This blog is not affiliated or endorsed, by Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, subject to the New York Freedom
of Information Law, NY Pub Off Law Sec 84 et seq.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Tax Evasion is legal when
OPEN ON 1ST PALM SUNDAY, OTB RAKES IN $2M - NY ...
www.nydailynews.com/.../open-1st-palm-sunday-otb-rakes-2m-...
Daily News
Apr 14, 2003 - OPEN ON 1ST PALM SUNDAY, OTB RAKES IN $2M. BY Jerry Bossert ... Casey also said NYCOTB may open on Easter Sunday.
OTB FACES HAND SLAP OVER PALM - NY Daily News
www.nydailynews.com/.../otb-faces-hand-slap-palm-article-1.66...
Daily News
Apr 16, 2003 - ... OVER PALM. BY Jerry Bossert ... Aqueduct was also
closed on Palm Sunday, but OTB thrived on action from around the
country. "We are ...
Comments by openOTBonPalmSunday - The Daily Gazette
www.dailygazette.com/.../openOTBonPalmSunday/co...
The Daily Gazette
Feb 11, 2009 - From: OTB seeks to allow Palm Sunday betting ... By JERRY
BOSSERT DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER. Monday, April 14th 2003, 7:24AM.the right to work and/or bet without the Catholic Church imposing its religious preference upon non believers and infidels is abridged. The Feds launch an investigation of Andrew Cuomo son of the famous lawyer Mario Cuomo for closing Nassau OTB, a politician benefit corporation, on Roman Catholic Holy Days in preference to the same Greek Orthodox Holy Days observed on a different calendar day. If taxes are not paid in Greece why should they be paid in NY?
Nassau OTB employees and bettors need to be able to bet at Nassau OTB any day of the year that they wish just like the New York State Lottery and the New York Slot Machines.
No one lives forever and Nassau OTB may yet prove that it is no bettor than NYC OTB. Bankrupt.
At least NYC OTB opened the doors when bettors wanted to bet. Working for money, praying for money, evading taxes, all honest activities depending on your location?
HI-
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called
shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close
on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm
Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days,
even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a
Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some
irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re
not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of
Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm
Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the
Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or
not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday
alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and
Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New
York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5
million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Oyster Bay Commissioner of Planning
and Development Frederick Ippolito at an Oyster Bay Town Board meeting
on Feb. 3, 2015. Photo Credit: Newsday / Ted
Phillips
Town
of Oyster Bay building and planning Commissioner Frederick Ippolito was
charged Friday with six counts of income tax evasion after "willfully"
failing to report more than $2 million in consulting fees from a Nassau
paving company and a family trust, federal prosecutors said.
Ippolito, 76, of Syosset, pleaded not guilty in U.S.
District Court in Central Islip and was released on $20,000 bond. He
left the courthouse without comment. If convicted, he faces a maximum
sentence of 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each
count.
Ippolito allegedly failed to report income from Carlo
Lizza & Sons Paving Inc., of Old Bethpage -- a firm that has worked
for the town, Nassau County, the state and is on the competitive bid
list for New York City's Department of Design and Construction, records
show.
He also allegedly failed to report income from the Lizza
Family Trust. A woman answering the phone at the Lizza company Friday
said, "We don't have a comment" and hung up.
Town Supervisor John Venditto did not return repeated
requests for comment, but town spokeswoman Marta Kane said the town had
"no comment."
Ippolito appeared in court Friday afternoon. The commissioner, who has had poor health in recent months, walked with a cane.
Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson summarized the charges and asked Ippolito to enter his plea.
"I'm not guilty, your honor," Ippolito said.
The prosecution did not ask for a bond, but Tomlinson said
she was "not comfortable releasing him on his own recognizance" and set
an unsecured bond. Tomlinson ordered him to surrender his passport, if
he can find it, and not to leave the jurisdiction without special
permission. He is scheduled to return to court on April 8.
Ippolito was informed of the charges Thursday and
surrendered to federal officials at the IRS office in Bethpage early
Friday, said his Williston Park-based attorney, Anthony Capetola. "We're
going to vigorously defend the charges," Capetola said. He said he had
not discussed the charges with his client.
