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March 1, 2012
Yonkers Corruption Trial Puts Forest City Ratner in the
NYMag.com
by Norman Oder
Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder takes a guest turn with New York Magazine's Daily Intel.
In May 2006, Forest City Ratner had four out of seven votes on the Yonkers City Council, but it needed a fifth to overcome an objection by the county planning board. (Project supporters on the council actually overturned the supermajority requirement, only to have a judge reinstate it in a lawsuit led by Annabi.) Despite having hired two of Westchester’s most-wired lobbyists — Al Pirro, a lawyer who saw his license suspended after a felony conviction and who is married to Jeanine Pirro (then the Westchester DA), and ex-Assemblyman Mike Spano, the brother of State Senator Nick Spano — Forest City couldn’t get a yes vote from Annabi, who had claimed the developer was “robbing the city blind." According to testimony given in the Yonkers trial, it couldn’t even get a meeting with her.
Bruce Bender, until recently Forest City’s top government-relations executive, dialed Annabi at her office at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Yonkers, where she hung up on him. Bender, former chief of staff to City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, played a crucial role in getting Atlantic Yards built for Forest City despite vociferous neighborhood opposition, and was taped by the FBI in a profanity-laced conversation with then state Sen. Carl Kruger, who later pleaded guilty to corruption charges.
At one point, Bender expressed his frustration with Mike Spano, who is now the mayor of Yonkers. "No fucking around. Get Sandy on board. Tell your brother [State Senator Nick Spano] we need help now,” he wrote in a September 2005 email that was later introduced as evidence.
Posted by eric at March 1, 2012 8:33 PM