Reopen the Case
Harendra Singh’s colorful testimony in a Long Island corruption trial makes it all the more amazing that Mayor de Blasio and his minions escaped prosecution in their own pay-to-play scandals. When Singh talked of using illegal straw donors to send cash where the mayor wanted it to go, for example, he says de Blasio told him, “I really do not want to hear. Just get it done.”
And, on a similar occasion, “Do whatever you gotta do, but I don’t want to know.”
Singh, a prosecution witness in the federal case against former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, has already pleaded guilty to bribing de Blasio.
Oh, and the mayor’s own Department of Investigation has detailed “unprecedented” measures City Hall took on Singh’s behalf, including having top aides order agency officials to “resolve the matter” because Singh was “a friend of the mayor.”
Singh’s lobbyist, Neal Kwatra, reportedly dismissed one administration offer by declaring: “This is not good. I guess you didn’t get the memo from City Hall.”
And Ricardo Morales, a 22-year city employee who won an ethics award, is suing the city saying he was fired for getting in the way of favors Team de Blasio insisted on bestowing on Singh and other donors.
For that matter, de Blasio donor Jona Rechnitz has also testified in detail about how bribed the mayor. (“Whenever we would call” for a favor, he said, “we were getting the response that we expected.”)
Blas won’t even address any of Rechnitz’s specific claims. For example, on whether he personally phoned the donor to request a $102,000 contribution, Hizzoner doesn’t deny making the call, but says only, “I don’t recall if I talked to him directly about that.”
In declining to press charges against the mayor, then-Acting US Attorney Joon Kim said de Blasio’s behavior was “contrary to the intent and spirit of the laws” — but there wasn’t enough quid-pro-quo evidence to convict him under the high standard set by the Supreme Court in its McDonnell decision.
Maybe new US Attorney Geoffrey Berman should take a look at making the case.