Capetola said the charges were not related to Ippolito's work with the town.
The charges resulted from an investigation by the criminal
division of the Internal Revenue Service, which found that from 2008 to
2013, Ippolito, "together with others," did not report income from the
paving company and family trust on tax returns, prosecutors said.
The indictment, announced by U.S. Attorney for the Eastern
District of New York Loretta E. Lynch, did not specify who else was
involved. It alleged that Ippolito evaded taxes by "willfully failing to
report it [income] on his personal tax returns" or on the returns of
"entities he controlled."
Those include CAI Associates Ltd., a consulting and
snow-removal business, of which Ippolito serves as president,
authorities said. The snow removal business, which operates under the
name National Snow Removal, has a contract with the Syosset Public
Library.
Unrelated case Last year a state appellate court upheld a lower-court
ruling that Ippolito was personally liable for back taxes owed by
Christiano's restaurant.
Ippolito worked as town building and planning commissioner
from 1978 to 1987. He then worked for Lizza & Sons, court records
show, before returning to the town in 2009. Town records show he was
paid $129,473 in 2013.
The U.S. Justice Department delivered a subpoena to the
town last year for Ippolito's financial disclosure form, sources said.
The subpoena did not seek any information relating to town planning
department business, they said. Federal officials have declined to
comment on the subpoena.
Last week, in an unrelated case, a state Department of
Transportation spokesman said Ippolito did not violate a state-issued
permit by storing boats on unpaved state property. That investigation
was prompted by complaints from Massapequa resident Robert Ripp, whom
the town prosecuted for storing his boat on unpaved property at his
home, a misdemeanor.
-- With Robert Kessler
OTB OPEN ON PALM SUNDAY | New York Post
nypost.com/2003/04/13/otb-open-on-palm-sunday/
New York Post
Apr 13, 2003 - For the first time in history, New York City Off-Track
Betting announced yesterday it plans to open today, Palm Sunday, to
accept wagers, ...
CORAL
GABLES, Fla. — He arrived a few minutes early — no entourage, just his
wife and daughter — and, sweating through a polo shirt in the hot
morning sun, settled quietly into the 14th row at the Church of the
Little Flower.
A
bit of a murmur, and the occasional “Morning, Governor,” passed through
the Spanish Renaissance-style church, with its manicured grounds and
towering palms, as worshipers recognized their most famous neighbor, Jeb Bush.
He held hands with the other worshipers during the Lord’s Prayer, sang
along to “I Am the Bread of Life” and knelt after receiving communion.
“It
gives me a serenity, and allows me to think clearer,” Mr. Bush said as
he exited the tile-roof church here on a recent Sunday, exchanging
greetings and, with the ease of a longtime politician, acquiescing to
the occasional photo. “It’s made me a better person.”
Twenty
years after Mr. Bush converted to Catholicism, the religion of his
wife, following a difficult and unsuccessful political campaign that had
put a strain on his marriage, his faith has become a central element of
the way he shapes his life and frames his views on public policy. And
now, as he explores a bid for the presidency, his religion has become a
focal point of early appeals to evangelical activists, who are
particularly important in a Republican primary that is often dominated
by religious voters.
Photo
Jeb Bush, then the governor
of Florida, praying before a cabinet meeting in 2000 in Tallahassee. “It
gives me a serenity, and allows me to think clearer,” he said of his
religion.Credit
Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
He differed from his church, significantly and openly, over capital punishment; the state executed 21 prisoners
on his watch, the most under any Florida governor since the death
penalty was reinstated in 1976. But he has won praise from Catholic
officials for his welcoming tone toward immigrants and his relatively
centrist positions on education — two issues in which he is at odds with
the right wing of his party.
“As
a public leader, one’s faith should guide you,” Mr. Bush said in Italy
in 2009, explaining his attitude about the relationship between religion
and politics at a conference associated with Communion and Liberation, a conservative Catholic lay movement.
