139 liberty avenue mineola ny
State ethics panel fights disclosure of whether it probed Percoco or teresa butlers boss or whether al d'amato and park strategies did anything for nassau otb going back years and years. ed cox has started a party!? he must have eaten at mr singh's?
| POCO LOCO, The Best In Mexican Cuisine, Opens At The CARLE PLACE Branch | ||
| Date: 05/04/2013 Time: 11:30 AM - 11:00 PM | Description: Nassau OTB is happy to announce the opening of a new restaurant - Poco Loco - at the Carle Place OTB branch located at 180 Glen Cove Road in the front corner of the Voice Road Plaza. Opening day of the Mexican eatery is scheduled for May 4, just in time for Cinco de Mayo! Poco Loco is the sister location of the popular Poco Loco Mexican Restaurant in Roslyn, where every day is Cinco de Mayo. Poco Loco is known for many years of excellence as a casual Mexican restaurant offering traditional Mexican fare at reasonable prices. Look for some new smokehouse items on the menu at the Carle Place location! Poco Loco's hours of operation in Carle Place will be Mon.-Thurs. 11:30am to 10pm, Friday-Saturday from 11:30am to 11pm, and on Sundays from 11:30am to 9pm. | |
The state GOP filed a lawsuit seeking to force the group to disclose whether its 14-member panel voted to launch an inquiry.
Joseph Percoco, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's former top aide, leaves a federal courthouse in Manhattan after his conviction on corruption charges on March 13. Photo Credit: Charles Eckert
Butler v. Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation et al(be sure to challenge the protective order. in mexico they dissolve evidence in acid. we just say protected. a matter of style?
Nassau GOP chair intends to collect fat paychecks for 3 jobs
On the heels of pay-to-play corruption scandals that have tarnished the Long Island GOP, the Nassau County Republic Party has elected a one-time disbarred lawyer to be its new leader — and the retirement-age politico intends to collect fat paychecks from three different jobs simultaneously.
Joseph Cairo, 72, the new chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party, is also head of the Nassau County Off-Track Betting Corporation. He’s paid $198,000 at OTB.
The long-time No. 2 to former Nassau GOP boss Joe Mondello had his law license yanked in the 1990s for misusing client funds. His license was reinstated and the politically-connected lawyer now has an established law practice, GOP sources said.
He also has not ruled out collecting a third paycheck from the Nassau GOP.
Mondello, his predecessor, made more than $250,000 last year as GOP boss, and pulled in $1.5 million from his private law practice and real estate investments, records filed with the government show.
At one time, Mondello also simultaneously headed the Nassau GOP and OTB.
Cairo’s law office is in Valley Stream, his OTB’s corporate office is in Mineola and Nassau GOP headquarters is in Westbury.
A Post reporter found him at GOP headquarters.
Cairo said he was not relinquishing his OTB executive job or suspending his law practice after taking the reins of the GOP.
“I’ve been at OTB. This is a crucial time at OTB with possibly sports gambling coming so we’re deeply involved with that there now,” Cairo said.
“This is a political position. My attorneys tell me there is no conflict and I think having a position in a political party is such that it’s been done in the past by people on both sides of the aisle. And I think it’s currently done, too, in some other counties — their elected officials are also party chairmen,” he said.
But watchdogs have long complained that allowing people to simultaneously hold top positions in government and party leadership opens the door to conflicts of interests and potential corruption.
“It’s business as usual. This is an example of the rotten political system in Nassau County,” said George Marlin, who formerly served on the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, a state agency set up to monitor the county’s shaky finances.
Marlin said the multiple paid gigs for Cairo is remarkable, especially after the Nassau Republicans lost the county executive’s race and the Town of Hempstead supervisor’s race last year amid concerns over corruption.
“They’ve learned nothing,” Marlin said. “They don’t care.”
Cairo chalked up the suspension of his law license to a mistake from the distant past.
“I think that’s something that happened — it was earlier than ‘95, that’s 25 years ago, and I think people who know me know the type of person I am,” he said.
With that, Cairo grabbed a suit jacket from a parked black Cadillac before jumping into the passenger seat of a Jaguar driven by a friend.
Cairo is right about one thing. On Long Island particularly, politicians simultaneously collecting hefty paychecks from top government and political party posts is a time-honored tradition.
The Post reported last week that Rich Schaffer is drawing down a combined $350,000 from three paychecks as head of the Suffolk County Democratic Party, as the full-time Town of Babylon Supervisor and from a law practice that includes representing plumbing contractors.
But Long Island Democrats have their scandals, too.
Gerard Terry, the former North Hempstead Democratic Party chairman, was convicted of tax evasion for failing to report his income that included payments from legal services provided to eight different local government agencies.
New Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat who won the election on anti-corruption platform last year, passed executive orders barring county government officials from holding party positions or from accepting gifts.
New York City has a law that bars top government officials from serving as party bosses, following the municipal corruption scandals of the 1980s.
By Yancey Royyancey.roy@newsday.com @yanceyroy
ALBANY — In a courtroom Friday, the state ethics commission will argue it doesn’t have to reveal if it ever investigated whether Joseph Percoco, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s former top aide, broke laws meant to prevent government offices from being used to run campaigns.
At issue is telephone and swipe-card evidence presented at Percoco’s bribery trial earlier this year showing he used the executive chamber’s Manhattan office at least 68 times from May to December 2014 when he was running the governor’s campaign and was not on state payroll.
Following the trial — in which Percoco was convicted and sentenced to 6 years in federal prison — Republicans filed an ethics complaint in February against Cuomo’s former aide, saying his use of government offices for a campaign violated the state’s public officers’ law. The Cuomo administration never disputed the evidence but contended Percoco used the offices while working on “transition” matters.
It is unclear whether the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics ever pursued the matter.
State Republican chairman Ed Cox filed a lawsuit seeking to force JCOPE to disclose whether its 14-member panel voted to launch an inquiry. Cox and other critics have said in the past the panel lacks independence from the governor.
Cox noted that state law dictates the panel must vote within 60 days of receiving a sworn complaint whether to pursue it.
The case is set to return to State Supreme Court in Albany on Friday, where the commission will ask the court to dismiss Cox’s lawsuit, contending that forcing it to divulge its actions or lack thereof would undermine it.
“If granted,” Cox’s request “would pose a severe and ill-advised threat to the proper administration and functioning of the commission,” Monica Stamm, counsel for the commission and a former deputy to Cuomo when he was state attorney general, wrote to the court. She said such disclosure would violate confidentiality laws governing the commission.
Stamm also argued that Cox’s complaint relies on media reports rather than “firsthand knowledge” of Percoco’s possible ethics violations.
Cox, in a statement, said the panel was “burying” Percoco’s “clear violations” of state law. He added JCOPE has “offered no credible explanation for the failure to act” on his complaint.
New York’s public officers’ law prohibits state employees from using the “property, services or other resources of the state for private business.” A 1990s opinion from the state ethics commission said that effectively means election campaigns cannot use state resources.
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