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March 16, 2011
Prospect Park group rage at 'Kruger' exec
NY Post
by Rich Calder and Dan Mangan
When you put people who have unsavory connections on your board, this is what happens.
Thanks for nothing.
A top Atlantic Yards executive who requested state funds for Prospect Park's skating rink from embattled state Sen. Carl Kruger was never asked to do so by the park's fund-raising group -- and now park advocates are furious at being linked to the corruption scandal, sources told The Post.
"He has dragged our name through the mud," fumed a Prospect Park Alliance source about Forest City Ratner Vice President Bruce Bender, whose conversation with Kruger was featured in a federal criminal complaint against the Brooklyn Democrat.
FBI wiretaps captured Bender asking Kruger for $11 million in state funds for two Ratner projects in Brooklyn -- a Mill Basin development, and the massive arena and high-rise project downtown -- as well as $4 million to renovate Prospect Park's skating rink.
While the rink was not a project of the development company headed by Bender's boss, Bruce Ratner, Bender's wife is a Prospect Park Alliance board member, and the couple live near the park.
Posted by eric at March 16, 2011 11:22 AM