Lobbyist testifies he was 'surprised' Sheldon Silver got share of fees from Glenwood Management

Veteran Albany lobbyist Brian Meara testified Friday that he was "surprised" and "concerned" when he learned in 2011 that former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was sharing legal fees from client Glenwood Management at the same time the company was lobbying him on major rent-regulation and tax-abatement bills.

Meara, a lifelong friend of Silver who had worked since 1994 for Manhattan high-rise landlord Glenwood, said he was vacationing in Florida when Silver told him in a phone call about the fees, and he quickly notified higher-ups at Glenwood but never spoke of it again.

"I didn't want to be involved," Meara testified at Silver's corruption trial in federal court in Manhattan. "I thought it was a dangerous topic for me to be talking about."

Silver, 71, is accused of doing legislative favors for Glenwood in exchange for the firm giving property tax work to Goldberg & Iryami, a law firm that gave him a $700,000 cut of its fees for the referral. He also is charged in a similar scheme with doing favors for an asbestos doctor who referred patients to a different law firm.

According to previous testimony, Silver's disclosure was triggered by a new legal ethics rule, which required the Goldberg firm to tell clients such as Glenwood about any fee-sharing arrangements. Although Glenwood had sent an increasing share of business to the Goldberg firm on the orders of owner Leonard Litwin, now 101, it isn't clear why, or whether anyone knew about Silver's fee sharing until 2011.

Meara said his initial concern was political, because he thought the financial tie to a big developer like Glenwood would not be "popular" with tenant groups that historically supported Silver and the Democrats, or with Silver's Democratic colleagues in the Assembly.

But he said he also was troubled by the legal aspects, and confused when Silver told him the arrangement was OK because Meara lobbied for Glenwood's corporate parent, but the legal fees on property tax cases were coming from individual "limited liability corporations" created to own each of Glenwood's 20-plus buildings.

"I didn't understand what the distinction was," Meara said.

Meara was followed to the stand by Richard Runes, who was in charge of all government relations and lobbying matters for Glenwood. He said that in June 2011, he and Meara had together lobbied Silver on a major extension of rent-control and tax-abatement laws.

Runes said part of his job was receiving requests from politicians and doling out $10 million in political contributions approved by Litwin, which he said was a year-round operation to make sure there was access when big items like rent regulation came up.

"I can't call up and say, 'Hi, I'm back, renew the laws,' " he said.

When prosecutors showed him evidence about five donations of $25,000 at one time that Glenwood companies once gave to Silver's Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, he recalled a call he got from the speaker trolling for money.

"I said how about $25,000," Runes recalled. "He said, 'How about $125,000?' "

The trial is scheduled to resume Monday.