It appears that way.

Gillibrand was a hot shot NYC lawyer for many years.  Her firm was Boies, Schiller & Flexner.  In a nutshell, they are damned good lawyers.

Now we had elections in November but something happened on December 23, 2008.  What was it?  Oh, $50,000 was shuttled over to David Paterson through Boies in his name and his son's name. 

It looks like this Senate seat was bought.  Paterson is the new Blagovich.