Brooklyn Assemblywoman on trial for bribery in house for land scam
March 14, 2008
Brooklyn Assemblywoman Diane Gordon demanded a new house from a corrupt developer in exchange for helping him obtain city land in her district, a prosecutor charged Thursday.
And Gordon didn’t just want any house, the prosecutor said.
“Since I am the assemblywoman, I definitely need a detached home,” Gordon brazenly told developer Ranjan Batheja, who was secretly recording the conversation in his SUV with a hidden camera.
“I don’t need to be attached to anybody,” Gordon continued. “Private. Detached. You can make it happen.”
Gordon wanted granite counters in the kitchen, stainless steel appliances, cherry wood cabinets and two Jacuzzis in each bathroom, according to Assistant District Attorney Michel Spanakos.
The plus-sized assemblywoman repeatedly noted that she didn’t want a stoop with lots of steps.
“I would like a nice-sized bedroom, a nice-sized living room,” Spanakos quoted her as saying. “I want it to be impressive. That’s what I want it to be.”
Gordon’s stunning demands were revealed in Brooklyn Supreme Court Thursday when she went on trial for bribery.
Spanakos went right to the videotape evidence of her greed.
“We got to do something with this land…So I can get me a home now,” Gordon told Batheja on the video.
“One hand washes the other,” she said. “Make sure that I get a home over there.”
The video shows Batheja giving Gordon a guided tour of the site of the home he said he would build her in a gated community along the Brooklyn-Queens border.
In fact, the $500,000 house was outside her district and near a burial ground for Mafia murder victims, but authorities say the insider’s price was right - $1.
Defense lawyer Danielle Eaddy said Gordon was entrapped by Batheja after he was nabbed in a sting by city investigators.
“She [Gordon] wanted a house, clearly, discounted or free, but she also wanted the land developed,” Eaddy told jurors.
Gordon did describe her vision for senior citizen housing, a cultural center and retail space on a vacant site in East New York that the city was selling. Later, she delivered letters of support for Batheja from local politicians and the community board.
After Gordon received anonymous letters warning her that she was under investigation, including one purportedly from an employee of the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, authorities say, she returned the cash Batheja had given her as a sham down payment on her home.
Source: NY Daily News
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