NYC developer at the heart of Albany scandals is big donor to L.I. pols, including Sen. Ken LaValle

State Senator Ken LaValle is among the top recipients of campaign cash spread around the New York by the real estate developer at the heart of the corruption scandal that has rocked Albany, resulting in the arrests of both the assembly speaker and senate majority leader this year.

Since 2012, the veteran First District senator took in $62,500 in campaign contributions from entities affiliated with Glenwood Management Corp. Glenwood and its founder, Leonard Litwin, figure prominently in the criminal accusations leveled against Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. The activities of Litwin and Glenwood Management Corp. were also the subject of inquiries by the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption before Gov. Andrew Cuomo abruptly disbanded it last year, pronouncing its work complete less than nine months after he empaneled it.

The bulk of contributions to LaValle’s campaign committee by limited liability companies affiliated with Glenwood Management Corp. came in 2012, when the senator’s campaign coffers saw an influx of $55,000 from the developer’s companies — $50,000 of it on Oct. 4, 2012 in the form of five $10,000 checks from five different LLCs that share an office address with Glenwood at 1200 Union Turnpike in New Hyde Park, according to online campaign disclosure reports. Those contributions represent 25.5 percent of the total received by LaValle’s campaign committee in 2012 and the $10,000 checks were the largest checks made to his campaign that year, except a $10,300 contribution from the “Friends of Bob Gaffney” campaign account.

It was during that time frame that Skelos was soliciting “substantial campaign contributions” from Glenwood to his own campaign and to “officials and political entities selected by” the majority leader, according to a federal criminal complaint made public today following the arrest of Skelos and his son Adam, on corruption, extortion, bribery and other charges.

In 2012, Skelos was negotiating with Glenwood on behalf of his son for greater compensation from an Arizona-based environmental technology company affiliated with Litwin that was looking to land lucrative sewage and stormwater infrastructure contracts in New York state — and on Long Island, in particular, according to the complaint.

There are at least 28 limited liability companies affiliated with Glenwood Management Corp., a developer of luxury rental apartments in New York City. Taking advantage of a loophole in state campaign finance regulations that treats the LLCs as “individuals” not subject to corporate campaign contribution limits, LLCs affiliated with Litwin’s Glenwood Management Corp. have doled out millions of dollars in campaign contributions to party and candidate political committees across the state.

Litwin/Glenwood LLCs donated $100,000 to State Senator Phil Boyle (R-Bay Shore) on a single day in Sept. 2012, campaign disclosure reports filed with the state board of elections show. In total the companies donated nearly half a million dollars to the L.I. senate delegation between 2010 and 2014 — and more than $1.2 million to the NYS Senate Republican Campaign Committee and its “housekeeping” account.

But the Litwin/Glenwood companies were very generous with Democratic candidates and committees as well. They contributed more than $1.2 million to Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the last election cycle alone. The LLCs also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the state Democratic Committee and its “housekeeping” account, the state Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and the campaign committees of State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, among others.

Recipients of the Litwin/Glenwood largesse also included the Suffolk County Democratic Committee ($165,000) and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone’s campaign committees in 2011 and 2015 ($180,000).

In a phone interview Friday, LaValle said closing the LLC “loopholes” wouldn’t have much impact after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

“I’ve voted for all sorts of reform in campaigns. I am a big disclosure person,’ LaValle said. “But the Supreme Court has ruled on this issue. So let’s say we close the loophole on LLCs. We’ll still have PACs and bundling,” he said.

“Outside groups control elections. In days gone by, you had your Boss Tweeds. Now we’ve almost eliminated party bosses and put the power in the hands of other people,” LaValle said. “The number of people that wield power in Albany — you can almost put them in a telephone booth.”

Litwin, according to prosecutors, is one of those people. He and his Glenwood Management Corp. have benefitted greatly from 2011 state legislation renewing and extending property tax exemptions on its luxury rental apartment buildings in New York City — avoiding tens of millions of dollars in property taxes. The laws sunset in June. The tax abatements, which in theory at least are supposed to spur the construction of affordable housing, were tied together in the same bill with rent control legislation that was also up for renewal in 2011.

Included in the same 2011 bill was the 2 percent property tax levy cap pushed by Long Island Republican senators. The tax cap also sunsets in June.

LaValle said in Friday that the bills were part of a “trade.” He said he believes rent control and tax cap legislation will be tied together for renewal this year.

“Republicans will try to make the tax cap permanent,” LaValle said. “NYC Democrats will support the tax cap if suburban Republicans support rent control regulations… It will be the same as four years ago,” he said.

LaValle was a co-sponsor of the bill that renewed and extended the controversial tax abatement program and NYC rent control, as well as established the property tax cap — a program the senator calls a “huge success.”

On Friday, he predicted “something will come of” the federal prosecutor’s investigation. He called Bharara “very aggressive” but said he believed the case against Skelos won’t be “anything like Shelly Silver.”

Silver is accused of a variety of illegal activities, including collecting fees from a law firm for which he did no legal work. Similar accusations have been made against Skelos, who prosecutors said steered clients to his firm who had business before the state. Many state legislators are lawyers who are members of or counsel to law firms and the Moreland Commission was investigating the relationships between senators and their law firms before Cuomo pulled the plug on its work.

The Riverhead law firm of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin and Quartararo, LP, with which LaValle has been associated as “of counsel” since 2003, was one of 10 law firms that sued in 2013 to quash subpoenas issued by the Moreland Commission seeking records related to the senator’s affiliation with and work for the firms. That lawsuit was pending when Cuomo disbanded the commission and the suit was then discontinued.

In state disclosure reports filed in May 2014, LaValle reported $75,000 to $100,000 in income from the Riverhead law firm in 2013. (The state disclosure forms require officials to report a “range” of income, not specific amounts.) The 2014 disclosure reports are not yet on file.

South Fork Assemblyman Fred Thiele became a partner in the firm in June 2013, according to a press release issued by the firm at the time.

But neither legislator is currently listed as a member or affiliated counsel on the firm’s website. Google search results linking to pages for their individual biographies as well as the page announcing Thiele becoming a partner in 2013 returned “page not found” errors.

Thiele said Monday night he left the firm in January.

Asked what lay ahead for the senate in the wake of the majority leader’s arrest, LaValle said in a statement Monday afternoon: “Under our judicial system, an individual is entitled to the presumption of innocence until the matter is decided in a court of law. In the days ahead, the [Republican] Conference will determine what is in the best interests of the people of New York State, and act accordingly.”

An aide to LaValle said the senator was “running the senate floor” Monday and was not available to answer specific questions emailed earlier in the day concerning contributions received from Glenwood LLCs in 2012.