Federal bribery case has unique Trump and LI angles

Daily Point

Putting the Carone arrest into context

The arrest on Wednesday of Frank Carone, who served as chief of staff to former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, pushed the Long Island law firm Abrams Fensterman — and its bipartisan political connections — back into the news.

Carone, 56, allegedly accepted $120,000 in bribes in exchange for steering a municipal migrant shelter contract to a hotel owner, Yan Po Zhu, 51, of Glen Head. As a lawyer, Carone was associated with the Abrams Fensterman firm in Lake Success.

So was Joseph Nocella, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Nocella, who also served for years as a Nassau County district judge, has recused himself from handling the Carone indictment as a result, Politico reports.

And Carone's brother Anthony Carone, 54, of Manhattan and East Hampton, is also charged in the case. He, too, has been associated with Abrams Fensterman.

There is a thick political context to the intrigue.

Frank Carone's attorney at arraignment, Arthur L. Aidala, is a well-known defense lawyer and local media commentator. He is known to have cordial connections in the political circles of President Donald Trump. Aidala handled the 2025 guilty plea of Trump adviser Steve Bannon for defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border. At one point, Aidala was mentioned in news reports as a possible appointee to the post Nocella now holds.

After the arraignment, Aidala told reporters at City Hall: "Frank Carone was part of an administration that publicly challenged what it viewed as the previous White House's dangerous immigration policies and their harmful impact on New York City."

Aidala is thus playing up to Trump,  who voided various prosecutions brought during the administration of predecessor Joe Biden, of which Adams' case was one. The Department of Justice's highly irregular move to clear Adams — arguing the charges pending against him kept him from cooperating with Trump's new ICE crackdown — led to the resignation of several federal prosecutors in protest.

Given the current administration's indulgent treatment of Adams, a question hovers: Will the White House intervene, either before or after the Carone case runs its course?

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

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Final Point

State AG doesn't see Mamdani as 'kingmaker'

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani boasted on national television over the weekend that the victory of socialist-aligned candidates in last week's primaries sends a "national message" to working class Americans coast to coast seeking a "new kind of politics."

But Democratic state Attorney General Letitia James, on the November ballot for reelection alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, expressed outright dismay at the schism insurgents backed by Mamdani have driven.

"Some of the candidates that he has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic," James told reporters afterward.

Congressional victors in question were concentrated in the city. They included leftist graduate student Darializa Avila Chevalier, who surprisingly edged out Rep. Adriano Espaillat, while pro-Palestinian ex-City Comptroller Brad Lander ousted Rep. Daniel Goldman from the ballot.

One upset seemed to hit close to home for James, who rose to state power out of Brooklyn. She had campaigned there last Tuesday with Borough President Antonio Reynoso for the congressional seat of retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez. But Reynoso lost to the less-seasoned first-term Queens Assemb. Claire Valdez.

Will left-wingers start dissing James as a "centrist" or "too moderate”? Seems unlikely. She loudly supported Mamdani for mayor last year, she started her elected career as a candidate of the Working Families Party, she aggressively prosecuted President Donald Trump, and she cheered the decision of the city Rent Guidelines Board to freeze rents per Mamdani's position.

But on primary day, she condemned internal nastiness in the hot races, saying on X: "This election has seen too many personal attacks. Racism directed at (Chevalier). Online hate targeting (Goldman) and his staff. This is not the city I know. Discrimination has no place in New York. It's time to take the temperature down."

As Long Islanders know, the state and city Democratic parties are sharply different. DiNapoli, the state comptroller from Great Neck, easily defeated two primary challengers who ran to his left. In Suffolk County, DiNapoli got 76% and in Nassau, 82%.

James' brief effort to challenge Hochul for governor lasted only a few weeks in 2021. That's now largely forgotten. In November, James faces Republican Saritha Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor, on a ticket headed by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman for governor.

Keeping party unity is a big goal in an election year like this one, and the left-wing upsets may prove a challenge to Democrats in maintaining it as Republicans from Trump on down keep tagging them the party of the far left.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

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