Convicted former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano just caught a break in court — with the reversal of two charges against him stemming from a notorious bribery scheme.
The imprisoned Long Island Republican, who ran the county from 2010 to 2017, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2022 for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from local restaurateur Harendra Singh.
Singh, who testified against Mangano in 2019, provided five paid vacations, a lavish watch, $3,600 vibrating chair, home hardwood flooring and a $100,000 per year no-show job for Mangano’s now-convicted wife, Linda, in exchange for Mangano pressuring local officials to help him obtain $20 million in bank loans, prosecutors said.
But a federal appeals court last week reversed Mangano’s conviction on the counts of federal programs bribery and conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, saying “the evidence was insufficient,” Newsday reported.
The charges were tied to Mangano’s pressuring of officials from the town of Oyster Bay, prosecutors had said.
The court decided that Mangano could not be convicted on those charges because he was technically not an official of that specific town at the time.
“The government presented no evidence at trial that Mangano had authority to act on behalf of the town, nor that he was an employee or representative of the town,” according to the appeals court decision.
The case has now been remanded to a district court for resentencing.
Mangano’s other charges, including honest services fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice, still stand — and prosecutors will ask the court to still stick with his 12-year prison term, the outlet said.
