Rigged-Election Conspiracy: Hudson Valley Developer Enters Plea

Kenneth Nakdimen of Monsey pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to corrupt the electoral process. He was one of three developers arrested in December, accused of an elaborate scheme to rig a local election that included putting toothbrushes into empty apartments to make them look occupied so they could pack the voter rolls with false registrations.

The conspiracy centered on the tiny village of Bloomingburg, in Sullivan County north and west of Middletown on Route 17. Its population at the 2010 census was 420. As the first in a series of planned housing developments, the men were trying to push a project called Chestnut Ridge, which was to be a 396-unit Hasidic community.

According to the Times Herald Record, the big townhouse development was to be built on land annexed into the village from Mamakating. But opposition to the proposal grew stronger as village residents realized what was going on, and planning board decisions and lawsuits tied the project up.

The former town supervisor of Bloomingburg entered a guilty plea in December in connection with the scheme. Along with Nakdimen, 64, Shalom Lamm of Bloomingburg and Volvy Smilowitz of Monroe were charged.

Nakdimen pleaded guilty Thursday before United States District Judge Vincent Briccetti in White Plains federal court.

“Fair elections are the bedrock of democracy. As he has now admitted, Kenneth Nakdimen devised a scheme to advance his real estate project by falsely registering voters and corrupting this sacred process," Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in the announcement. "We will not allow greed to influence elections at any level.”

SEE ALSO: Developers Tried to Rig Hudson Valley Election: US Attorney

According to the allegations contained in the Indictment, as well as statements made in related court filings and proceedings:

Starting in 2006, KENNETH NAKDIMEN, a real estate developer, sought to build and sell real estate in Bloomingburg, New York. From these real estate development projects, NAKDIMEN and others hoped for and anticipated making hundreds of millions of dollars. But by late 2013, the first of their real estate developments had met local opposition, and still remained under construction and uninhabitable. When met with resistance, rather than seek to advance their real estate development project through legitimate means, NAKDIMEN and others instead decided to corrupt the democratic electoral process in Bloomingburg by falsely registering voters and paying bribes for voters who would help elect public officials favorable to their project.

Specifically, in advance of an election in March 2014 for Mayor of Bloomingburg and other local officials, NAKDIMEN and others, and people working on their behalf, developed and worked on a plan to falsely register numerous people who were not entitled to register and vote in Bloomingburg because they actually lived elsewhere. Those people included some who never intended to live in Bloomingburg, some who had never kept a home in Bloomingburg, and indeed, some who had never set foot in Bloomingburg in their lives. NAKDIMEN and others took steps to cover up their scheme to register voters who did not actually live in Bloomingburg by, among other things, creating and back-dating false leases and placing items like toothbrushes and toothpaste in unoccupied apartments to make it seem as if the falsely registered voters lived there.

NAKDIMEN and others also bribed potential voters by offering payments, subsidies, and other items of value to get non-residents of Bloomingburg to register unlawfully and vote there.

The count of conspiracy to corrupt the electoral process carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The maximum potential sentence in this case is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.

Nakdimen’s sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 9.

Kim praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI-Hudson Valley White Collar Crime Task Force, the Sullivan County District Attorney’s Office, the Sullivan County Sherriff’s Office, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, the Internal Revenue Service, and the United States Postal Inspection Service. Kim also thanked the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, Election Crimes Branch, for its assistance in the case.

This case is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division. Assistant United States Attorneys Kathryn Martin, Benjamin Allee, and Perry Carbone are in charge of the prosecution.

The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the remaining charged defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.