NYCkayaker Randalls island waterpark scandal mongers in the news....

[carrotjuice]

We were right all along, thanks again to all who supported our efforts to
protect randalls island shore line for paddling for the entire city!!!

! To stop the environmentally disastrous and ethically compromised
³waterpark² on Randall¹s island as part of the overall scheme to privatize
and layer with toxic turf the entire island.

Thanks again, many donated their hard earned money, it was put to good use
as you know, and here is further fallout from such scandalous actiivites.
H

-- 
 

 
www.friendsofbrookpark.org
Mail: PO Box 801, The South South Bronx, NY 10454
 

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Subject: Clients [including Randall's Island Water Park investor] Fuzzy Over
What Bruno Did for Them (NY Times)

Mr. Abbruzzese (cited below) is also owner of the Aquatic Leisure Aquatic
Development Group - and a principal investor in the failed Randall¹s Island
Water Park that was overwhelmingly approved in 2005 or 2006 (and defeated
thanks to activists).  I do believe I mentioned this at several community
board meetings as far back as 2007. - Marina Ortiz

Clients Fuzzy Over What Bruno Did for Them
The New York Times, November 19, 2009

ALBANY ‹ In the summer of 2005, top officials at a telecommunications
company in Illinois exchanged a stream of befuddled and increasingly urgent
e-mail messages.

The company, the Motient Corporation, and a subsidiary had made over
$160,000 in payments that year to Capital Business Consultants, an obscure
firm in the Albany area.

Some Motient officials actually thought Capital Business Consultants was a
Washington lobbying firm, while others were aware that it was owned by
Joseph L. Bruno, then the majority leader of the New York State Senate.

But even those who knew of Mr. Bruno¹s involvement, according to testimony
and evidence presented at Mr. Bruno¹s corruption trial Wednesday in Federal
District Court here, had no idea who had hired him, who supervised him or
what, exactly, he was being paid thousands of dollars a month to do for
Motient and the subsidiary, TerreStar Networks.

³I am drawing a complete blank,² Robert Macklin, a Motient vice president,
wrote in an e-mail message about billing that July.

Prosecutors have said that there was no mystery. The payments to Mr. Bruno,
they have argued, were nothing more than gifts, a reward for his efforts to
secure state grants for a start-up company that Jared E. Abbruzzese, a
Motient director, was helping to finance.

It was on Mr. Abbruzzese¹s orders, according to testimony offered by
witnesses on Wednesday, that Motient and TerreStar hired Mr. Bruno, granting
him lucrative retainers worth thousands of dollars a month.

Mr. Abbruzzese also paid Mr. Bruno $100,000 through two other businesses he
ran, Capital and Technology Advisors and Communication Technology Advisors,
according to evidence and testimony.

Yet Mr. Abbruzzese¹s partner, Wayne Barr Jr., could not describe what Mr.
Bruno did for the companies. ³I am not aware of it,² he testified.

Contracts and correspondence entered into evidence on Wednesday indicated
that the companies appeared to be hiring Mr. Bruno in sequence: One
Abbruzzese-linked company would hire him for a few months and then terminate
his contract, at which point another would enter into a new consulting
contract with him.

His final contract, with TerreStar, began in July 2005. But officials there
were unclear at the time about what Mr. Bruno¹s duties would be.

³Do you know anything that Senator Bruno does?² Mr. Macklin wrote to
Christopher W. Downie, a senior executive. Mr. Downie forwarded the e-mail
message to Mr. Abbruzzese.

³Need some help here pls,² he wrote.

Weeks later, TerreStar terminated its contract with Mr. Bruno ‹ but not
before paying his consulting firm $40,000, according to prosecutors. His
2005 termination letter cited ³changing circumstances.² Asked on Wednesday
what those circumstances were, Mr. Downie replied, ³I don¹t recall.²

Mr. Bruno¹s lawyers suggested in their cross-examination that it would not
be unusual for the company to hire consultants on retainer rather than for a
specific task. Robert H. Brumley, a TerreStar official who arrived at the
company in 2008, testified that it sometimes hired lobbyists to do specific
work or to just be available, or even to prevent them from working for a
competitor.

Mr. Downie suggested Wednesday that Mr. Bruno assisted with lobbying on
telecommunications business, specifically Mr. Abbruzzese¹s negotiations with
the Federal Communications Commission over wireless licenses.

But when TerreStar officials sent an e-mail message to their Washington
lobbyist in 2005 to find out what work Mr. Bruno was doing there, the
lobbyist was puzzled: ³I have no idea,² the lobbyist wrote in a one message.
³Never ran across him.²

Prosecutors contended that the contracts had been awarded by Mr. Abbruzzese
as gifts after Mr. Bruno secured two $250,000 state grants that another
Abbruzzese-linked company, Evident Technologies, received in 2003 and 2004.

Contracts Mr. Abbruzzese had with Evident specified that he would receive
ownership stakes in Evident once the grants were approved. But Mr. Barr
testified that he did not believe that the payments to Mr. Bruno were linked
to the Evident grants.

But it was clear that Mr. Barr and Mr. Abbruzzese were sensitive about the
state grants, according e-mail messages entered into evidence. When an
Evident executive told Mr. Barr in April 2005 that a local television
reporter had called the company to ask about the grants, he advised the
executive to ³ignore it.²

³It can¹t be good,² Mr. Barr wrote in an e-mail message.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/nyregion/19bruno.html?ref=nyregion

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