Contractors, city deputy in $250M scam
A QUEENS construction magnate who has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns across the state made illegal straw donations to Mayor de Blasio and other candidates during the 2013 election to gain political favor, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Husam Ahmad, whose deep pockets have helped fill the war chests of de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo and dozens of other elected officials, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court for making false statements about the contributions.
He was also charged for his role in a massive corruption and bribery scheme that involved paying off a midlevel city official for inside information on government contracts.
Ahmad — who started the firm HAKS Engineers in 1991 — leaned on his employees to make political contributions at fund-raising luncheons at the company’s 40 Wall St. office, prosecutors said. The soirees were held for 2013 mayoral hopefuls De Blasio, Joe Lhota and William Thompson.
A administrative assistant would keep tabs on the employees’ donations, then Ahmad and his brother, HAKS Chief Financial Officer Shahid Akhtar, would reimburse them with year-end bonuses, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Federal and state laws prohibit an individual from reimbursing a donor for their contributions.
“HAKS sought to maximize its political influence, hoping if that, it facilitated big donations to various candidates, this would lead to the eventual reward of prized public contracts,” DA Cy Vance Jr. said.
Akhtar was charged with making bogus contributions as well.
David Henley — a former NYC Transit executive who co-sponsored an April 9, 2013, fund-raiser at HAKS for then-mayoral contender Lhota — was also accused of lying about an $868 in-kind contribution he made to cover food and beverages. Prosecutors said Ahmad’s wife reimbursed him for the expense.
Campaign records show Ahmad’s family and employees have donated at least $58,975 to de Blasio's mayoral campaigns. Ahmad bundled $6,400 of those contributions. His wife, Uzma, donated a total of $13,450 to de Blasio’s mayoral campaigns.
De Blasio passed through HAKS headquarters on Oct. 7, 2013, a month before the election, sources said. Records show HAKS employees donated $9,700 to him that day.
Ahmad and his wife — who live in Forest Hills — have donated more than $200,000 to Cuomo.
Ahmad’s lawyer, Howard Rubin, declined comment. Akhtar’s attorney, Alex Spiro, denied the allegations against his client.
The indictment against Ahmad was another black eye for de Blasio, who was once the target of pay-toplay probes by state and federal investigators.
Those probes ended in March 2017 with no charges against the mayor. However, dirty donors have continued to dog him. A CROOKED middle manager at the city’s Department of Environmental Protection gave a greedy group of engineering firms inside information to score more than $250 million in contracts, the Manhattan district attorney said Wednesday. DA Cy Vance Jr. outlined how a two-year investigation rooted out the agency mole and uncovered a decade-long bribery scheme that involved dirty contractors and a corrupted competitive bidding process. The alleged confederate was Ifeanyi (Manny) Madu, a 26-year veteran of the DEP who worked as project manager and assistant deputy director. Madu (bottom), his wife and well-dressed executives from six engineering firms were hauled into Manhattan Criminal Court and arraigned on bribery, corruption and fraud charges. “The scheme was designed to give these companies an illegal advantage over others in the procurement process in order to win coveted city contracts,” said Vance. The construction bosses — from the firms HAKS, D&B Engineers and Architects, SIMCO Engineering, Haider Engineering, Black and Veatch, and CB&I/Shaw Environmental — relied on Madu to tip them off about upcoming water infrastructure projects. From 2006 to at least 2016, Madu forwarded his DEP emails to a personal account. Those emails contained confidential information about the scope of projects, cost estimates and schedule s for upcoming contracts. Then he passed along the intel to HAKS and the other construction firms to aid in their bidding on the projects, prosecutors said. “They were able to give more robust proposals,” prosecutor Diana Florence said at the arraignment. In return, Madu was showered with Broadway tickets, luxury hotel stays and expensive dinners. The construction executives also paid $7.5 million to firms controlled by Madu or his families to act as subcontractors, prosecutors said. Madu, who lives in a modest home in Massapequa, L.I., was held on $50,000 bond. His wife, Joyce Harvey-Madu, was held on $25,000 bond. Todd Spodek, a lawyer representing one of the accused executives, Syed Haider, said the information his client received was not confidential. Additional reporting by Edgar Sandoval