Adam Skelos, in wiretapped calls, brags of assurances from Nassau County about contracts

Adam Skelos bragged to the head of AbTech Industries, which had secured a $12 million contract with Nassau County at his urging, that he had direct assurances from County Executive Edward Mangano that a storm water cleanup project would be funded after a series of delays threatened Skelos' consulting job with the company, a wiretapped phone call revealed Tuesday.

Skelos also said he would direct the county on how to spend $17 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds for post-superstorm Sandy flood mitigation, according to the wiretapped conversation played Tuesday at the federal corruption trial of Skelos and his father, Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre).

"Nassau County is holding that money . . . They just have to approve what they're going to spend it on and we're going to tell them what to spend it on," Adam Skelos told AbTech president Glenn Rink. Rink, who conceded that he hired Adam, in part, because his father was then the powerful Senate majority leader, responded: "Well, that sounds even better."

In the Dec. 17, 2014, wiretapped call between Adam and Rink, Adam said Mangano had "given me his word" that he'd find money for AbTech's contract, in response to Rink's questions about how to expedite payment from the county.

"The last time I talked to the county exec, it sounded like everything was going through and he had given me his word that he was going to find funding for . . . the remainder of the project," Adam Skelos said, adding that Mangano told him that if federal funds didn't work out, he would look in the Department of Public Works budget.

Adam, 33, and Dean, 67, both of Rockville Centre, are on trial in federal court in Manhattan on allegations that the former Senate majority leader solicited bribes and extortion of three different companies -- Arizona-based AbTech; Physicians' Reciprocal Insurers of Roslyn and New Hyde Park-based Glenwood Management -- to hire Adam as a consultant in return for favorable legislation and public-works contracts. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Adam, in another wiretapped call played for the jury, bemoaned how debate on ethics reform in Albany had taken the spotlight off legislation his father was pushing that would help fledgling AbTech finally take off financially.

"Everything is so tied up with these ethics reform conversations that it's overshadowing every other issue," Adam told Rink in a March 24 call.

Adam, a $10,000-a-month consultant for AbTech, eventually lost his job with the firm when he couldn't help expedite payments to AbTech from the Nassau contract, despite assurances his father was pushing legislation on public-private partnerships and a potential $800 million clean water fund that would have helped the company's bottom line.

That legislation, Adam said, also would have made it easier for AbTech to get lucrative contracts throughout Long Island, where he had his sights set on doing storm water cleanup work in the towns of Islip, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, and Freeport village and other localities, according to wiretapped calls.

Rink, who testified that he had an immunity agreement with prosecutors, said he considered hiring former North Hempstead Town Board member Thomas Dwyer -- who on Monday testified that he delivered a $20,000 check from his title company to Adam at the direction of Charlie Dorego, chief counsel at Glenwood -- in order to avoid the payment being linked to the luxury apartment developer. Dwyer, Rink testified, had a good relationship with Jon Kaiman, who had worked for the governor on Sandy recovery and is chairman of the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, which approves county spending.

After Adam was let go in a March 26 phone call from AbTech executive Bjornulf White, he called his dad.

"I'm having a bad day," Adam said. "I lost something I had." Dean advised Adam, who the defense has conceded is prone to rude behavior, "Don't panic over this. Don't burn bridges."

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.