A Ghost from the Past Returns — Zehy Jereis Back in Business in Yonkers

We have received several contacts from our friends in Yonkers who report that Zehy Jereis has returned from an 18-month exile in Brooklyn, where he allegedly owned and operated a couple of car washes. Jereis, the former Yonkers GOP chairman, has a shady and tarnished political career, which eventually resulted in his stepping down as chairman in 2006.

Shortly after his resignation, Jereis disappeared from Yonkers. Months later, the car wash explanation surfaced. Jereis’ departure from Yonkers coincides with U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia’s investigation into political corruption, in Westchester and in Yonkers, began picking up steam. Garcia subpoenaed ethics disclosure records on Jereis.

A law enforcement source explained that Jereis’ departure is exactly the way that the Feds handle a cooperating confidential informant, or RAT. There is no real proof yet that Jereis sang —  just connected the dots here.

What really threw me for a loop was when I heard that Jereis was back in the business of politics in Yonkers, to the point in which he held a fundraising event for a prominent Democrat, yes a Dem, and reached out to a Yonkers Republican interested in running for a council seat in the fall. We are trying to get confirmation before we list the names of the Dem and Rep.

Clearly, Yonkers politics neither needs nor wants a return of Zehy Jereis. The best way to see this is to see how smoothly the Yonkers GOP is running, with John Jacono as chairman, and Steve Levy and Justin Tubilulo underneath. While there have been no election wins for the new Yonkers GOP lately, at least we aren’t hearing on a daily basis calls for the chairman to resign.

That’s why Zehy needs to go back to buffing cars.

The Tangled Web of Corruption, Part 2

from Yonkers Confidential:

The first wiretap requests from federal investigators for the various targets in the current “Ridge Hill” investigation came as far back as 2002, after federal court testimony opened the door for a federal investigation into allegations of corrupt politicians, judges, and other public and political figures.

Again, we remind the readers that Ridge Hill is only a small part of the much larger investigation, and remember that there are over 5,000 hours of wiretapped conversations in these cases, about which the public has only heard one minute of to date.

Allow me to digress. Albanian mobster Mo Sanginiti, in the extortion trial of Angelo DiPietro and several others in 2002, testified that he paid Zehy Jereis (former Yonkers Republican chairman and a close political operative to former state Sen. Nick Spano) $10,000 in 2001 because Jereis told him the he had someone in the Westchester District Attorney’s Office who could make criminal cases “go away.” Of course, the best scenario in order to make a criminal case go away is to have a cooperating assistant district attorney, a cooperating judge and a “plugged in” defense attorney.

The feds believe they know where the defense attorney in the “fixed” cases came from. An important part of their investigation is allegedly identifying the ‘cooperating’ ADA’s and Judges.

Sanginiti also testified that he had previously paid Jereis $5,000 to check and find out if he, DiPietro, and other individual were being investigated by then-Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro. Sanginiti did not name Jereis’ alleged source, but an FBI document did: Al Pirro, Jr.

These “information” payments are reportedly one of the main focuses of the current investigation. It turns out that Sanginiti and his friends were under investigaiton, and Sanginiti and DiPietro were subsequently convicted of extortion, along with several others.

DiPietro was again indicted in 2004, and later convicted for being a member of the “Rudaj Organization,” an Albanian organized crime gang. He is currently serving 40 years in federal prison. Because of this, he might also be talking to federal investigators. 

Why? Zehy Jereis was allegedly good friends with DiPietro, who was an owner of the Mt. Vernon strip club Sue’s Rendezvous, which Jereis frequented along with another TARGETED election official and a TARGETED political party operative. These three loved to talk, according to reliable sources, and DiPietro might have some interesting tidbits to trade with the Feds in exchange for a sentence reduction.

Albanian gangster Din Celaj was part of DiPietro’s extortion group in the 2001 case, and cooperated with the feds against the others, earning him an early release. Celaj, however, was arrested again in 2007 in a RICO case along with Moheed Oasman, Xhavit Celaj, Besmir Boshnjaku, Ali Zherka and Arber Selimi. Rumor has it that Celaj is once again cooperating in another ongoing organized-crime-related investigation, and prosecutors are very interested in his testimony.

It is the understanding of Yonkers Confidential that the feds are also investigating information they have received from wiretapped conversations in the Greg DiPalma case concerning a former YPD police officer and stolen narcotics, with a fed target in the case being used as a middleman between the officer and the relatives of a TARGETED elected official. The fed target allegedly used the proceeds to buy Yonkers properties. Incredibly, this individual not only had a mortgage on their primary residence in Yonkers, but also on a number of two-family homes in Yonkers, and a condo in South Florida — all on a modest salary from politically connected jobs. This target is now reportedly cooperating with federal prosecutors.

It is also alleged that the targeted elected official involved in the above drug sales laundered money for the drug dealers by purchasing luxury cars, as well as properties which were bought and sold in the same time period, raising a red flag for federal investigators. The feds reportedly are still pursuing this target’s testimony. 

