Development company official testifies then-newly named Senate leader Dean Skelos began to 'badger' firm for job for son

A top official at the New Hyde Park development company that Sen. Dean Skelos allegedly extorted to get work for his son Adam testified Thursday that the senator began to "badger" them with the first of at least eight increasingly insistent requests for aid right after gaining power as Republican majority leader in 2010.

Glenwood Management chief counsel Charles Dorego, testifying at the Skelos corruption trial in federal court in Manhattan, said the state senator first broached the idea at a Dec. 20, 2010, meeting in billionaire developer Leonard Litwin's private Long Island office where Skelos was expected to thank Glenwood for its financial support of the GOP and celebrate renewed Senate control.

Instead, at the end of a discussion around a coffee table of key issues the company needed Skelos' help on in Albany -- including renewal of an expired real estate tax break that Glenwood depended on -- Skelos went over to the couch where Litwin, now 101, was slowly rising as Dorego stood by.

"While we were standing there and saying goodbye, I heard Senator Skelos say his son Adam was embarking on a new career in the title business, and if there was anything we could do to help Adam it would be greatly appreciated," Dorego recalled.

Dorego found the request both peculiar and uncomfortable, he said, and immediately locked eyes with Litwin.

"I remember Mr. Litwin looking up and looking at me," he told jurors Thursday. "We looked at each other sort of in recognition of the statement. The request registered with Mr. Litwin."

Dean Skelos, 67, and Adam, 33, both of Rockville Centre, are charged with squeezing Glenwood, a Manhattan luxury high-rise apartment developer, environmental technology firm AbTech Industries of Arizona, and Roslyn's Physicians' Reciprocal Insurers to pay Adam more than $300,000.

Prosecutors say that after months of resistance Dorego and Litwin eventually arranged for Adam to get a $20,000 payment from Glenwood disguised as a title insurance fee, and a job with commission-based rewards at AbTech, partially owned by Litwin. Dean Skelos allegedly helped Glenwood on critical tax and rent-control legislation in Albany, and pushed Nassau County contracts to help AbTech.

Spectators at the closely watched trial Thursday included Robert McHugh, a Nassau County district attorney investigator, who took notes throughout the day. Acting Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas announced a probe of the county's contracting process earlier this year and, a spokesman said in a statement Thursday, the office was monitoring the trial as it relates to Nassau "people and events."

Dorego, a key government witness, said that in a "post-mortem" after Skelos left the 2010 meeting, Litwin -- who is no longer active at Glenwood and not expected to testify -- and another official were concerned but hoped it would go away. "Mr. Litwin looked at us both and said 'let's not do anything,' " Dorego said.

But Adam soon asked for a meeting, where he pitched both title work and an energy services business to Dorego -- the first of what proved to be many nudges that Dorego found himself fending off over the next 20 months. Adam was pleasant and had sales skills, he said, but little substantive knowledge.

"It was an uncomfortable situation," Dorego said, because Glenwood had always believed the Senate Republicans -- now headed by Skelos -- were the linchpin of their political strategy in Albany, and hoped for better days after they regained power in the 2010 election.

"We were trying to reconcile in our minds the request . . . at the same time we were significantly involved with the Senate on legislative business," Dorego said.

Prosecutors painstakingly walked him through dozens of emails, calls and meetings in 2011 and 2012 in which discussions with Skelos about legislation intersected with Adam pressing for work and Dean urging Glenwood to help his son -- in the Capitol, outside Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's city office, and at a high-end Manhattan restaurant, among other locations.

Sometimes it was a soft-sell, in which Skelos talked about Adam "struggling" with a new child and trying to buy a house. As time passed, Dorego tried to meet the demands by putting Adam in touch with AbTech -- to "exploit his father's contacts statewide," he told the company.

But that developed slowly, and Dean Skelos became more insistent. Dorego did not describe any explicit threat but by the time of a meeting in Litwin's office in July 2012, Dorego recalled, Skelos' tone had become "friendly, but firm" when talking about Adam.

Prosecutors have to show that Glenwood complied because it feared punishment from Skelos, and they missed no opportunity to portray him as a political tough guy. Dorego described how he "snarled" over a developers' group hiring a Democrat, and threatened revenge against those who crossed him, like a real estate company that cut donations because it was unhappy with a Senate bill.

"He told me at one point if they didn't step up to the plate and pony up, he was gonna 'F' them," Dorego said.

Dorego testified all day and is scheduled to return to the stand on Friday.