“In
the United States, many people think you need to keep your faith, put
it in a security box, if you’re an elected official — put it in a safety
deposit box until you finish your service as a public servant and then
you can go get it back,” he added. “I never felt that was appropriate.”
“You hear people say, ‘I don’t want to impose my faith,’ ” Mr. Bush told the newspaper The Florida Catholic days after leaving office in 2007. “Well, it’s not an imposition of faith. It’s who you are.”
The
son and brother of Protestant presidents, Mr. Bush, if elected, would
be the nation’s second Catholic president. Sometimes, he carries a rosary in his pocket and fingers its beads at moments of crisis. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and has retweeted Pope Francis. He was part of the American delegation
to the installation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, and during his
travels in the United States he sometimes attends Mass in local
churches.
Mr. Bush is not the first Catholic in his family. His great-grandfather George Herbert Walker was a Jesuit-educated Roman Catholic who married a Presbyterian.
Jeb
Bush, who was baptized in the Episcopal Church, began his journey to
Catholicism inadvertently when, as a high school exchange student in
Mexico, he met and fell in love with Columba Garnica Gallo. She is a
committed Catholic, despite having felt poorly treated by other Catholics
when her parents divorced. When the Bushes married, in 1974 (he was 21,
and she was 20), it was at the Catholic student center at the
University of Texas.
“Jeb
did not express any particular interest in converting at the time, but
he was aware of her responsibility to share her faith with her
children,” said the Rev. Charles J. Brunick, a Paulist priest who
officiated at the couple’s wedding.
Jeb
and Columba Bush raised their three children as Catholics, and Mr. Bush
went to Mass with his family. “It played an important part in our
lives,” he said by email.
D.
Michael McCarron, who at the time was the executive director of the
Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, recalled seeing Mr. Bush with
his wife during a Mass in Tallahassee in the late 1980s, when Mr. Bush
was Florida’s secretary of commerce. “At the time he was not a Catholic,
and I was struck by the fact that he would not take communion, which is
appropriate, and I just observed him kneeling and praying,” Mr.
McCarron said.
In
1994, Mr. Bush ran unsuccessfully for governor, employing language that
some viewed as mean-spirited, in part because of a comment suggesting
that he did not see a role for government in helping African-Americans,
and in part because of an ad he ran criticizing the incumbent governor for what he said was slow action on executing the murderer of a 10-year-old.
After
his defeat, he acknowledged that his marriage was experiencing some
stress and said he was going to take some time to regroup. During that
period, he began the formal process of becoming a Catholic, taking
classes at Epiphany Parish in South Miami.
“His
knowledge of the Bible was better than mine, and I was a cradle
Catholic,” said Dolores D. Holler, who at the time was an active
Epiphany parishioner and was assigned to help Mr. Bush as a sponsor
during the conversion process. “On Sunday afternoons he rode a bike to
church to go to Mass, and when it got really hot, he’d say, ‘Dee, could
you take me home?’ and I’d say, ‘Yeah, throw the bike in the trunk.’ ”
Mr.
Bush was officially received into the Catholic Church at the Easter
vigil of 1995, making a profession of faith and being anointed with oil
before receiving communion for the first time as a Catholic.
“I
had decided to convert after my campaign for governor, win or lose,” he
wrote in a 2003 email to a second grader in Texas who was working on a
school project about famous American Catholics. “My wife is Catholic and
we always went to Mass, so she was my principal motivation.”
He
has also suggested that concerns about the Episcopal Church, which has
moved steadily to the left on social issues and liturgical matters,
played a role in his decision.
Photo
Pope Benedict XVI greeting
Mr. Bush in 2005 in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Mr. Bush
converted to Catholicism 20 years ago.Credit
L'Osservatore Romano, via Associated Press
“I
love the sacraments of the Catholic Church, the timeless nature of the
message of the Catholic Church, the fact that the Catholic Church
believes in, and acts on, absolute truth as its foundational principle
and doesn’t move with the tides of modern times, as my former religion
did,” he said in the speech in Italy in 2009. (Asked by email recently
what his concerns were, he said only: “I loved the absolute nature of
the Catholic Church. It resonated with me.”)
