Category: Newsday

Changes to Nassau County's flawed property tax assessment system pushed by politically connected taxpayer grievance firms have helped those companies win more challenges and increase their collected fees by millions of dollars, a Newsday computer analysis found. The seven largest firms handled 72 percent of the nearly 137,000 residential property tax challenges filed for the… Continue reading Big fees to private tax firms

A prominent Long Island restaurateur arranged and paid for several vacation trips for Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and a top Oyster Bay Town official, a Newsday investigation has found. Harendra Singh -- a politically connected Bethpage-based businessman -- coordinated travel itineraries and payment for trips for Mangano, members of the Mangano family and Oyster… Continue reading Power Trip

In 2007, a Nassau County Surrogate's Court judge tapped Steven Schlesinger -- then an influential attorney for the Nassau County Democratic Party -- to manage the multimillion-dollar Kermit Gitenstein Foundation, a private family trust with no heir. It was a lucrative appointment, but an even better perk was that the job made Schlesinger a generous benefactor:… Continue reading Charity Connections

Long Island elected officials have steered at least $1.38 million in taxpayer dollars and other assistance to a struggling nonprofit run by a felon convicted in a high-profile Suffolk County public corruption scandal, a Newsday investigation has found. Edward Morris Sr., 65, the executive director of the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame, pleaded guilty in… Continue reading Tax Dollars on Display (but you have to buy a plane ticket)

The Kings County district attorney’s prosecution of Antowine Butts for double homicide imploded and ended in an acquittal in 2000, but not before Butts spent two years in a Rikers Island jail cell. After the case unraveled, Butts alleged that he was a victim of prosecutorial misconduct in a civil rights lawsuit that was settled with New… Continue reading Questions about Rice’s early prosecutions