NIAGARA COUNTY BUSINESSMAN PLEADS GUILTY IN PUBLIC CORRUPTION CASE

BUFFALO, N.Y.--Niagara County businessman Joseph Anderson pleaded guilty today to his part in a scheme to deprive the City of Niagara Falls, New York of the honest services of a public official, announced U.S. Attorney Terrance P. Flynn of the Western District of New York. U.S. Attorney Flynn said that Anderson admitted to U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny that, in 2003, while then-City Councilman Vincenzo Anello was a candidate for mayor, Anello received $30,000 from Anderson, and that Anello received an additional $10,000 from Anderson on November 12, 2003, the week after Anello was elected mayor. The maximum punishment is twenty years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul J. Campana said Anderson admitted that in the summer and fall of 2003, Anderson gave three checks to Anello. The first check, for $15,000, was given to Anello on June 20, 2003; the second, also for $15,000, was given to Anello on July 30, 2003; and the third, for $10,000, was given to Anello on November 12, 2003, after Anello had been elected Mayor.

In his plea agreement presented to the Court today, Anderson stated that he was among a group of persons who expressed interest in leasing the City of Niagara Falls's East Pedestrian Mall. Obtaining such a lease required approval of a majority of the City Council. In March 2004, after Anello was inaugurated as mayor the previous January, a proposed lease agreement was recommended by Mayor Anello to the City Council to be awarded to East Mall Entertainment, LLC, without a bidding process, for an initial five-year term during which the annual rent for the first year was $7,500.

The proposed lease agreement was, on March 23, 2004, placed on the agenda for the City Council meeting scheduled for March 29, 2004.

Anderson said in his plea agreement that Anello introduced him during the meeting of the City Council on March 29, 2004, and recommended that the proposed lease be approved by the Council. At no time during that meeting, or at any time prior to the meeting, did Anello or Anderson disclose to any member of the City Council that Anello had received the $40,000 from Anderson the previous year. As of the expiration of Vincenzo Anello's term as Mayor of the City of Niagara Falls on December 31, 2007, Anderson never asked for repayment of the money, and Anello did not repay it.

This conviction was the culmination of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent In-Charge Laurie Bennett; the United States Department of Labor, under the direction of Daniel R. Petrole, Deputy Inspector General; and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, under the direction of Special Agent In-Charge Patricia J. Haynes.