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HALF HOLLOW HILLS Copyright © 2011 Long Islander Newspapers, LLC.
Online at www.LongIslanderNews.com VOLUME FOURTEEN, ISSUE 45
N E W S P A P E R THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2012
LONG ISLANDER NEWSPAPERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS/MEDIA BUSINESS OF THE YEAR 2 SECTIONS, 40 PAGES
DIX HILLS
Jail Time, Million-Dollar Fine In 9/11 Scheme By Danny Schrafel dschrafel@longislandernews.com
Two Dix Hills residents, one of them the disgraced former head of the Huntington Housing Authority, were two of 14 former construction inspectors and two contractors sentenced for their role in a lucrative, nine-year kickback scheme that inflated 9/11 projects with fake bills and unnecessary work. Nathaniel Ham, 59, and his brother-inlaw William Shannon, 65, were convicted of conspiring with two other Con Ed inspectors in order to launder bribes through Ham’s credit union accounts. The pair were sentenced in November. Shannon got three years in prison and was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and $188,719.29 in restitution to Con Ed. Ham, one of two defendants who did not plead out in the case, was convicted in March 2011. He was sentenced to 32 months in prison and was ordered to pay a $1,136,034 fine. Con Ed inspectors are supposed to monitor projects to ensure that they are being performed safely and meet engineering specifications. They also make
rebuild our city’s infrastrucsure Con Ed is not overpayture. They focused instead ing the contractors. In the on lining their own pockets years following the Sept. 11 at the expense of utility custerrorist attacks, Con Ed ditomers and residents of the rected or took part in much metropolitan area,” United of the subsurface construcStates Attorney Loretta tion in lower Manhattan, Lynch said. “They have now and received hundreds of been held to account.” millions of dollars in federal James Hayes Jr., special funds to perform the work. agent-in-charge of ICE’s However, in connection Homeland Security Investiwith these projects, the 14 Nathaniel Ham gations in New York, said Con Ed inspectors solicited the department would conbribes in exchange for aptinue doggedly investigating fraud in proving contractor invoices that listed public works project. phantom pay items, allowing contractors “The individuals sentenced in this into perform unnecessary additional work vestigation masterminded an unscrupuon the projects and expediting Con Ed lous financial scheme that essentially depayments to the contractors. Investigafrauded critical projects aimed at imtors say the scheme cost Con Ed millions. proving New York City’s infrastructure,” Investigators called in the Departhe said. ment of Homeland Security, U.S. ImHam’s incarceration caps nearly 25 migration and Customs Enforcement years blemished by tax liens in his busi(ICE), Homeland Security Investiganesses and corruption during his tenure tions, the Criminal Investigation diviat the Huntington Housing Authority. sion of the IRS, and the Port Authority Dating back to 1987, Ham racked up tens and Con Ed’s internal auditors. of thousands of dollars in judgments for “After 9/11, these defendants were services he had not paid for, as well as siztasked with the responsibility of helping
able tax liens from the government. Awash in debt and tax liens, Ham’s DGH Construction Co. was dissolved in June 1993. In January 1999, another Ham construction business, C.B.H. Construction Corp., was ordered to pay pension and union dues, totaling $33,255, which had been withheld from the Bricklayer’s Union. Ham served one term on the Half Hollow Hills school board from 1997-2000. While the press heralded his arrival on the Housing Authority board as welcome news, his tenure was marked by allegations of gross financial malfeasance. In October 2000, then-Housing Authority chairman Malcolm Tillim revealed that a $170,000 “slush fund” had been created using surplus HUD money. Some of it was used to pay for a Ham family trip to California. The Housing Authority sued Ham and another Housing Authority commissioner, Charles Robinson, in late 2000 for using Housing Authority Mortgage Corporation money to pay property taxes and for Ham’s son’s tuition. In June 2001, Ham repaid the Housing Authority more than $72,000, which was initially approved as “a loan.”
DIX HILLS/MELVILLE
Off-Duty Cops Put Medical Training To Use Possible heroin overdose victim saved after rescuers were in the right place at the right time By Mike Koehler mkoehler@longislandernews.com
An apparent drug overdose victim is so incredibly lucky he ought to buy a lottery ticket. A trio of specially trained Suffolk County police officers from the Town of Huntington happened to find the man near death outside the Applebee’s in Brentwood they had stopped at for dinner after monthly medical training. Joseph D’Alessandro, former chief of the Dix Hills Fire Department; James Garside, a member of the Commack Volunteer Ambulance Corps; and Angela Ferrara, a volunteer with the North Massapequa Fire Department and formerly with the Melville Fire Department are all members of MEDCAT (Medical Crisis Action Team). These specially trained police officers carry additional medical equipment in their vehicles. All three had spent the day participating in advanced cardiac life support
training, D’Alessandro said, when they stopped for a bite. When they left, around 7:30 p.m., the off-duty officers made their way to their cars in the restaurant’s rear parking lot. It was then they noticed haze of white smoke emanating from a red Mazda. “We thought it was a car on fire,” the officer said. Instead, they found an unconscious man slumped over the steering wheel with his foot pressed against the gas pedal. Multiple police sources confirmed the man was injected with a hypodermic needle. His identity has not been released. “We pulled the gentleman out of the car, who was blue, the color of my jeans,” D’Alessandro said, adding that he was not breathing well. After calling 911, they went to work using the very training they had just practiced. Garside went to his car and retrieved a defibrillator/cardiac monitor to analyze the man’s EKG and blood oxygen
“We pulled the gentleman out of the car, who was blue, the color of my jeans.” — JOSEPH D’ALESSANDRO, former Dix Hills fire chief level, while Ferrara prepared an IV line and D’Alessandro resuscitated the victim. Several minutes passed, but the man eventually began breathing again and awoke. D’Alessandro said he was very groggy and not making sense when Fourth Precinct officers and Brentwood Legion Ambulance volunteers arrived to take him to St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center. “I believe he’s still alive and they released him,” D’Alessandro said. “Hopefully he’ll learn from his mistakes. In another minute or two, he would have expired.” The victim’s incredible luck was not
lost on the officer, speculating maybe it wasn’t his time yet. The man happened to hit the accelerator, creating the smoke that alerted police. The officers were just trained to handle the situation; they had all of the necessary equipment with them and there were three of them on the scene. But even if they were alone and/or lacking all of that equipment, D’Alessandro was confident they still would have saved his life. “It would have been a lot harder, not we still could have done it,” he said. D’Alessandro, of Dix Hills, helped rescue a neighbor trapped in an elevator shaft with the car stopped inches above her last January. Feeling helpless growing up, he joined the Dix Hills Fire Department at the age of 17. He served as chief from 20012002. “When I was a kid, things were always happening around me. I wanted to get trained. I didn’t know what to do; you feel frustrated,” the officer said.
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