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January 6, 2010
Feds: Councilwoman sold her vote 'for baubles and trinkets'
LoHud.com
by Timothy O'Connor and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
Forest City Ratner's Ridge Hill project appears to be at the center of a federal investigation into political corruption in Yonkers.
Former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi sold her vote “for baubles and trinkets,” federal investigators said today as Annabi and two connected political insiders were indicted on public corruption charges.
Annabi is accused of taking more than $160,000 in “secret payments” for casting the deciding council vote on two Yonkers development projects — the $630 million Ridge Hill development and the Longfellow development of two abandoned city schools.
Also indicted were former Yonkers GOP Chairman Zehy Jereis and political fixer Anthony Mangone, who U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said conspired with Annabi to accept bribes and no-show jobs in exchange for pushing the development deals through the city council.
“Rather than keep her word, she betrayed Yonkers residents by selling the most important assets any elected official has: her integrity and her independence,” Bharara said at a midday press conference at U.S. District Court in White Plains.
According to the indictment, Jereis was given a $60,000 consulting job in exchange for Annabi switching her vote and backing the Ridge Hill project on July 11, 2006 — the deciding vote.
...In the winter of 2008, at least five Yonkers council members received federal subpoenas demanding records and ordering them to testify before a federal grand jury in White Plains. Annabi, a councilwoman at the time, would not say whether she had also been subpoenaed.
The subpoenas covered a range of topics, from the long-disputed $630 million Ridge Hill development to the Longfellow project, a redevelopment plan involving two shuttered city schools; and increased water rates and higher fees for building and fire safety inspections.
...Proposed by Forest City Ratner, Ridge Hill faced opposition largely over the issue of traffic from neighborhood groups, the Westchester County Planning Board and the neighboring municipalities of Greenburgh, Hastings-on-Hudson and Ardsley.
The City Council attempted to get around the county's opposition, which would require a so-called supermajority, or five members of the seven-member council, by changing the law to require only a simple four-vote majority.
When that law was struck down in court, the Ridge Hill development appeared in peril, but in July 2006 Annabi dropped her opposition to the development, citing an agreement by Forest City Ratner to pay an additional $10 million in property taxes over three years.
Posted by eric at January 6, 2010 1:59 PM