Mangano appeal to be heard by federal appeals court; GOP loss blasted by Republicans

                                                                            

                                                                  

Mangano appeal   

While suffering a decisive defeat Tuesday in the special election to fill the vacant Congressional District 3 seat, Nassau Republicans are about to be reminded of another past setback.

Nearly five years after former Republican County Executive Ed Mangano and his wife Linda were convicted on federal corruption charges of taking bribes from Oyster Bay restaurateur Harendra Singh, a federal appeals court is scheduled to hear their appeal.

A hearing is scheduled tomorrow at 10 a.m. in Manhattan before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Prosecutors will be given 28 minutes to make their arguments on why the Mangano convictions should be upheld; Ed Mangano's lawyer will have 14 minutes to argue that the former county executive's conviction was wrongly based on an erroneous interpretation of federal law; Linda Mangano's lawyer will have another 14 minutes to argue her conviction also should be overturned.

Ed Mangano was convicted in 2019 of convincing the Town of Oyster Bay to guarantee $20 million in personal loans to Singh. In return, prosecutors argued, Mangano received  exorbitant gifts, meals and vacations from Singh, a longtime family friend. The bribes included $435,000 paid to Linda Mangano over four years for a "low-show" job in one of Singh's restaurants.

Ed Mangano

Mangano is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence while Linda Mangano spent five months in federal prison before being released to home confinement. Linda Mangano has since completed her sentence.

Both Manganos have maintained their innocence.

Mangano argued unsuccessfully in district court that he had not taken "official action" as required by federal statue while prosecutors contend that Mangano was a full participant in a "quid pro quo" bribery scheme involving the loans.

The loans have since been ruled by three courts to be illegal, unenforceable and even unfathomable.

Tomorrow the federal court will hear both sides.

GOP Loss

Republican-backed Nassau Leg. Mazi Pilip of Great Neck suffered a major defeat in yesterday's special election to fill the Third Congressional office, vacant since Republican fabulist George Santos was expelled in December.

Democrat Tom Suozzi won the seat with about 54 percent of the vote to Pilip's 46 percent.

Conservative pundits on radio and television were incredulous, blasting Nassau Republican Chairman Joseph Cairo and Nassau Republicans in general.

Why push to expel Republican George Santos only to lose a special election to replace him , they asked. Santos, at least, voted with Republicans despite his alleged campaign finance violations and admitted lying about his background.

But the results really weren't so surprising.

Suozzi came out of the gate swinging as soon as Gov. Kathy Hochul announced in December that she was scheduling the special election on Feb. 13 and Suozzi was nominated by Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs.

The Democrat, who had served as the 3rd District Congressman for three terms until he decided to run unsuccessfully against Hochul in 2022, was everywhere, talking about everything. Adimpact.com reports that Suozzi's first commercial aired on December 14, one week after being nominated. The Democratic Campaign committee aired its first commercial for Suozzi on Jan. 2nd.

Pilip and the National Republican congressional campaign aired its first commercial on Jan. 3, weeks after Suozzi's first commercial.

By early January, Democrats were outspending Republicans six to one.

Republican spending increased by the end of January but by then it was too late.

Suozzi, an already well-known politician,  had already established himself as a moderate consensus builder while branding relatively unknown Pilip as unqualified and anti-abortion.

Meanwhile, Pilip was nowhere to be found for about a month after the special was announced. She was relatively inaccessible. Her campaign was sluggish and slow to respond.

One thing shown in recent campaigns is the first candidate to establish their identity and to brand the opponent negatively generally wins.

Perhaps the Pilip-Suozzi campaign can be likened to the 2015 campaign for Nassau District Attorney between Republican Kate Murray and Democrat Madeline Singas.

 Murray was considered the heavy favorite. She was a well-liked Hempstead Town supervisor who had crushed her past Democratic opponents.

Singas was a low-profile career prosecutor, without the congenial outgoing profile of Murray.

But Murray had no experience as a prosecutor.

Singas's campaign hammered that point, coming out first and swinging at Murray's lack of experience in the courtroom. Singas consistently pounded the same message.

Murray's campaign was sluggish and slow to respond to attacks, if it responded at all.

Singas defeated Murray by about 16 percentage points.

Pilip wasn't as well known as Murray, but she did have an impressive backstory as an Ethiopian born Orthodox Jew who served in Israeli defense forces before immigrating to America.

Pilip, a registered Democrat who ran as a Republican, also had swamped her Democratic opponents in her two past legislative elections.

But that clearly wasn't enough.

And, then, like today,  there were political undercurrents that were never confirmed but always suspected, such as whispered stories about some Republicans working undercover against their party's candidate.