Dirty Contracts (fwd)
NYC
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(Friday's Newsday)
Contract Controversy
MTA inspector general suggests Silverite probe hampered
by LIAM PLEVEN
Albany Bureau Chief
Albany -- The outgoing inspector general of the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority wrote a letter to the agency on his last day saying he was not
given full access to information about a lucrative contract he was probing
that the agency had awarded to one of Gov. George Pataki's major campaign
contributors.
Asked about the letter, MTA officials said yesterday they had asserted
attorney-client privilege about material the inspector general sought, and a
retired federal judge mediated the dispute in their favor. "The inspector
general had access to everything that he was entitled to,” MTA spokesman Tom
Kelly said.
The inspector general, Roland Malan, wrote to MTA Chairman Virgil Conway on
his final day in office, Oct. 20, that a lack of cooperation had hampered his
investigation and forced him to close his probe into a $97-million contract
to refurbish the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Silverite Construction won the
contract in 1997 from the MTA, which is controlled by Pataki appointees.
Malan's letter also referred to three unrelated investigations.
"This action is taken because the investigations were impaired by
qualification, restriction or outright denial of access to case related
information necessary to complete the investigations,” Malan wrote in the
letter, a copy of which was obtained by Newsday. Malan added, "... Although
we used every approach available to mitigate this problem short of
litigation, we were unable to obtain the information we needed.”
As a result, Malan wrote, "Professional standards require, that in
circumstances such as this I notify executive management to seek relief, and
if that is not forthcoming, ‘decline to perform the work.' Accordingly, I am
‘declining' to finish these cases because the conditions necessary for
professional completion of the work were not met.”
The inspector general is a quasi-independent position intended to oversee the
MTA.
After speaking with Conway yesterday, Kelly said, "This is nothing more than
sour grapes. The inspector general had access to everything that he was
entitled to. At one point, there was a question about attorney-client
privilege. He suggested that it be decided by a mediator, and a retired
federal judge ... heard the issue and ruled on our behalf.” Kelly said he did
not know the judge's name.
Kelly also said he did not know what the material in question contained.
Attorney-client privilege covers communications between lawyers and their
clients in business or personal situations, and waiving it in one case could
have implications for other situations, if others seek the same material.
Reached at his home, Malan said, "That letter was required by my profession.
I think it's self-explanatory.” He would not discuss what type of information
he had been seeking, and he declined to comment on the MTA's statement.
The letter and the MTA's response focus new attention on the Silverite case,
which has been in the public eye since 1998. Federal prosecutors opened an
investigation into the tunnel contract and whether it was connected to more
than $200,000 in campaign contributions that Angelo Silveri, a Silverite
executive, and his associates and related firms gave Pataki and the state
Republican Party between 1994 and 1998. Officials with the U.S. Attorney's
Office in the Eastern District declined to discuss the status of that case
yesterday.
Pataki aides have vehemently denied playing any role in the contract award,
and aides have dismissed inquiries about the case as politically motivated.
Yesterday, they referred questions about the letter to the MTA.
Calls to Silveri were returned by Anthony Lombardino, an attorney who is
representing the firm. Lombardino said he was not familiar with the letter
but said of the contract, "There's absolutely no wrongdoing whatsoever.”
Pataki, who selected Malan for the inspector general's job in 1995, declined
to reappoint him at the end of his five-year term, said Michael McKeon, a
Pataki spokesman.
In addition to Conway, copies of Malan's letter were sent to Pataki and two
top aides; Mark Shaw, executive director of the MTA; the MTA board; the inspe
ctor general's advisory board; and the majority leader and minority leader
of the state Senate, which must approve Pataki's MTA appointments.
Malan's acting replacement is Matthew Sansverie, a former prosecutor in the
office of Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon and a one-time aide to former
state Attorney General Dennis Vacco, a Pataki ally. McKeon said Pataki
intends to nominate Sansverie to the job.
In the letter, Malan identified the other three investigations as having to
do with Long Island Bus, which receives MTA funds, Keystone Construction and
a parking garage in Manhattan. Malan provided no additional information about
any of the probes in his letter. Both the president of the bus agency and a
woman who answered the phone at Keystone declined to comment.
Staff writers Robert Kessler and Jordan Rau contributed to this story.
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