JCOPE Announces Settlements With Companies Involved in Silver, Skelos Cases

Last week, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) announced that it has entered into settlement agreements with two companies for Lobbying Act violations.  The two companies were implicated in prosecutions by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York that led to the convictions of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre). (Both men are free on bail while they appeal their respective convictions.)

JCOPE executive director Seth Agata said:

“These settlement agreements are the result of cooperation between the Commission and the
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and mark a major milestone in
ethics law enforcement. The lawmakers who sought to use their official positions to secure unwarranted privileges have already been punished; the clients of lobbyists who facilitated these acts and provided these public officials with such special benefits are now facing the consequences of their actions.”

Glenwood Management Corporation, a New York City-based real estate management company, has agreed to pay a $200,000 fine for failure to disclose activities and meetings related to lobbying Skelos in various required reports.  The company also acknowledged that it retained a New York City law firm “knowing that a portion of the fees paid would be shared with Silver, who would perform no work in connection with such legal services.” (Read the settlement agreement here.)

Administrators for the Professions of Roslyn (APR), which manages the Long Island-based medical malpractice insurance company Physicians Reciprocal Insurers, will pay $70,000 for hiring Senator Skelos’s son for what became a no-show job. (Read the settlement agreement here.)

Read news coverage from the Times Union, the State of Politics blog, Newsday and the Journal News.