Gambling Addicts credibility questioned

No verdict today in Yonkers corruption trial; jury deliberations to resume Monday
Written by Erik Shilling and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
Mar. 22, 2012

NEW YORK — The federal jury in the corruption trial of former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi and former city GOP Chairman Zehy Jereis will resume deliberating on Monday.

Before being discharged about 5 p.m., the jury requested testimony related to a home at 245 Rumsey Road in Yonkers that prosecutors said Jereis helped Annabi buy, a request the judge granted. However, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon denied a second request for an index of exhibits at the trial.

But jurors gave no clear indication of which way the panel is leaning early on.

Their only other request was for an afternoon break with outdoor access.

Annabi and Jereis, her political mentor, were indicted in January 2010 on bribery, conspiracy and extortion charges in relation to $174,000 that Jereis gave to Annabi over serveral years. Federal prosecutors contend that the money bought Annabi’s council vote, particularly for two high-profile Yonkers projects - a housing development known as the Longfellow School project and the $843 million Ridge Hill development.

A third defendant in the case, disbarred attorney Anthony Mangone, pleaded guilty 10 months later and was the U.S. Attorneys Office’s key witness at the trial. Mangone and Jereis were both political proteges - and former staffers - of onetime New York State Sen. Nicholas Spano, a potent Republican power broker from Yonkers during more than two decades in Albany.

Federal investigators probed Spano’s role in the corruption case against Annabi, Jereis and Mangone but the former lawmaker was not charged. Spano pleaded guilty last month to tax-evasion charges in an unrelated case, admitting he failed to report $53,000 in income over several years.

The five-week long trial featured 54 witnesses. Among them were some notable Westchester and Yonkers personalities, including Mayor Mike Spano, who was a lobbyist for the Ridge Hill developer in between stints as a state assemblyman; City Council President Chuck Lesnick; former council members John Murtagh, Dee Barbato and Dennis Robertson; and Alfred DelBello, the former Yonkers mayor, county executive and lieutenant governor who was the primary lawyer for Franco and Antonio Milio, the developers on the Longfellow project.

(Page 2 of 2)

Mangone, 38, testified that he collected a $20,000 bribe for Jereis from the developers of the Longfellow project, money he said would by Annabi’s approval on the council for the housing development. Jereis also received a $60,000 consulting contract from the developer of the Ridge Hill project after Annabi changed her vote to approve it.

But the defense challenged Mangone’s credibility, noting that the once-politically-connected lawyer had an expensive gambling habit and was only testifying to gain leniency in his pending sentence after pleading guilty to the corruption charges.

Mangone also testified that he lied to a grand jury a decade earlier to protect Spano in a ballot-rigging case. Mangone agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in that case but he was never charged after a Westchester grand jury failed to bring felony charges against him.

Jereis, 40, testified that the gifts he showered on Annabi, a distant cousin, were not politically motivated. Rather, the burly former party boss said he was infatuated with Annabi, 41, and went so far as to lose more than 100 pounds and undergo cosmetic surgery to win her affection.

Annabi’s lawyer, William Aronwald, maintained that his client changed her votes on the two Yonkers projects because changes were made by the developers to appease her concerns on behalf of constituents. He said prosecutors had no evidence that she received any of the alleged bribe money.

But prosecutors charged that Annabi and Jereis used Annabi’s council vote “to enrich themselves personally.” A forensics expert testifying for the government said there was no sign on the hard drive of Jereis’ computer of the “love-letter” emails that the two allegedly exchanged.

“This money went right into the politican’s pocket after (Annabi) repeatedly took an oath to faithfully serve the public,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Carbone told the jury.