Businessman says he gave former county executive cash to gain access to him

A businessman who won millions in Nassau contracts testified Tuesday at the corruption retrial of former County Executive Edward Mangano and his wife that he gave the politician $3,600 in cash after doing a free railing repair at their home, saying the money was to get “access” to the GOP official.

“He said, ‘You don’t have to do this,’ ” witness Anthony Gulino recalled Edward Mangano  telling him on that day in 2012.

But the witness said Mangano still took an envelope with the cash inside it in the kitchen of his home after Gulino had a crew replace wood railing on the home’s porch with PVC.

Gulino said the Mangano family’s two dogs were the only witnesses to the exchange.

He said he told the politician: “I want to do this.”

Gulino, 54, of Ridge, testified under a cooperation agreement as he tries to win leniency after pleading guilty for not reporting some income between 2007 and 2009.

A bill for the $3,585.45 railing repair also was in the envelope, according to Gulino, who said he asked Mangano to write a check for that amount “to create a paper trail.”

The witness added: “It looked like he paid for it. But he didn’t. It was free.”

It’s expected that when star government witness Harendra Singh takes the stand, he will testify as he did at the first trial that the then-county executive asked him to launder the $3,600 because he feared the bills were marked.

After the first trial ended in a mistrial, Edward Mangano, 56, is standing trial again on felony charges of federal program bribery, honest services wire fraud, extortion and conspiracy.

The same indictment accuses Linda Mangano, 55, of five felony counts that include making false statements to the FBI about what the government claims was a “no-show job” Singh gave her.

The government says the former county executive steered lucrative county contracts to Singh, and also used his influence so the restaurateur would get Town of Oyster Bay-backed loans.

Prosecutors say Mangano did so in exchange for bribes that included his wife’s job, wood flooring for their bedroom, free meals and vacations, two expensive chairs and a $7,300 wristwatch for one of their sons.

The defense says the items were gifts from a longtime family friend and Mangano never reciprocated with any official government action.

Gulino, whose family started the companies Laser Industries, Inc. and Residential Fence Corp., said during a cross-examination Tuesday that he had won some Nassau contracts before giving Mangano the cash in the envelope.

But the witness agreed that he also later lost out on some Nassau contracts.

“You won some, you lost some, correct?” defense attorney Kevin Keating asked.

“Correct,” Gulino replied.

The witness also recalled Mangano telling him later that there was nothing he could do after Gulino complained about the county’s slow payment process.

Other testimony Tuesday centered on an emergency food contract that Singh won from the county in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. Prosecutors claim Mangano directed that contract, worth more than $230,000, to Singh as part of a quid pro quo for items the Bethpage businessman allegedly lavished on him as bribes.

But Keating tried to show Tuesday that a county worker may have tried to steer that emergency food contract to a restaurateur with ties to the worker's own family’s business.

The defense brought out during a cross-examination of John Maguire, the county’s emergency operations manager at a post-Sandy government operation hub, that Maguire’s family had a company that did business for The Dover Group.

Maguire tried to hire the Freeport-based company for the same food contract, according to his testimony.

Maguire testified Monday that he picked The Dover Group, owned by Butch Yamali, off a list of three pre-approved vendors that a county purchasing official gave him. Singh was not on that list. He said he didn’t know at the time that he could go off the list in an emergency.

But after he picked Dover, Mangano’s former executive assistant told him in a heated exchange that “Butch gets enough,” according to the witness.

Singh then landed the contract to supply food to emergency operations center workers, who initially were fed by a jail-based food operation that a state health official testified Monday exposed workers to unsanitary conditions.

Keating attempted to impugn Maguire’s credibility Tuesday by suggesting that the witness had decided to reach out to Yamali for the county food contract because of business ties between his family and Yamali.

Maguire agreed that in 1992 he started a public adjusting business, which negotiates settlements with insurance companies after property damage, with his two brothers.

But the government witness denied knowing Yamali had hired his family’s company immediately after Sandy.

The witness also said he didn’t tell prosecutors about his role with the family business until last week.

“They didn’t ask,” Maguire told Keating.

Maguire also testified that he belonged to the Freeport Republican Club and was familiar with Yamali through his relationship with Angie Cullin, the club’s leader and a former Town of Hempstead councilwoman. She died in 2017.

The club often had events at Yamali’s restaurants and his company sometimes catered events for the group, Maguire said Tuesday.

The witness told Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Caffarone during more questioning that he left his family’s business in the early 2000s and had no financial stake in it. He also repeated that he didn’t know Yamali’s company was a client of the family business, Maguire and Maguire.

Also Tuesday, Heather McNeill, another former county Emergency Operations worker, testified that a state safety officer told her he’d spotted jail personnel washing utensils for the Sandy food operation in a restroom and “was threatening to shut the place down.”

She said she told Maguire and Craig Craft, the Office of Emergency Management commissioner, and Craft called a meeting she didn’t attend. But McNeill testified Maguire looked “miffed” on his way out, and Laura Munafo, Mangano’s former executive assistant, walked out and announced: “We’re going with H.”

McNeill said that was a reference to Singh, and also testified she believed Munafo had been speaking on behalf of the county executive at the time.

The witness also testified that Edward Mangano ultimately was in charge of the post-Sandy operational hub, saying “nothing … was ever done at that level without the knowledge of the county executive’s office.”

McNeill added that later while processing Singh’s bills – totaling more than $230,000 for the meals over 16 days – she brought up the cost to Craft, who she said always called Mangano the “boss.” McNeill said Craft just told her to proceed. “He said ‘Just process it. This is what the boss wants.’ ”

McNeill testified during a cross-examination she was unaware Raquel Wolf, then a county emergency operations worker, cut down prices Singh – her former boss – wanted for the emergency catering contract.

Prosecution witness Brittany Musto, Butch Yamali’s executive assistant, testified Tuesday that The Dover Group was up and running on Nov. 2, 2012, and able to provide hundreds of post-Sandy meals to county workers.

She told a government attorney that power had been restored to the company’s Coral House catering hall in Baldwin, and to its Plainview warehouse – with neither location suffering serious damage.

But on cross-examination, she said an email she wrote at Yamali’s direction during a county audit that said the warehouse was “totally flooded out,” with equipment destroyed, might have “a typo.”

“That’s not how I was trying to say it,” Musto added.

Keating also confronted the witness with a county health inspection report from Nov. 2 that said Coral House’s kitchen had to dump spoiled food, and another county form signed by Yamali as he sought a tax reduction that said the Baldwin location didn’t have power until Nov. 11.

“I didn’t write this letter,” the witness said.

U. S. District Court Judge Joan Azrack ruled late last night that attorneys for both sides in the trial could not refer, by name, to attorneys who attended witness interviews. John Carman, Linda Mangano’s attorney, told jurors the prosecutors who took part in the interviews distorted what Linda Mangano said to make it seem like she lied. Prosecutors denied that.

The judge also ruled defense counsel could not accuse prosecutors of improper conduct and said prosecutors may elicit from a witness that the defense counsel at the interview with Linda Mangano didn’t ask for a stenographer or a recording device.