IntraLogic Solutions founder agrees to repay $50,000 in tax breaks after job cuts
Lee Mandel, CEO of IntraLogic Solutions Inc., shows some of his company's products, including facial recognition technology, on a trade show module at IntraLogic Solutions in Massapequa in 2018. Credit: Barry Sloan
The founder of a security company that helped protect dozens of local schools and government buildings will repay $50,000 in tax breaks because of employment promises not being kept in recent years.
Lee Mandel, who started IntraLogic Solutions in 2004, has reached a settlement with the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency, which awarded the tax aid a dozen years ago.
Through his attorney and a spokesman, Mandel said he sold a controlling interest in IntraLogic to a private equity firm in July 2019 and was terminated two years later. He said he played no role in the rounds of layoffs that led the IDA to recapture the tax incentives.
Mandel, according to his representatives, agreed to repay some of what is owed in return for the title on 511 Ocean Ave. in Massapequa, which he owns and was IntraLogic’s headquarters until September 2023. The building title has been held by the IDA since the tax breaks were awarded.
“Under [Mandel’s] leadership, IntraLogic grew steadily to become one of the largest and most respected providers of school security technology on Long Island and in New York State,” Bill Corbett, a spokesman for Mandel, said in a statement sent to Newsday. “After his termination Mr. Mandel was no longer involved in any way with the company, owners or clients.”
State records show IntraLogic promised to employ a minimum of 46 workers in each year that it received tax aid. The company exceeded that number except in 2022, 2023 and 2024, when the number of employees fell from 59 to zero.
As a result, IntraLogic must pay back more than $237,700 in property-tax savings, $16,720 in mortgage-recording tax savings and $23,188 in sales-tax exemption on the purchase of construction materials and furnishings. The latter will be fully covered by Mandel, who also has agreed to pay a total of $26,812 toward the other types of tax breaks, according to documents obtained by Newsday under the state's Freedom of Information Law.
More than $227,000 still owed
The IDA board unanimously accepted the settlement at its November meeting. The agency is now pursuing repayment of the remaining recapture amount of more than $227,000.
“Discussions pertaining to the IntraLogic Solutions claw back are ongoing,” Sheldon L. Shrenkel, the IDA’s chief executive, told Newsday on Thursday. “The agency is working to resolve this situation in a way that is in the best interest of the county and its taxpayers.”
Post Capital Partners, the Manhattan-based investment firm that has controlled IntraLogic for the past six years, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
IntraLogic isn’t listed on Post Capital’s website as a current or former investment.
However, IntraLogic’s telephone number is now answered by employees of Lifeline Technologies, which is listed as a Post Capital investment. When a Newsday reporter called the number on Wednesday, he was told by a Lifeline employee that IntraLogic “is no longer in business.”
Growth fueled by school shootings
IntraLogic grew rapidly as schools and local governments responded to mass shootings in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
IntraLogic supplied one-button lockdown systems for emergencies, such as an active shooter, and video cameras. The technology connected schools with police departments. In 2021, Mandel told Newsday that 80% of the company’s customers were school districts.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, IntraLogic developed an app to track the cleaning and disinfecting of school buildings and a temperature-taking device that was attached to building walls and buses for contactless identification of people who were ill, he said.
Besides Long Island, IntraLogic had operations in Albany and south Florida.
Michael Pfeffer, co-founder and managing partner of Post Capital, said in 2019 that IntraLogic was an attractive investment because its “advanced technology and software” had allowed the company “to grow quickly over the years and to fulfill a large security void” in schools and governments.
James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.
