Lawyers get five minutes to argue against jailing Linda Mangano next Friday

                                                                                  

A federal appeals court this week turned down Linda Mangano's request to delay her scheduled surrender to prison next week, but is giving her lawyers five minutes to argue that she is entitled to remain free on bail while they appeal her conviction on federal corruption charges.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied Mangano's request to stay her ordered surrender on Sept. 9 to begin serving a 15-month sentence in federal prison for lying to the FBI.

Instead, the court gave her lawyers five minutes on Sept. 6 to argue for bail. Federal prosecutors also have five minutes to oppose their request.

Linda Mangano and her husband, former Republican County Executive Ed Mangano, were convicted by a federal jury in March 2019  of accepting bribes and kickbacks from former Oyster Bay Town concessionaire Harendra Singh in return for pressuring the town to guarantee $20 million in loans from private lendors to Singh.

Ed Mangano was sentenced to 12 years in prison but his surrender has been delayed while he appeals his conviction.

Linda Mangano, who was paid $450,000 over four years for a job at one of Singh's restaurants,  was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI about her work. While Linda Mangano's attorney acknowledged it was a "low-show" job, prosecutors contend it was a bribe.

Prosecutors also presented evidence of other gifts from Singh to the couple, including a $7,300 watch for one of their sons, hardwood flooring for the Manganos' bedroom, luxury chairs, free meals and vacations.

The Manganos insist they are innocent and that Singh, their longtime family friend, had lied.

Singh was the star witness against the Mangano's. He pleaded guilty in 2016 to eight felony counts of bribing public officials. He has yet to be sentenced.

Three different courts have found the loan guarantees to be illegal and unenforceable.

Linda Mangano's attorneys argue that unless she is granted bail, she could serve her entire sentence before her appeal is decided. Indeed, their written brief arguing for overturning her conviction isn't even due to be submitted to the court until Nov. 21, according to the Second Circuit docket.

Her lawyers contend there is not enough evidence to prove that Linda Mangano lied to the FBI when interviewed about her job because they could not produce an exact recital of the questions asked nor the answers given. The only record comes from an FBI agent's notes.

They also say she was not allowed to examine the federal prosecutors who were present during the interviews and that U.S. District Court Judge Joan Azrack, who presided over the trial, gave improper instructions to the jury.

Federal prosecutors dismissed those arguments in their own filing, saying there was ample evidence to convince the jury that Linda Mangano had lied and obstructed justice.

But they presented at least one questionable argument -- just Azrack did when she denied Mangano's request for a new trial in January.

Prosecutors told the Second Circuit that when faced with a grand jury investigation into the loan guarantee scheme, Ed Mangano, Linda Mangano and Singh searched for documents to prove that Linda Mangano had indeed done work for Singh and then presented those documents.

They wrote, "while those documents were not fraudulent, the purpose in finding and producing those documents was to mislead federal investigators and the grand jury (ie. to make them believe that Mangano's employment with Singh was legitimate rather than what it actually was, a bribe to her husband."

But wouldn't those "not fraudulent" documents also prove she did the work she claimed she did?

Azrack also reached a puzzling conclusion when denying a new trial in January.

She acknowledged that Mangano had reported his wife's job with Singh on his annual county financial disclosures. But she said that disclosures of his wife's job was proof that he took bribes, describing them  as a "ruse" to "lull Nassau County and the citizen's of Nassau County (including those citizens living in TOB) from discovering Mangano's bribery scheme."

But wouldn't non-disclosure of the job also be considered proof of his bribery scheme?

Here is this week'scourt order: