Restaurateur Pleaded Guilty To Bribing Mangano, Venditto: Court

By Noah Manskar

Harendra Singh, the restaurateur who is at the heart of the corruption trials of former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and former Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto, secretly pleaded guilty in October 2016 to bribing both officials, as well as trying to bribe an official from New York City, federal court records unsealed Wednesday show.

Singh pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes including bribery and fraud, according to documents filed in the Eastern District federal court on Long Island.

Singh admitted to giving an unnamed city official tens thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for help renewing his restaurant in Queens, the records say. The description of the scheme matches Singh's efforts to get de Blasio's help in dealing with his restaurant, The Water's Edge, The New York Times reported.

He also gave cash and expensive gifts to Mangano and Venditto in exchange for lucrative government contracts and loan guarantees.

In a transcript of his Oct. 17, 2016 plea in the Long Island court, Singh agreed to cooperate with the federal criminal investigations of de Blasio, Mangano and Venditto, Newsday reported. But de Blasio was not charged after a yearlong probe of his fund-raising practices by federal and state prosecutors in Manhattan.

Just three days after Singh's guilty plea, though, federal prosecutors on Long Island indicted Mangano and Venditto on corruption charges. The documents were unsealed Wednesday as part of the evidence discovery process in Mangano's and Venditto's cases. Venditto later resigned but Mangano stayed in office until the end of his term last year.

Singh was arrested on separate bribery charges in 2015. He has not been sentenced.

Details of Singh's scheme involving Mangano and Venditto track with the allegations in their cases. Prosecutors have alleged that he gave Mangano's wife, Linda, a $450,000 no-show job as a "food taster" in one of his restaurants. He also bought Mangano a $3,600 massage chair and paid for limousine rides for Venditto, according to the unsealed document.

Mangano and Venditto have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

"The release of Singh’s plea confirms what we all knew — a man who faces decades in prison for his own vast and hidden criminality struck a cooperation deal, which stunningly included his release on bail, in a desperate effort to save himself," Mangano's attorney, Kevin Keating, said in a statement to Newsday. "Harendra Singh has already demonstrated that he is incapable of telling the truth and would do anything that serves his interests."

De Blasio has denied that he ever traded official actions in exchange for campaign funds, even though prosecutors have said his actions ran right up against the law.

"The allegations against this administration were never proven because they are not true," Eric Phillips, de Blasio's press secretary, said in a statement. "They are old news that's been widely reported and reviewed extensively by federal prosecutors before they closed their investigation. We make decisions on the merits. Period."

One of the documents unsealed Wednesday outlining the charges to which Singh admitted details his efforts to win favors from de Blasio. Singh held a fundraising event for the mayor in October 2013, about a month before he was elected. In December 2014, Singh emailed a de Blasio aide saying he "need(ed) help" navigating a city agency, the document says.

Seven months later, in July 2015, Singh got a top de Blasio aide to set up a meeting between him and that agency's head "in an effort to pressure the Agency" to make a deal beneficial to Singh, the document says.

Photo: Mike Balsamo/AP