Skelos trial testimony: Adam Skelos made more than $1.3 million over five-year period

Adam Skelos made more than $1.3 million during five years while his father Sen. Dean Skelos was allegedly squeezing companies with state business to aid Adam by claiming he was struggling financially, according to testimony at the Skelos corruption trial on Friday.

Displaying a color-coded bar chart including gifts from his father, title insurance commissions and energy consulting, FBI Agent Mary Jo Corkery testified the younger Skelos' income rose from $145,000 in 2010 to a high of $457,000 in 2013, and that with his wife he took in more than $1.5 million from 2010 through 2014.

Prosecutors, trying to undercut defense claims that Skelos just made fatherly efforts to help his 33-year-old son launch a career, also called a Citibank loan officer who described how title and consulting fees the Skeloses allegedly extorted helped Adam buy a $675,000 house after a 2013 loan rejection led to a clash on the phone.

"It wasn't pleasant," recalled John Perfetti, who did not give details but said he stopped serving as Adam's mortgage consultant.

The Skeloses are charged with using political power to squeeze $300,000 in pay for Adam from three firms -- including Glenwood Management of New Hyde Park, an apartment developer that arranged for a $20,000 title fee and a $4,000-a-month consulting deal with an affiliated company, AbTech Industries of Arizona.

The government says the Republican senator did Albany legislative favors in return, and pushed a $12 million storm-water antipollution contract in Nassau County to help Adam and AbTech. Dean Skelos, 67, and Adam are both from Rockville Centre.

The mortgage evidence indicated that in 2013, when Adam was seeking a loan for a house with a pool, a loan analyst questioned the "stability" of his income, and Adam discussed supplementing a $50,000 gift from his parents with an additional $125,000, or having Dean co-sign.

Instead, he was able to accumulate significant additional assets over the next several months, including the fees arranged by Glenwood, another six-figure title fee, and proceeds from the sale of a co-op. He finally closed the deal in May with only $50,000 from his parents.

Earlier Earlier Friday, key government witness Charles Dorego, a top Glenwood political operative, testifying with immunity, said Dean deployed both "pressure" and "threats" as well as appeals to sympathy for over a year to help Adam pump up his income, and seemed to be getting "desperate" by late 2012.

Glenwood finally acquiesced and got him the $20,000 title fee -- but soon, Dorego said, he found himself in the middle of a dispute over Adam's $4,000-a-month pay pushing AbTech's Nassau County deal.

The Skeloses, Dorego testified, said they would kill the deal if Adam didn't get paid more -- he called it a "threat to either do or not do legislation for money" that was "wrongful."

Prosecutors say Adam eventually got his compensation increased from $4,000 a month to $10,000. Dorego said the last time he saw Adam, at Cipollini restaurant in Manhasset, the younger Skelos was so confident that fracking would create new markets for AbTech that he was plotting how to take the small firm over.

Dorego said Glenwood feared "severe consequences" if it crossed Skelos, who they needed to help with tax breaks and control rent regulation. "I had no idea how far his power extended in the state or city," he said, "but I knew it was considerable."

On cross-examination, Dean Skelos' lawyer Robert Gage focused on two key prongs of the defense -- that Dean never explicitly threatened Glenwood, and that AbTech voluntarily hired Adam because it thought his connections would help sell their product in New York.

Going one by one through every meeting when Dorego testified that Dean asked the company to help Adam, Gage asked if Dean threatened to hurt Glenwood if it didn't help Adam, or if Dean ever punished Glenwood over 20 months it dragged its feet on aiding Adam.

"No he did not," Dorego said.

Dorego also admitted he had a nephew who was trying to gain admission to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point and sought a meeting with Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford). But he said that was different from what Skelos did because he had more clout.

"I put Adam into AbTech," Dorego wrote. "No one in my family has yet heard from King's office about my nephew. I look like an [expletive] frankly."