Ex-paving company owner Elia 'Aly' Lizza pleads guilty to bribery charge

The former owner of a now-dissolved Old Bethpage paving company that won public contracts worth millions pleaded guilty Thursday to a corruption charge following his 2017 indictment alongside a handful of others with Oyster Bay government connections.

Elia “Aly” Lizza, who owned and led Carlo Lizza & Sons Paving Inc., admitted to paying about $1.6 million in bribes to the late Oyster Bay Planning and Development Commissioner Frederick Ippolito — who died before charges against him were unsealed.

State Supreme Court Justice Charles Wood said he'd give Lizza, 72, of Oyster Bay Cove, a "non-jail disposition" under a plea deal. It also involves the forfeiture of $350,000 and the dismissal of charges against Lizza's wife at his April sentencing.

Marisa Lizza, 64, had faced the same 40 charges as her spouse, including felony counts of bribery, rewarding official misconduct and defrauding the government.

An indictment also accused their family business of crimes, and attorney Stephen Scaring put in a guilty plea Thursday for the company on a second-degree bribery count — mirroring the husband's plea.

Both spouses had faced up to five to 15 years in prison if convicted of the top count against them, prosecutors said previously.

“Mr. Lizza accepted responsibility today for giving money to a public official. The reasons for the payments were extraordinarily complicated and largely consistent with his innocence,” said the husband's attorney, John Carman.

He added that Wood's “willingness to impose a sentence without jail and the District Attorney’s agreement to dismiss the indictment against his wife Marisa, made it impossible for him to assume the risk of a trial.”

Carman said the indictment ended the company's ability to do business and it had to be dissolved.

The couple's indictment followed a 14-month probe that included extensive use of wiretaps and what Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas previously called an “interconnected web of public corruption” in Oyster Bay government.

Former Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto, also among those indicted, pleaded guilty last year in a deal that made him a felon but also included no jail time.

Singas said Thursday the investigation "uncovered a massive bribery scheme that laid bare how town government worked for the rich and politically connected and left hardworking taxpayers behind."

She added: "Thanks to our prosecutors, this crooked enterprise is out of business, and Aly Lizza and former Supervisor John Venditto are convicted felons.”

Prosecutor Jesse Aviram told Wood his office was seeking a 1 to 3 year prison term for Elia "Aly" Lizza, but would agree to drop charges against Marisa Lizza at her husband's sentencing since the husband would "exculpate his wife." 

In pleading guilty, the husband said he moved money from a corporate account to a personal account and had his wife write checks to Ippolito but she "did not know the purpose of these payments."

Marisa Lizza's attorney, Marc Gann, said later Thursday that his client signed checks "payable to Fred Ippolito" but "didn't have any involvement in anything that was really going on at the Town of Oyster Bay."

Nassau prosecutors had alleged the Lizzas paid Ippolito, who died in June 2017 while serving a federal tax evasion sentence, $1.6 million in bribes for negotiating anticipated payments topping $20 million to their company from a housing project developer.

Prosecutors said Ippolito, at the same time, also controlled oversight of the rezoning that would permit the construction. The project was a $150 million senior citizen housing complex known as Cantiague Commons — which was never built.

During his plea, Venditto admitted he advocated and voted for the approval of the rezoning application, while aware Ippolito, as a town commissioner, also had a financial interest in the deal.

The Lizzas’ company won about $100 million in Nassau contracts from 2002 to 2015, with Lizza family members, primarily the couple, donating nearly $1 million to Nassau leaders and party committees in that same time, Newsday previously reported. The company’s last Oyster Bay contract was worth $22.1 million and ended in 2016.