We don’t need a verdict in the trial of former state Senate Majority Leader Dean and his son, Adam, to know what a wide swath of corruption they blazed through the state of New York and Nassau County.
Witness testimony and recorded conversation obtained under federal wiretaps tell us all we need to know about Skelos’ efforts to “monetize” his power.
Those efforts included Dean Skelos’ efforts to get Roslyn-based Physicians Reciprocal Insurance, New Hyde Park-based Glendale Management and AbTech Industries to get his son Adam work and then use his clout to help AbTech win $12 million in business from Nassau County.
Left unanswered though is how the Rockville Centre Republican and his son could feel so free to brazenly demand favors from the two North Shore companies and the county. The Skelos’ were not exactly cat burglars.
About a week after Adam Skelos began working for Physicians Reciprocal as a salesperson in 2013 at salary of $78,000 a year despite having no license to sell insurance, his supervisor wanted to know when he’d start showing up to the office.
Skelos’ response? He told his supervisor he would “smash your (expletive) head in,” that his supervisor would “never amount to anything” and that “guys like” him “couldn’t shine my shoes,” according to trial testimony and the indictments against Skelos.
Anthony Bonomo, a politically connected Manhasset resident who heads Physicians Reciprocal and until the scandal surfaced was chairman of the New York Racing Authority, testified he went along with this behavior because he didn’t want a “have a problem with Albany,” which he said had life and death power over his company.
Bonomo did reach out to one his lobbyists — former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, a longtime friend of Skelos and fellow Republican from the Town of Hempstead who once received a $500,000 fee for a single phone call — for help.
The testimony from Glenwood Management, whose executives also testified in the trial of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was convicted on seven counts last week, was no different.
Like Physicians Reciprocal, Glenwood Management executives were no newcomers to how Albany works as perhaps the largest contributor to both Democrats and Republicans in the state, presumably made to better educate our elected officials on legislation involving tax breaks and rent control crucial to the company’s operation.
Skelos — at the time one of the three most powerful officials in state government — also showed little concern for how well Nassau County government was doing its job.
“We try do whatever we can to help the county,” Skelos told state Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset) in a record conversation played at the trial, according to the report in Newsday. “Most of it turns to [expletive] because they don’t know what the [expletive] they’re doing there.”
This did not prevent Skelos from supporting AbTech’s successful bid for a $12 million storm water cleanup project with Nassau County that would benefit his son.
AbTech executive Bjornulf White testified he thought Sen. Skelos would kill his project if at one point Adam Skelos wasn’t given a substantial raise.
White testified the senator had a “close relationship” with Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and that Adam Skelos texted frequently with Mangano’s top aide, First Deputy County Executive Rob Walker.
The jury in the Skelos trial may be rendering their verdict on the bribery and corruption charges against Dean and Adam Skelos in the week or so.
But more answers are needed as to how the Skelos’ behavior — legal or not — could be tolerated in Nassau County.
For starters, what did Mangano and his deputies as well as other Republican state senators know, when did they know it and what, if anything, did they do about it.
