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Ramapo must move beyond St. Lawrence: JN Editorial

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Sign Resign now

Aaron Troodler’s guilty plea confirms troubles in town. The buck stops with the supervisor, who still faces similar federal charges.

“The surprise guilty plea by Aaron Troodler, former executive director of the Ramapo Local Development Corporation, demonstrates the “reprehensible corruption” that Ramapo residents fear. Troodler, by admitting to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, validates that the town’s leadership has failed. And the buck stops with Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence. He must resign, so Ramapo can move forward. [Read more…]

Ramapo: Aaron Troodler pleads guilty to fraud, conspiracy

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Aaron Troodler Photo: Kathy Gardner/The Journal News

“Aaron Troodler, the former executive director of the Ramapo Local Development Corporation, pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges he conspired with Ramapo Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence in a corruption scheme involving the financing of the town’s baseball stadium and other projects.

Troodler, 42, admitted to committing securities fraud as a part of a scheme to defraud investors in municipal bonds issued by the RLDC and the town, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. [Read more…]

Mona’s gamble fails: Board of Elections rules against the SV Committee takeover

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Mona Montal at the tables–Photo Credit: Borgata Fall Poker Open

The following is from a Press Release issued by Steven White, March 7, 2017.

“The Rockland County Board of Elections has sustained objections filed by Steven White and annulled the takeover of the Spring Valley Democratic Committee by proxies of the Ramapo Democratic Chair, Mona Montal.

Spring Valley Democratic Committee Members Betty Carmand and Steven White objected to an attempt by the Ramapo Democratic Committee to take over and control the Spring Valley Committee. [Read more…]

Zeroing in on government fraud

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SEC fishing clipped image

by Steven Malanga, city-journal.org February 16, 2017

This article from the City Journal provides a thorough explanation of the federal crimes that Christopher St. Lawrence, Aron Troodler, Michael Klein, and Nathan Oberman are charged with. It also explains why this is a benchmark prosecution for the DEC and the FBI.

In April, an unprecedented criminal trial will kick off in federal court in New York, with two representatives of the town of Ramapo facing multiple counts of securities fraud. Prosecutors have frequently indicted public officials for embezzling taxpayer money or taking bribes, but this case marks the first attempt to convict officials for fabricating a town’s financial statement in order to raise money in the bond market—in this instance, to pay for a new minor-league baseball stadium. Ramapo town supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence and Ramapo Local Development Corporation executive director N. Aaron Troodler “kicked truth and transparency to the curb,” alleges the indictment, by lying to investors about the town’s crumbling finances. Among the maneuvers the pair employed, prosecutors say, was to shift around assets in city accounts and to exaggerate the size of payments the town had received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for cleanup after Superstorm Sandy. [Read more…]

“Our party has been hijacked”

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The Spring Valley Democratic Committee had not met for years, and that was the first thing that made the Presidents Day meeting unusual. But what made it alarming was the way it was conducted, behind closed doors with a significant reorganization voted on by committee members who were nowhere to be seen, not even in the very room where the vote was taken. Also absent was the architect of the takeover. This is not the first time the Ramapo Democratic machine has deployed its network of ghost puppets to extend its control. [Read more…]

Mallia ‘helped’ developers who donated to St. Lawrence

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Anthony Mallia Ramapo Director of Building and Planning

Anthony Mallia arrest photo

“Three of the developers allegedly given breaks on permit fees by Anthony Mallia, Ramapo’s building inspector, were major donors to the campaign committees of Mallia’s boss, town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence.

Mallia was indicted last week on charges that he bilked the town of $150,000 by falsifying records so that he could reduce the permit fees on 39 projects from late 2014 through 2015. He also allegedly overcharged the Moleston Fire District in Ramapo by tens of thousands of dollars on its permit fees for the new Hillcrest fire station. Mallia has been suspended since his arrest in the case in October. [Read more…]

Ramapo’s shoddy governance is by design

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Photo of St. Lawrence listening to public remarks

Photo: Preserve Ramapo

The following is from a Journal News editorial  Jan. 10, 2017

Also read:

PRESERVE RAMAPO CHAIRMAN: State fails to act as Ramapo falls apart

“Ramapo’s rampant over-development and strained tax rolls didn’t passively sprout. The misbegotten state of affairs is of the town leadership’s own making. Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, now facing a federal trial on accusations he fudged the town’s fiscal health to fool investors, has pushed policies that have unraveled the town in so many ways. Town Board members — all Democrats, like St. Lawrence — have done little to stop him, and land-use board members, controlled by St. Lawrence, abetted development gone wild.

The motivation? Money. Developers, who often fill campaign coffers of local officials, build and build, and the demand for housing grows and grows. [Read more…]

Ramapo nears breaking point

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Front Page of The Journal News Sunday Jan. 8, 2017

On Sunday, The Journal News devoted its entire front section to an examination of the accelerating, crushing growth in the Town of Ramapo. The cautionary lead on the front page was followed by six feature articles in section one, all dealing with the growing crisis in a town with uncontrolled development, a collapsing tax base, and top-level administrators busy working on their legal defenses against scores of federal charges. The dry rot resulting from endemic political corruption threatens the entire community.

The six features in section one are divided by six separate themes:

“It’s Ramapo’s lack of zoning and safety code enforcement, not religion, that has encouraged development chaos and divided the town. [Read more…]

2016 The Year of Indictments–A Calendar of Corruption

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By the end of the year, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Rockland County District Attorney, New York State’s Attorney General and the New York State Department of State all had turned their attention to the widespread corruption in the Town of Ramapo. Investigations, search warrants, arrests and indictments followed and continue as the year came to a close. The half-dozen agencies are filing their intentions in courts, and several serious investigations continue. Finally, It’s on. [Read more…]

Since yeshiva raids in Ramapo, FBI school probe lingers

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FBI agents removing files and computers in Monsey

FBI Ramapo Education Technology Raids in March 2016 The Journal News

“On an unusually warm day in March, dozens of FBI agents and other law enforcement officers raided two dozen yeshivas and businesses that had tapped into a multi-million dollar federal program for financing computers and related technology at educational institutions.

More than 300 agents and officers descended on the ultra-Orthodox private schools and companies, seizing payment records, equipment and other documents as part of an investigation on whether the federal money had been misused. The agents hit additional religious schools in Orange County ultra-Orthodox community of Kiryas Joel and made at least one stop the same day in Brooklyn.

The FBI-led raids, which involved more than 22 separate search warrants in Ramapo, also included detectives with the Rockland District Attorney’s Office and local police departments. [Read more…]