Mr. Bush’s second campaign for governor, in 1998, was characterized by modulated language; he trumpeted a newfound compassion, and won.
“His
campaign was still very conservative, but much more moderate in tone —
clearly, he had a different perspective,” said Matthew T. Corrigan, a
political scientist at the University of North Florida and the author of
a biography of Mr. Bush. “If you look at his policy positions, you can
see a strong connection to his new faith.”
As
governor, Mr. Bush turned to Catholic ritual at crucial moments. In
2004, he attended Mass in Pensacola after the area was hit by Hurricane
Ivan. In Tallahassee, he would at times join a group of state employees
who prayed the rosary on Mondays in a Capitol chapel, and he went to
Mass at Blessed Sacrament, a parish near the Governor’s Mansion.
“Initially,
we were surprised that he was Catholic,” said the Rev. John V.
O’Sullivan, who was the pastor of Blessed Sacrament during Mr. Bush’s
tenure as governor. “There was no standing on ceremony — he was very
open and friendly. And he seems to be devout.”
The
bishops who led Florida’s seven Catholic dioceses met annually with Mr.
Bush, often opening their gatherings with prayer. Each year, the
bishops would try to convince Mr. Bush that the death penalty should be
ended in Florida, and each year they failed.
Photo
Dolores D. Holler was assigned to help Mr. Bush as a sponsor during his conversion to Catholicism.Credit
Ty Wright for The New York Times
“Anybody
could see he was a devout Catholic — he was new to the Catholic faith
and took his faith seriously,” said Bishop John H. Ricard, who oversaw
the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese when Mr. Bush was governor. “He
approached the whole thing, especially the death penalty, with
seriousness and respect, but we just agreed we would disagree. We were
firm in our position, but I think he was sincere about his.”
At
one point, the bishops urged Mr. Bush to reject a plan to install wire
mesh screening around the cells of death row inmates to prevent them
from throwing objects; the bishops thought the measure was cruel. The
governor rejected their assessment.
“I
appreciate the Catholic Conference’s sincere commitment to advancing
public policy that complies with the teachings of our Lord,” the
governor wrote in an email to Bishop Robert N. Lynch of St. Petersburg.
“I hope you know that I try to do the same. When we seldom disagree, it
makes me very, very uncomfortable. Having said that, I will continue to
do what I think is right.”
Those
disputes notwithstanding, Mr. Bush has received praise from Catholic
leaders. Last year, he visited New York to help raise money for Catholic
schools, attended Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and won plaudits from
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, who interviewed Mr. Bush on his radio
program and then talked about him on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
“I
like Jeb Bush a lot,” Cardinal Dolan said in the television appearance.
“I especially appreciate the priority he gives to education and
immigration.”
Mr.
Bush is now courting Protestant leaders as well, presenting himself as a
man of faith who understands the concerns of religious voters. Last
spring, he hosted Russell Moore, a prominent Southern Baptist, in Coral
Gables, welcoming him to his office, having lunch with him, giving him a
tour and even driving him to the airport.
“He
talked quite openly about his own faith journey, and we talked about C.
S. Lewis, whose writings are significant in both of our lives,” Mr.
Moore said.
“Some
candidates feel that they have to talk about this, so they prep up to
do so, and then do so in an inauthentic and pandering sort of way,” he
added. “He seemed very confident in where he stands personally in terms
of his faith, and it was a very easy conversation for him.”
Correction: March 17, 2015
An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the religious
journey of former President George H.W. Bush. He was raised in the
Episcopal Church, and his wife, Barbara, was raised in the Presbyterian
Church; they were married in the Presbyterian Church, but have attended
Episcopal churches for decades. Mr. Bush did not join the Episcopal
Church of his wife.
Oyster Bay Commissioner of Planning
and Development Frederick Ippolito at an Oyster Bay Town Board meeting
on Feb. 3, 2015. Photo Credit: Newsday / Ted
Phillips
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