Several years too late, the New York state Comptroller's Office has banned "placement agents" from sucking at the teat of the huge state pension fund.

The burgeoning scandal of pay-for-play during the previous administration of Alan Hevesi ("Murdoch smells a Rattner," "Hedge-fund thief of public pension money pleads guilty") has prompted his fellow Democrat and successor Tom DiNapoli to take this action.

And now N.Y Attorney General Andy Cuomo, already wallowing in an embarrassment of riches that will surely propel him to higher office, is extending his probe to investments by New York City's pension funds.

However, in this new probe, the city's comptroller, Bill Thompson, is no Alan Hevesi — or not that we know of. Thompson has asked Cuomo to investigate. (As if Cuomo wouldn't have knocked on his intraparty rival Thompson's door at some point anyway.)

Just today, Thompson is calling for a ban on the use of placement agents with the city's pension funds.

Cuomo's office released a statement saying "we applaud" Thompson. Cuomo then crossed off fellow Democrat Thompson from his list of investigation targets.

As the few surviving Democratic officials not involved in current scandals are congratulating one another, they're closing barn doors all over the place. But there's still a bad smell emanating from these makeshift vaults of public money.

Once again this week, my colleague Tom Robbins plunges into the widening scandal. This time he's focusing on "The Torch," former Jersey senator Bob Torricelli, one of the more notorious members of the Democratic Party.

Yes, Torricelli's name is surfacing in the pension-fund scandal. Hold on a minute: No charges, so don't get all excited.

In all these cases, except for some minor players, all suspects are expected to seek pricey legal advice and maintain their innocence until they're proven guilty and then probably afterward, on advice from those lawyers.