NEW ROCHELLE, NY (July 10, 2022) — In the period between filing my ethics complaint on March 20, 2022 and the delivery of the Board of Ethics Advisory Opinion on June 16, 2022, I had been raising the question of whether I would receive a copy of the transcripts of the sworn witness testimony with the Board of Ethics, the City of New Rochelle and the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.
The witness list includes City Manager Charles B. Strome, Mayor Noam Bramson, Corporation Counsel and Deputy City Manager Kathleen Gill, Human Resources Commissioner Robert Yamuder, Development Commissioner Adam Salgado, all 6 District Council representatives — Martha Lopez, Albert Tarantino, Yadira Ramos-Herbert, Ivar Hyden, Sara Kaye, Elizabeth Fried — and Monroe College President Marc Jerome, in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of the New Rochelle Downtown Business Improvement District. A total of 12 witness but 13 transcripts as Strome testified twice.
From a variety of sources I was told that it was not clear and perhaps unlikely I would get the transcripts either as a complainant or through a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request.
Among the reasons given was that the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office had opened a criminal investigation into issues raised by my ethics complaint, primarily the political corruption charge based on the Mayor seeking to use his elected office to obtain something of value — a $200,000+ a year job and related pension benefits — with that value estimated (by me) to be $2.75 million in increased salary and pension payments above and beyond his Mayoral salary and pension which has a value of another $2.75 million. I was also told there might be attorney-client privilege issues and possibly some executive issues.
When the Advisory Opinion was released to me as the Complainant on June 16, 2022, (along with the City Manager, the Mayor, and the six other members of Council) it did not include any of the transcripts and was also missing some exhibits.
I reached out to the DA and asked them whether they had an investigation into the Mayor open and whether they were asking the City to withhold the transcripts. I then FOIL’d the City and the DA for anything about a criminal investigation that was interfering with my getting the transcripts. The City sent a copy of a Grand Jury subpoena. At that point I told the DA to stop processing my FOIL. A week later, on July 7, 2022 I received the transcripts from the City.
To get a first glimpse of excerpts from the Bramson investigation transcripts click here.