After growing up poor in Puerto Rico and the South Bronx, he earned a law degree, founded Soundview and launched a successful political career as a Democrat with a reputation as a bold manipulator of Albany's old-boy power structure. While still in the Senate in 2010, Espada was arrested on federal charges that he stole more than $500,000 to pay for lobster dinners, vacations and pony rides at a granddaughter's birthday party while letting Soundview's clinics go into decline. A jury convicted Espada last year on four counts in the embezzlement case but deadlocked on four others.