State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son this week were indicted on federal corruption charges. Photo Courtesy of Judy Sanders/Office of the Governor.
As of this past Monday, two of Albany’s so-called “Three Men in a Room” are now under federal indictment for public corruption.
State Senate Majority Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) and his son, Adam, surrendered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday morning on charges that they extorted those with business before the state to make payments to Adam, with the expectation that such payments would result in official action by his father.
The Skelos’s were also charged with bribery and honest services fraud schemes. Dean Skelos, 67, is accused, among other counts, of illegally obtaining a $20,000 payment for his son from a large real estate developer dependent on the Majority Leader for tax breaks, and a $10,000 monthly payment from an environmental technology company seeking government-funded contracts in New York.
According to the complaint, Dean Skelos obtained over $200,000 in payments to Adam, 32, through “persistent and repeated” pressure applied to a senior executive of a major real estate developer who is cooperating with the government. In response to this pressure, it was arranged so that the developer would pay $20,000 to Adam and further arranged for an environmental technology company in which the developer owned stakes to make $10,000 monthly payments to Adam. These payments were arranged, the complaint states, due to the developer’s “substantial dependence” on Dean Skelos for real estate tax abatements and other real estate legislation favorable to the developer, and based in part on a statement from Dean Skelos that he would punish those in the real estate industry who defied him. In return for the payments to Adam, and to ensure that they would continue, Dean Skelos took numerous official actions to benefit both the developer and the environmental technology company, including promoting state legislation beneficial to the companies.
“By now, two things should be abundantly clear. First, public corruption is a deep-seated problem in New York State. It is a problem in both chambers; it is a problem on both sides of the aisle. And second, we are deadly serious about tackling that problem,” said Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office went on to note that after former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) was arrested on corruption charges in January, and reports surfaced that Dean Skelos was now in Bharara’s crosshairs, the Skelos’s became more cautious in pursuit of the environmental technology company’s legislative goals. Adam allegedly obtained a non-traceable “burner phone” to use for speaking about his father’s progress in obtaining legislative benefits for the company. Dean Skelos also allegedly cancelled a meeting his son had arranged in furtherance of the scheme, commenting in an intercepted phone call that “right now we are in dangerous times Adam.”
Dean and Adam Skelos were each charged with three counts of extortion under color of official right, two counts of soliciting bribes in connection with a federal program, and one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. The extortion and honest services counts carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and the soliciting bribes counts carry a maximum of 10 years.
By Michael V. Cusenza michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
