Sought in Slaying of N.Y. Politician

Police pressed their search Saturday for a retired prison officer that they suspect may have killed former state Sen. Vander Beatty, apparently in a rage over losing a child support dispute.

Beatty, 49, was killed Thursday by a gunman who strode into his Brooklyn campaign office and shot him almost point-blank, then drove off in a car that was found stalled and abandoned three blocks away.

Police Sgt. Tina Mohrmann said police want to question the car’s owner, Arthur Flournoy, 51, of Brooklyn, a city Correction Department employee for 22 years until he retired as a captain in 1986.

Flournoy and Beatty had been friends for 30 years, since college.

“We are leaving no stone unturned,” Mohrmann said. She refused to comment on reports that the Brooklyn apartment of Flournoy’s girlfriend has been searched.

Authorities said Flournoy wanted to decrease his child support payments to his former wife, and hired attorney Harry Pollak for that purpose on the advice of Beatty.

Pollak told police he appeared in state Supreme Court on Thursday morning with Flournoy to move for reducing aid to his two teen-age children. The judge denied the motion and an angry Flournoy assaulted Pollak in the elevator, then walked away, the lawyer said.

Beatty was shot about 45 minutes later, police said.

Barbara Flournoy told authorities she had not heard from her ex-husband since he disappeared. Police were said to have searched Flournoy’s home and that of a girlfriend.

Police have yet to find the murder weapon, Mohrmann said.

“He seemed a strange person,” Pollak reportedly said of Flournoy. “His attitude was not good. He punched me. Before yesterday’s (Thursday’s) thing, I told him I was going to withdraw from the case.”

Beatty was running for a political committee chairmanship and authorities said Flournoy appeared at his campaign headquarters several times.

Once an outspoken advocate for the black community and a political powerbroker, Beatty left the Senate in 1982 for an unsuccessful congressional campaign that included a scam to create the appearance of voter registration fraud by Major R. Owens, his successful opponent.

Beatty was released from prison five years ago after serving a 31-month sentence on tax-evasion, racketeering and election-fraud charges.