Crime & Safety
DA: 3 Ex-officials Sentenced in New Cassel Corruption Case
The three 'put their personal interests before the community to line their own pockets,' Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice said.
Three former government officials were sentenced Tuesday in a corruption case surrounding a New Cassel real estate development project in North Hempstead, authorities said.
The officials – two former Nassau County legislators and the former executive director of the Town of North Hempstead Community Development Agency – were sentenced “for conspiring to put portions of the New Cassel community up for sale for their own financial gain,” according to a news release issued by Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice.
The men had been found guilty in 2012 of collaborating to award a development project in New Cassel to a builder in exchange for bribery payments.
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On Tuesday, Neville Mullings, 73, of Westbury, and the former head of the North Hempstead Community Development agency, was sentenced to nine months in jail. Mullings was convicted in a five month trial by a Nassau jury of two counts of fourth-degree conspiracy and two counts of official misconduct.
Former Nassau County Leg. Roger Corbin, 68, of Westbury, was sentenced to two to six years in prison. Corbin was convicted of one count of second-degree public servant receiving a bribe and one count of official misconduct.
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Former Nassau County Leg. Patrick Williams, 66, of Uniondale, was sentenced to one year in jail. Williams was convicted by of two counts of fourth-degree conspiracy.
“These men were entrusted by the community to transform this property into a development that everyone in New Cassel could be proud of,” DA Rice said. “Instead, they put their personal interests before the community to line their own pockets. Today, 10 years after the first request for proposals for this project was released, this parcel still has not been fully developed due to the selfish actions of these defendants.”
All three are expected to file appeals, Newsday reported. Representing Corbin, Kenneth St. Bernard, an attorney in Mineola, said outside the courthouse that his client’s sentence “was extremely harsh,” and had noted earlier that men had not been convicted of grand larceny charges.
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