More Singas' non-disclosures: no spouse, no spouse job, no spouse income


Madeline Singas sworn in as acting Nassau DA in 2015, with husband looking on	(from nassauda.org)

For the past week, Nassau's political world has been talking about a fascinating Sept. 2 story by Matthew Thomas on his "Vulgar Marxism" Substack account.

Thomas reports that former Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas, a newly minted member of New York's Court of Appeals, failed to disclose that her husband's company landed $1.6 million in county contracts during Singas' tenure as district attorney. https://vulgarmarxism.substack.com/p/top-new-york-judge-madeline-singas

He wrote a follow-up on Sept. 7 that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who appointed fellow Democrat Singas to the state's highest court, had not made public Singas' financial statements as required by law on appointment. Singas was confirmed by the State Senate on June 8. https://vulgarmarxism.substack.com/p/someone-needs-to-investigate-new

Although Singas noted that her husband, Theo Apostolou, was employed by Pitney Bowes, she did not disclose that Pitney Bowes and two subsidiaries had received more than $1.6 million in payments from the county between 2016 and 2021, including $50,000 from the district attorney's office, Thomas wrote.

After serving as an assistant district attorney, Singas became Nassau's acting district attorney in January, 2015 and was elected later that year to the job. She served as Nassau's elected district attorney from 2016 through May, 2021.

Thomas also said that Singas' 2018 financial disclosure was missing even though Singas and fellow Democrat County Executive Laura Curran together announced in April 2019 -- a month before the county required the 2018 disclosure to be submitted -- that they were requiring county officers from then on to file their reports electronically rather than on paper.

However, as Newsday columnist Joye Brown pointed out at the time, electronic filing made it no easier to see Nassau financial disclosure reports because the county still required Freedom of Information requests to the county Board of Ethics before releasing the forms.

Singas had issued a 2015 report damning the county's paper-based contracting system, saying it hindered the tracking of conflict of interests between vendors and officials.

Singas issued the report after then Senate Majority leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) was indicted on federal corruption charges that included pressuring Nassau to award a contract to a firm that employed his son. He was subsequently convicted.

But there's more to the Singas non-disclosure story.

According to paper financial disclosure reports provided to a then-Newsday reporter by the county in the summer of 2019, Singas did not report that she even had a spouse, that he held a job or earned any income in some years.

In 2014, when Singas was an assistant district attorney, her only reference to a spouse was under the section of investments: indicating "spouse" held common stock in a brokerage account.

In 2016, the year she was sworn in as Nassau's district attorney, Singas reported no spouse, no spouse job nor any spouse income according to her paper financial disclosure report.

Neither the 2014 nor 2016 report indicated any rental income although Thomas wrote that Singas and her sister inherited a two-unit family home in 2012 and potentially owned other income-producing properties.

The signature page for the 2016 report is dated 2014. Guess that's one of the errors that come with a paper-based system.

See attached copies.

Oddly, between the 2014 and 2016 disclosures, Singas reported an unnamed spouse in 2015 as well as a spouse job as "sales, Pitney Bowes" and "No" under the question of whether it was regulated by any state or local agency. She also listed three sources of rental income.

Neither the 2014, 2016 or 2017 report indicated any rental income despite the acknowledgement in 2015.

Singas did not mention in any of her disclosures that Pitney Bowes had received money from the county.

It should also be noted that the paper financial reports clearly direct county officials to:

"List any office, trusteeship, directorship, partnership, or other position in any business, association, proprietary, or not-for profit organization held by you or your spouse or dependent children, if any during the reporting year and indicate whether these businesses have dealings with the County of Nassau in any manner." (emphasis added)

Thomas also reported that Nassau did not provide a Singas disclosure report for 2018, but it appears that the 2018 report was mislabeled 2019 by the new electronic filing system, which was supposed to be so much more accurate.

That's because Laura Curran also allegedly did not file a 2018 financial disclosure report, nor did County Comptroller Jack Schnirman, according to their disclosure records provided in the summer of 2019 to the Newsday reporter.

Their 2018 reports apparently were erroneously labeled 2019. They all said the information contained in them was collected in the spring of 2019. Usually, the county collects financial information in the spring following the year covered by the report.

Nevertheless, Singas' lack of disclosure was questioned at the time.

Why was there no spouse listed, no spouse job, no spouse income on some reports? Had she suddenly gotten divorced and remarried and then divorced again? How was this legal?

The county and Singas' office responded that Singas was allowed to not disclose information because of safety concerns; ie undefined threats allegedly received by the district attorney.

The answer seemed somewhat odd but events prevented further investigation.

Two years later, Thomas appears to have connected the dots behind the lack of disclosure.

Here is the 2014 disclosure report: