Some of the criminal complaint filed against Skelos is based on statements and cooperation from “cooperating witness 1,” who is Charles Dorego of Glenwood Management. Glenwood is a development company owned by Leonard Litwin, who is the state’s most generous political donor. Litwin is a major donor to Cuomo.
With Glenwood now appearing in both the Skelos and Silver cases, there is scrutiny on the money Cuomo has received from Litwin and his holdings. One progressive good-government group, EffectiveNY, called on Cuomo to give back donations he has received.
The governor said his relationship with Glenwood is simply candidate-donor.
“They are a donor of mine,” he said. “They are a donor of many elected officials across the state. And that’s basically the interaction (I have with them).”
He added that Glenwood and its executives have never spoken with him or his administration about the 421-a tax abatement program for developers or rent control regulations, both of which the company has a major stake in.
“I don’t believe anyone has said Glenwood has done anything wrong,” the governor said when asked if he would continue to accept or solicit donations from the company and its affiliates.
“If somebody did something wrong, then obviously I wouldn’t associate with them politically,” he added. “But if no one did anything wrong, then you can’t just say, ‘You have no right to participate in the political process.’”
Nahh, Glenwood's done nothing wrong despite showing up in both the Silver and Skelos indictments.
I'm sure Glenwood's bag man to the politicians got a non-prosecutorial agreement from the feds in return for providing evidence against Skelos just because he's a nice guy and Preet likes him.
And I'm sure Bharara isn't scrutinizing you over the Glenwood money.
From a strictly legal point of view, Glenwood seems to be clear....whatever illegal deeds they did (come on, enormous NYC real estate company...nope, never shady) were negotiated away with their cooperation with Preet. Now Cuomo...maybe he did simply and legally take Glenwood's $$ as fully-legal, above-board campaign donations. Now, of course I doubt that, but its about PROOF!!! I can't imagine that a potential Cuomo indictment will be filled with quotes from wiretapping etc. What would they build an indictment from? Unless there is some very clear, very obvious (like in Skelos case) evidence of criminal deals from Cuomo himself, it won't happen. Maybe some Cuomo aides will go down (like with Christie in NJ), but I just don't see the legal architecture here where Cuomo himself catches an indictment. There would have to be some serious heavy handed, Cuomo-himself quid pro quo evidence. Beyond that, it seems that our campaign, political, and legal structures that allow deeply compromised, broken, criminal politicians to act on behalf of moneyed interests to do so and avoid prosecution by simply not providing the most flagrant forms of evidence is the real devil in the room. There is a real chance that Cuomo actually didn't do anything illegal, by the strictest terms. That sucks because on basically every measurable category, he is as crooked as they come....except that explicit evidence category. UGH! Preet may give us another NJ. The stink will get real close but never on the Governor.
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