Ex-Suffolk official wins unemployment bid

Lawrence Cooley, the former Suffolk deputy labor commissioner who was fired after he testified that he had paid bribes to a mob-connected union official, has won his unemployment claim against the county because the board found that the bribes did not affect his county employment.

"Because the bribes were made prior to the claimant's employment, these acts were not in connection with this employment," the July 21 decision of the state Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board said.

The county immediately appealed the ruling.

"We do not agree with the finding that he should be entitled to unemployment benefits, and we have already filed a notice of appeal," Alan Schneider, the county's civil service director, said in a statement.

Cooley, 70, of Greenlawn, was fired from his $116,000-a-year county post Oct. 27, after he testified in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that he made payments to union officials and met in a graveyard with a business partner to tip him off to a federal probe.

In the trial of reputed Genovese crime family soldier Joseph Oliveri, Cooley testified he had made cash payments to Michael Forde, head of the District Council of Carpenters. He also said Oliveri set up a meeting between him and James Murray, the owner of On Par Contracting, who offered to take over Cooley's failing drywall company. Cooley said that Murray "needed another vehicle" in order to secure millions of dollars of work. In exchange for remaining on the company paperwork as the "figurehead," Cooley testified that in 2004 he received $85,000 to pay off debts, $2,000 a week and a leased car.

After the FBI questioned Cooley in 2005, he testified he met Murray in a cemetery to alert him to the federal probe.

Cooley's attorney, Mark Manello of St. James, said Cooley had disclosed his drywall business to the county, which was confirmed by county records.

"Mr. Cooley was never arrested and never indicted by any legal authority. He was no angel . . . When he had his business in the city, his testimony was that he was compelled to swim in a cesspool," Manello said.

The Levy administration hired Cooley in March 2004 to the second-highest position in the Labor Department.