Had You Just Shared The Wealth, You Could Have Easily Avoided All This
When you deny the public sweet locavore hooch, be prepared to risk the consequences:
Posted: June 15th, 2008 | Filed under: Follow The Money, Staten Island, Well, What Did You Expect?Although the city faces a fiscal crunch, Staten Island’s borough president is spending $2 million in public money on a winery run by a businessman who sold him property he flipped for a profit, a Daily News probe shows.
Beep James Molinaro committed the cash from his budget to re-create a Tuscan winemaking farm on public property in Staten Island’s Snug Harbor.
The winery will be run by five local businessmen who have made thousands of dollars in donations to his campaigns, records show.
One of those businessmen is Randy Lee, a prominent local real estate lawyer and developer. In January 1991, a brokerage Lee controls sold a small vacant lot on Carteret St. to Molinaro, then deputy borough president, and a co-buyer for about $10,000, documents show.
Molinaro and Janice Errichiello sold the property for about $20,000 within a year, records show. The property then went back and forth between Molinaro and other buyers through 2004 when Molinaro sold it for $400,000, records show.
In February, Molinaro announced his plans to sponsor $1.5 million from his so-called “discretionary” capital funds for the Staten Island vineyard project dreamed up by Lee and his fellow businessmen. He has since raised it to $2 million.