However, recent e-mails received by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in White Plains between this individual and another target in the investigation, thanks to a federal subpoena, might have convinced this individual to “loosen up” and begin cooperating. 

And from what Yonkers Confidential understands to be contained on these sometimes “amorous” e-mails, they should be cooperating. Stay tuned …

The Tangled Web of Corruption in Yonkers

Editor’s Note: We received the following from someone we will call “Yonkers Confidential.”

Those who have been closely watching the federal investigation of Ridge Hill are no doubt wondering when the shoe is going to drop. Subpoena after subpoena has been served on the Yonkers City Council since early 2008. Mob attorneys like Murray “Don’t Worry Murray” Richman have been retained. Car wash franchises in NYC have been purchased. Questionable consultant contracts have been cancelled. And the federal grand jury goes on and on …

Those in the know about this investigation realize that it started with wiretaps in the Patsy Parrello indictments in 2001, and continued through the Greg DePalma case in 2005. Both Parrello and DePalma were capos in the Genovese crime family who were indicted and convicted, along with dozens of other organized crime members, on assault, extortion, embezzlement and other charges after undercover law enforcement agents infiltrated their organizations.

Over five thousand hours of wiretap conversations were recorded in the DePalma case alone. Criminal case fixing, pay-to-play kickbacks, dirty judges and politicians, and subservient political party leaders are just a few of the targets of U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia and his omnipotent second-in-charge, Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Carbone, in this lengthy and wide-ranging look into political corruption in Westchester County.

The Ridge Hill investigation is just an extension of this federal investigation, which is allegedly targeting nearly a dozen individuals. One of those targets is former Mayor John Spencer. U.S Attorney Michael Garcia has several reasons for this:

Action Redi-Mix: Many Westchester readers will remember that Gambino capo Greg DePalma was caught on an FBI wire in 2004 telling Gambino associate Robert Persico that a “frustrated Republican politician” named Zehy robbed a Yonkers concrete plant of $1 million, and gave $150,000 to “the Italian exec,” $50,000 to John Spencer and $35,000 to Vinny Restiano. The frustrated politician in question was allegedly Zehy Jereis, at the time the chairman of the Yonkers Repubilcan Committee and political operative for state Sen. Nick Spano.

The concrete plant in question was Action Redi-Mix, originally on Lake Avenue and later relocated to a location on the Yonkers/Mt. Vernon border. Spencer allegedly received the $50,000 payments because he made it possible for Action Redi-Mix to operate by issuing permits and ignoring violations.

David Purdy, a co-owner of Action Redi-Mix, was the treasurer of the Yonkers Republican Party (headed by Jereis), and was made a member of the Yonkers Zoning Board by Spencer in 1997. The feds believe that Jereis acted as the middleman in this scheme.

Spencer allegedly convinced City Council President Vinny Restiano to get the Yonkers City Council to re-zone property for Action Redi-Mix when it moved to its new site on the Yonkers-Mt. Vernon border.

Now here’s where the feds’ interest heightened. Action Redi-Mix’s other co-owner was Richard Vetter, a known Gambino organized crime family associate. No surprise here. That’s the mob. They traditionally make the bulk of their illegal cash on concrete, dirt and trash. Enough said.

Milio Management: Spencer put together a deal before he left office in 2004 that transferred property to the city owned by Milio, which the city needed to widen Ashburton Avenue, in return for two properties, Public School 6 on Ashburton Avenue and the former Longfellow Junior High School on the city’s west side.

The feds want to know if there was any quid pro quo involved because they believe that the value of the properties that Milio acquired far outweighed in value the property that Yonkers received in return. And the fact that Milio immediately hired Spencer as a consultant when he left office obviously raised a red flag.

Servino & Santangelo LLP: Spencer was also on the payroll of a law firm currently being looked at by the feds in this case. Federal investigators are reportedly also very interested in the work that Spencer did for Al Pirro’s shadow law firm, Servino & Santangel, after he left office. Was Spencer paid to keep city councilmen Liam McLaughlin and Dennis Robertson on board with the Ridge Hill project? Was there a quid pro quo worked out between Spencer and Ratner concerning the Ridge Hill building services contract with Dennis Robertson, who was formerly a vice president with Skyscraper Building Services of New Jersey? Interestingly, Robertson “left” Skyscraper after the first federal subpoenas landed at the Yonkers City Council earlier this year.

The feds want to know why he left the company, and have both interviewed him and subpoenaed him to the federal grand jury in recent weeks.

The feds also find it somewhat troublesome that on his financial statement from his 2006 U.S. Senate campaign, Spencer lists himself as a consultant with 15 companies, all of which had done some form of business with the city while he was in office. But Spencer reportedly never leaves his home. He pays several thousand dollars each month in mortgage costs, payments on two cars and sends his daughters to the Ursuline School, and his son to Iona Prep, both in New Rochelle, and both costing a combined $30,000 annually in tuition costs. The feds reportedly would like to know why, and where, Spencer gets his current checks from.

This is a sample of the feds’ questions about John Spencer. Next week, we will look at another target. Who could that be? Stay tuned …