New York Republican Ed Mangano, who served as Nassau County executive from 2010 until last year, was convicted on corruption charges on Friday. Mangano was found guilty of bribery and wire fraud, though he was acquitted of extortion. Both Mangano and his wife, Linda Mangano, were also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Prosecutors had alleged that Ed Mangano had taken bribes from a self-described “restaurant mogul” named Harendra Singh, which included a $454,000 “no-show” job for Linda Mangano, in exchange for steering government contracts his way. Prosecutors also argued that the county executive had pressured officials in the town of Oyster Bay into indirectly backing massive loans for Singh.
Mangano’s conviction, which he has vowed to appeal, caps off a volatile political career in this large Long Island county. In 2009, Mangano, who was a member of the Nassau County legislature, challenged Democratic County executive Tom Suozzi. Suozzi had made history back in 2001 by becoming the first Democrat to become county executive in three decades, a win that dealt a massive defeat to the once-almighty Nassau County Republican Party. (For more on the fall of the Nassau GOP, check out Steve Kornacki's excellent 2011 article.)
While Suozzi had gone down in flames in the 2006 gubernatorial primary against Eliot Spitzer and was now running for re-election in the midst of the Great Recession, he looked like a sure bet to win a third term three years later. However, Mangano unseated Suozzi by 386 votes in a complete and utter shocker. Suozzi had $1 million left in his war chest after that campaign, a strong indication that he didn’t take this campaign as seriously as he should have. Years later, Suozzi would admit that he had underestimated Mangano’s chances.
Mangano quickly got started on the wrong foot, and the state seized control of Nassau County’s finances a year into his term; Mangano responded by running ads in 2011, well ahead of his re-election campaign, that demonized his “opponents.”
Suozzi came back for a rematch in 2013 and blamed the incumbent for running up the county’s debt. Mangano ran commercials declaring that he hadn’t raised taxes and touting his performance in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, and he won by a wide 59-41 in a result that foreshadowed the national Democratic Party's problems the following year.
However, Suozzi and Mangano’s political fortunes dramatically reversed in 2016. Suozzi successfully ran for New York’s 3rd Congressional District, while Mangano, his wife, and Oyster Bay town supervisor John Venditto were indicted. Mangano wanted to run for a third term in 2017, but the county GOP made it very clear it didn’t want him as its standard-bearer.
Mangano threatened to run as an independent but eventually just retired, and Democrat Laura Curran won a competitive contest to succeed him. The Manganos and Venditto went to trial the following May, and Venditto was acquitted. The first trial ended without a verdict for the Manganos, but they weren’t so lucky on Friday.