So, another Forest City Ratner-allied politician is tagged as a criminal (though not yet convicted, of course). As the New York Times reported this morning, in Nassau County Executive Is Arrested in Bribery Scheme:
The Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, his wife and the supervisor of the Town of Oyster Bay were arrested and charged on Thursday with trading government contracts and official favors for free vacations, a $450,000 no-show job and other bribes.Here's the indictment. It has nothing to do with Forest City or the company's deal with Nassau County to renovate the Nassau Coliseum. But it does--for now--reinforce the suspicion that Mangano might not always be acting in the best interests of the public.
Mr. Mangano has been dogged by reports — many published in Newsday — that he and his family had vacationed in the Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos on trips that were paid for by Harendra Singh, a Long Island restaurateur who won a county contract to provide food to local officials in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
...A 19-page indictment released by federal prosecutors on Thursday outlines a bribery and kickback scheme stretching back to the beginning of 2010, when Mr. Mangano entered the county executive’s office after upsetting Thomas R. Suozzi, his Democratic predecessor, in the previous year’s election.
Newsday editorialized that Mangano and Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto should step down, since they can't do their jobs and also their defense. It added:
Long Island is so awash in conflicts of interest and outright stealing that it’s keeping the public corruption divisions of two of the largest U.S. attorney’s offices in the nation working overtime. Federal prosecutors looking into this nexus of political power, money and misbehavior already have convicted Suffolk Police Chief James Burke, Suffolk Conservative Party head Edward Walsh, Town of Oyster Bay Planning Commissioner Frederick Ippolito and State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
Comments
Post a Comment