Accolades pour in for Joseph N. Mondello, 84, longtime Nassau GOP leader
Then-Nassau County Republican Chair Joseph Mondello awaits election results from Nassau GOP headquarters in Westbury on Nov. 8, 2016. Credit: Danielle Finkelstein
Accolades poured in Tuesday for the late Joseph Mondello from Republican and Democratic politicians who remembered him as a dedicated public servant, powerful party leader and loyal friend.
Mondello, a former U.S. Ambassador, Hempstead Town supervisor and attorney, was chairman of the Nassau County Republican Committee for more than three decades.
His family said he died "peacefully" at Glen Cove Hospital on Monday night after suffering various health problems. He was 84.
The son of Italian and Puerto Rican immigrants, Mondello was raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
He later was a longtime resident of Levittown and Oyster Bay, and recently had moved to Bayville.
Mondello rose in the ranks of the Nassau GOP organization, developing a reputation as a skilled political organizer, friends and colleagues recalled.
He served as New York State Republican chairman, and as U.S. Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago under former President Donald Trump.
Mondello was among the first GOP county chairs in New York to support Trump for president in 2016.
"Many knew him as ambassador and chairman and lawyer but to us he was just dad," his daughter Lisa Ostuni, 44, of Dix Hills, told Newsday on Tuesday.
"He touched the lives of so many. He loved helping others and that's what kept him going and I believe that was also the secret to his success," Ostuni said.
Former Rep. Pete King (R-Seaford), who met Mondello nearly 50 years ago when they were young lawyers serving on the Hempstead Town Board, called Mondello "a political giant."
“We have one of the premier political organizations in the country because of Joe," King told Newsday. "He was always on top of the situation. When you needed him, he’d call you back in five minutes. He picked good people and he was loyal to them.”
Former Republican U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, who also served with Mondello on the Hempstead Town Board, said after his move from Brooklyn to Levittown, Mondello came to see the Nassau GOP as a vehicle for improving his new community.
Mondello’s goal was to attract new residents moving into Nassau from New York City — many of whom were Democrats — and “make them Republicans,” D’Amato told Newsday.
“He wanted the job done and saw it was done in the right way,” D’Amato said. “He was tough but a strong and fair leader within the party. He wanted to pick the best people for the job.”
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who took office in January, said Mondello “lived an extraordinary life of service,” and called him “one of the most decent, and patriotic men I’ve ever known.”
Jay Jacobs, chairman of the state and county Democratic committees, called Mondello, “an American first, and a Republican second.”
Jacobs continued: “While adversaries in our political roles, we became friends in real life. He was a tough competitor but always a man of his word.”
Mondello, who was known as a strict fiscal conservative, began his political career as a Town Board member in Hempstead, a Republican stronghold and Nassau County’s largest municipality.
Mondello was appointed Hempstead Town supervisor in January 1987, and was reelected by wide margins in 1987, 1989 and 1991.
Mondello was elected chairman of the Nassau County Republican Committee in April 1983, and held the post until 2018.
He took the reins of the county party after predecessor Joseph Margiotta, who died in 2008, was forced to resign after his conviction on federal mail fraud and conspiracy charges in a municipal insurance kickback scheme.
Mondello also served as chairman of the New York Republican State Committee from November 2006 until September 2009.
Mondello was credited with moving the state GOP organization forward financially.
But in November 2008, Republicans lost the state Senate majority — and with it, their last hold on statewide power.
When Mondello was replaced as state chairman, Republicans held only two of the 29 seats in the state's delegation to Congress.
Joseph Nestor Mondello was born Feb. 13, 1938 in Brooklyn to Rosario Mondello, a printing press operator, and Rose Martin, an immigrant from Puerto Rico.
The family moved to Laurelton, Queens before settling in Massapequa when Mondello was 13 years old.
Mondello served as an airman in the New York National Guard from 1955 to 1956, and in the U.S. Army from 1956 to 1958, attaining the rank of corporal.
He received a bachelor's degree in 1962 from Hofstra University — the same year he met Linda Elizabeth Crabtree, a Trans World Airlines flight attendant, at a house party in the Hamptons.
They were married in 1964 and moved to Levittown in 1970 where they raised their family, eventually moving to Oyster Bay Cove in 2000.
In addition to his wife and daughter Lisa, he is survived by daughter, Elizabeth of Melville; sister Norma Ferretti of Massapequa; and five grandchildren.
Mondello is predeceased by his son, Joseph Nestor Mondello, Jr.
A funeral mass is planned for Monday at 11 a.m. at St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church in Oyster Bay, with burial to follow.
Candice Ferrette covers Nassau County government and politics on Long Island. She has been a reporter at Newsday since 2011.
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