Neville Mullings surrenders to serve time in New Cassel scandal
Neville Mullings, the former head of the North Hempstead Community Development Agency, surrendered on Wednesday, July 19, 2017, in Mineola, to begin serving a 9-month jail term for conspiracy and official misconduct. Credit: Howard Schnapp
The third member of a trio of government officials convicted in a scheme to steer an $80 million New Cassel redevelopment project to a favored developer surrendered Wednesday to start his jail term.
Neville Mullings, 76, of Westbury will serve a 9-month sentence in Nassau County’s jail following his 2012 conspiracy and official misconduct convictions.
He formerly headed the North Hempstead Community Development Agency.
The sentence a judge meted out in 2014 had been stayed during the appellate process. But New York’s highest court recently declined to hear Mullings’ appeal after a lower appellate court in January upheld his conviction and those of former Democratic Nassau County Legis. Roger Corbin and Patrick Williams.
In 2012, a Nassau jury convicted the trio on charges stemming from a 2010 indictment that said they steered a project — that later failed — to a developer willing to “pay to play,” sold false exclusivity rights to a bank, and stole $150,000 in public funds.
Mullings declined to comment before entering a Nassau County courtroom to turn himself in Wednesday.
His attorney, Frederick Brewington of Hempstead, declined to comment after the proceeding.
Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said Wednesday in a prepared statement after Mullings’ surrender that all three defendants “used their positions of power and influence to enrich themselves at the expense of the New Cassel community and they will now be held accountable for their crimes.”
She also vowed that her office would continue to investigate public corruption allegations and “aggressively prosecute those who illegally betray the public trust.”
Corbin, 70, of Westbury maintained his innocence when he surrendered Monday to start a prison sentence of 2 to 6 years.
Williams, 69, of Uniondale turned himself in last week to begin a 1-year jail sentence, with his attorney saying his client was “resolute in his conviction that he did nothing wrong.”
