You may have heard about New York Republican operative Roger Stone, who has been accused of placing an obscene, threatening phone call to Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer's 83-year old father. Stone is not only denying he placed the call, but has gone one step further by accusing Spitzer operatives of illegally entering his home to hijack his phone, using audio samples of his voice from TV appearances so that they could fake the phone call in order to make him look bad.

As it turns out, the chairman of the state Senate Investigations Committee informed TPMmuckraker that he will not be investigating Stone's various allegations. "Any alleged phone call would be more appropriately investigated by a law enforcement office as a potential harassment charge," said Republican state Senator George Winner, who has been spearheading other probes against the governor. "But this committee has no jurisdiction, really, or interest in that."

So does Senator Winner think Stone's accusation might be true?

"I have no idea about that. Mr. Stone and I have no involvement with one another. He is not involved with any activities of the Senate Investigations Committee," said Winner, adding that he only ever met Stone once, at a luncheon that also hosted a lot of other Republicans.

Winner did, however, recommend that people check out SpoofCard.com, a Web site that allows someone to fake a Call ID number and even disguise their voice — a sight that is currently the target of investigations by a different state Senate committee and Democratic state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

While Winner seems to be allowing for the hypothetical possibility that a call can be faked, on the other hand he's not taking any role in investigating the accusation, and he's definitely saying it was a good idea for Joe Bruno to let Stone go. "If he made that call, it was an improper action on his part, and I'm glad that Senator Bruno has terminated his relationship with the campaign committee as a consultant," Winner said. "I don't know whether it's true or isn't true, but I'm glad his services are no longer being utilized by us, because it's something of a distraction."

"The whole thing is very bizarre. I can't understand what advantage it would for anybody to make the call, and I can't understand what advantage there would be to direct anyone to make the call," Winner said. "I mean, what advantage would anyone have to make a harassing phone call to an 83 year old man?"