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January 8, 2010
Projects drew players, federal scrutiny
The Journal News [LoHud.com]
By Timothy O'Connor and Jonathan Bandler
More on the brewing scandal in Yonkers, involving a politician who received favors in exchange for her key vote to approve Forest City Ratner's Ridge Hill project:
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Wednesday in announcing the indictments that the investigation was continuing.
One politician who didn't cave to pressure from Forest City Ratner is now talking to the media:
Just hours before Annabi would formally change her vote and approve the project, Jereis and a representative of the developer, Forest City Ratner, met with Councilman John Murtagh.
Jereis, a former Yonkers GOP chairman, spent most of the 45-minute meeting trying to get Murtagh to support the project. Murtagh said Jereis told him it would be good for him politically to join Annabi and switch sides.
"The entire conversation at that point was 'bizarro world,' " Murtagh said Thursday on Journal News columnist Phil Reisman's WVOX radio program. "He's politically astute, and for him to look at me with a straight face and say that suddenly switching my vote and my opposition to this project was, quote, good for me politically, you'd have to be a fool to believe."
...
Murtagh said Thursday that he was offered nothing to change his vote. In fact, he said, no efforts by anyone, including Pirro, Mike Spano, and representatives of the Ridge Hill developer, involved anything "untoward."Still, he said, he has a feeling there are more indictments to come in the case.
Posted by lumi at January 8, 2010 5:35 AM