Power on Trial: Mangano urged Singh deal to be done, witness says

‘Let’s get this thing done’

Jonathan Sinnreich, Oyster Bay’s outside legal counsel, was the first prosecution witness to not just put Edward Mangano, Nassau’s former county executive, in a meeting about whether the town could guarantee former restaurateur Harendra Singh’s loans — but also to note that Mangano spoke.

While earlier witnesses — among them one of Mangano’s former law firm colleagues, Singh and Frederick Mei, then Oyster Bay’s deputy town attorney — have put Mangano at an April 28, 2010, meeting about a town-related matter, Sinnreich told jurors more than they had heard before.

He said Mangano arrived late.

That Mangano was leaning up against a wall.

That Mangano was standing behind his longtime friend, Singh.

And that, at one point, Mangano put a hand on Singh’s shoulder, telling the roomful of lawyers and town officials, “Let’s get this thing done.”

Testifying in the trial of Mangano, his wife, Linda, and former Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto, Sinnreich said he believed Edward Mangano was there “to encourage support for the deal.”

And, under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine M. Mirabile, Sinnreich, who lives in Suffolk County, said he had seen Suffolk County officials act similarly.

“I’ve been to meetings where the different Suffolk County executives came to lend their support to getting a transaction done,” he testified.

Over at the defendant’s table, Mangano, at one point, shook his head from side to side.

Back and forth

Mirabile walked Sinnreich through a series of email exchanges he had, over multiple weeks, with Mei and, in a few instances, Leonard Genova, Oyster Bay’s former deputy supervisor and town attorney.

The exhibits showed Sinnreich — repeatedly, constantly and consistently — saying that a town-backed guarantee for Singh’s personal loans presented legal and political problems, which included flying in the face of a state constitutional bar on municipalities lending their good credit to private entities.

“I was really trying, in a nice way, to convince Fred to give it up,” he testified, explaining one in the series of emails.

He said such a move would put the interests of Singh’s financial lenders, and Singh, over those of the town and its residents.

“If they did this deal,” he testified, “they better be sure they have the guts to defend it.”

The back and forth over Sinnreich’s objections culminated with an invitation to the April 28 meeting at Venditto’s campaign headquarters in North Massapequa.

Sinnreich said he was late because he drove past the building a few times, and that, once there, he learned that two attorneys, William Savino and William Cornachio from Rivkin Radler, had been working on the same issue.

Sinnreich said he believed the attorneys, who worked for Mangano’s former law firm, were working for Singh — because, he testified, they were sitting on Singh’s side of the table.

Venditto, he said, was seated at the table’s head.

The business part of the meeting ended, Sinnreich testified, after “both Mr. Venditto and Mr. Mangano tasked us generally . . . but particularly Rivkin Radler to come up with a solution.”

“I was not given any specific task,” he said.

First meeting

“Do you know who Harendra Singh is?” Mirabile asked Sinnreich, early on after he took the stand.

“I live on Long Island,” he replied, “yes, I know who Mr. Singh is.”

A few minutes later, he was asked to recount one of his first meetings with Oyster Bay officials.

That was in 2005, he said, when he was invited to a meeting in the basement of H.R. Singletons restaurant in Bethpage, where he believed he was to be introduced to town officials.

“I really didn’t know what it was about,” Sinnreich testified. And, he said, he was surprised at how many people were in attendance.

“There were at least 20,” he said. “That was not normally the way this kind of business was conducted.”

At one point, he said, he realized that the gathering was about potential capital improvements at a town facility — before the town even had issued a request for proposals.

“I took Mr. Genova aside,” he testified. “I said Mr. Genova, this isn’t right. You can’t do this and I am very uncomfortable.”

And then he said, he and his partner left.

He said Genova listened to him, and that nothing like that ever happened again.

The ayes have it

Marc Agnifilo, the attorney for Venditto, took prosecution witness Frederick Mei through a series of Oyster Bay Town Board resolutions, making the point that although Venditto was the town’s CEO, his was but just one vote on the council.

“If he was in the minority, his wishes would not pass, right?” Agnifilo asked during his cross-examination of Mei in the trial of Venditto, former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and Mangano’s wife, Linda.

“Yes,” Mei, a former Oyster Bay deputy town attorney, replied.

On redirect, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Treinis Gatz fired back with what also was obvious in the exhibits cited by Agnifilo — in every one, the council and the supervisor voted in lockstep.

“What is your impression of the town board?” she asked.

“My impression of this town board is that the councilmen and women were like a rubber stamp,” Mei answered.

“Did you see any nos?” she pressed, referring to the exhibits.

“On what I was shown, no,” Mei replied.

Treinis Gatz followed up with a query as to whether the unanimous votes began to change after the FBI began investigating in the town.

“Not sure if they did that after the FBI began investigating,” Mei replied.

In fact, as word of the investigation spread and residents began pressing for answers about Singh, whether he owed the town money and whether the town was on the hook for loans, board votes became less unanimous.

Facing the jury

Mei finished off 2 1⁄2 days on the witness stand Wednesday, at one point — at the command of Agnifilo — telling jurors how much he feared going to prison.

“Are you hoping not to go to prison?” Agnifilo asked.

“I’m hoping to tell the truth and get past this,” Mei answered calmly.

“Hoping not to go to jail?” Agnifilo pressed.

“I think everybody hopes that,” Mei said.

“Tell the jury,” Agnifilo said, voice rising, “how terrified you are to go to prison.”

“Truly terrified,” Mei said, looking directly toward the jury.

Is there a difference between the terror of going to prison and the terror Mei had expressed on Tuesday about talking to attorneys Oyster Bay hired to investigate some of the Singh loans, Agnifilo asked.

“There’s a difference,” Mei said.

“The specter of going to prison is in the future,” he explained. “I am trying my best not to think about that right now.”

Roll call

“Is that a man or a woman?” Agnifilo asked Mei as he ran down a list of Oyster Bay town council members.

“Delligatti?” the lawyer asked.

“A man,” Mei answered.

“Muscarella?” Agnifilo queried.

“A man,” he answered.

And so it would go, back and forth, as the two went down a list of the seven council members who initially approved Singh’s becoming an Oyster Bay vendor handling food and beverage concessions on town properties.

On the courtroom’s largest screen, the board members’ names and their unanimous votes of “aye” could be seen.

So could their titles:

Councilman Delligatti.

Councilman Muscarella.

Still, Agnifilo kept asking, and Mei kept answering, about the gender of council members almost until they’d finished the list.

Which — since the board votes by seniority — ended with the names and titles of the two least senior members, two councilwomen.

Time grind

Agnifilo went through the minutes of one town board meeting in what grew to be excruciating detail.

Polar bear plunge.

A refuse roll-off container.

An intergenerational chorus.

Solid waste.

A matter involving Bethpage State Park.

An event in Plainview.

And on.

And on.

And on.

And on.

Agnifilo’s point was that the town board acted on a variety of issues related to the town, matters of interest to only Oyster Bay. And that those matters, during one meeting, included a resolution about changes in Singh’s concession agreements.

It’s the usual course of business.

And it’s a testament to the resilience of council members, community gadflies and reporters who sit and sift through such meetings in municipal halls throughout Long Island, week in and week out.

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