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February 24, 2012
Official: Annabi meeting led to job
The Journal News
by Jonathan Bandler
The meeting Jereis arranged got Annabi to switch her vote and eventually led the company to give Jereis a $60,000 consulting contract, a Forest City Ratner official testified Thursday in the federal corruption trial of Annabi and Jereis.
Scott Cantone, senior vice president for government and public relations, said officials were worried about how hiring Jereis would look so soon after the deciding vote and were concerned about what he could actually do for them.
But still they gave him the job, which, as it turned out, he was not very proficient. Jereis didn’t provide any good leads for new retail development and only filed the reports they required of him months later after it was publicly revealed he was under investigation, Cantone said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Halperin asked the executive what the company had gotten from Jereis.
“Aside from providing access to Sandy Annabi, nothing at all,” Cantone replied.
NoLandGrab: In which case, they got everything they expected — and needed.
Related coverage...
NY Post, ‘No-$how’ Ratner woe
An executive for one of New York City’s top developers testified yesterday that the firm handed a Yonkers political crony what amounted to a $5,000-a-month no-show job.
Some people might call that a "$5,000-a-month bribe."
Forest City Ratner – whose Big Apple projects include Brooklyn’s controversial Atlantic Yards development – hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing but is featured in the fed’s ongoing Yonkers corruption case.
Scott Cantone, FCR’s senior VP for government affairs, testified in Manhattan federal court that the firm hired then-Yonkers Republican Party chairman Zehy Jereis as a “consultant” in 2006 because Jereis was the only one who could swing a key vote their way to push through a stalled $650 million mixed-use development called “Ridge Hill.”
The Real Deal, Forest City Ratner testifies it paid political insider to swing vote on Westchester development
Though Forest City Ratner is not charged with any wrongdoing, this marks the second recent corruption case, after the Sen. Carl Kruger trial in December, in which the developer has been named.
Posted by eric at February 24, 2012 10:28 AM