March sentencing for former Nassau chief deputy Walker

                                                                          

Former Nassau Chief Deputy Rob Walker

                                                              
While former Republican County Executive Ed Mangano and his wife will be asking a federal judge next month to overturn their corruption convictions, Mangano's former chief deputy Rob Walker will be  sentenced in March for obstruction of justice in an unrelated case.

U.S. District Court Judge Joan Azrack, who is also presiding over the Mangano case, has set a sentencing hearing of March 17 for Walker, who pleaded guilty in May to one count of obstruction of justice.

Walker's attorney has been ordered to submit any application regarding sentencing by Jan. 15 while federal prosecutors must give their response by Jan. 29, according to the case's docket sheet.

The charges against Walker, who essentially ran Nassau government while Mangano was county executive from Jan. 2010 through Dec. 2017,  grew out of a federal investigation into the awarding of contracts during Republican county administration.

Prosecutors said Walker accepted $5,000 from an unnamed county contractor, who was a federal informant, and then tried to cover up the payment. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped a second charge against Walker of lying to the FBI.

Newsday reported at the time of his plea that Walker was likely to face less than two years in prison.

Mangano has yet to be sentenced on his conviction of taking bribes and kickbacks from former restaurateur Harendra Singh in return for helping the Oyster Bay Town concessionaire received $20 million in loan guarantees from the town.

Mangano and his wife, who was convicted on related charges, are expected to argue for a new trial next month on the grounds that  Singh, a top prosecution witness, lied.

Walker, as the Hicksville GOP leader and a former assemblyman, was a top campaign fundraiser for Mangano through the Hicksville Republican club. Donors, including many county contractors, raised enough money for the club to buy a skybox at Met Life Stadium

Walker was indicted in Feb. 2018. Prosecutors said the unnamed contractor gave him $5,000 in cash after a University of Notre Dame home football game in Oct. 2014. Walker was the contractor's guest at the game, they said.

Prosecutors said Walker tried to get the contractor to deny the payment or offer a false explanation for it before a grand jury. They said Walker returned the $5,000 to the contractor at a meeting in a Hicksville park. But the FBI had the meeting under surveillance and the contractor turned the cash over to the FBI afterwards,  prosecutors say. Then, they say, Walker lied about it.

Pretty much everybody in the Nassau political community knows who the unnamed contractor is but nobody will name him unless he is publicly identified by the feds.