Nassau County gives legal contracts to the favored

Daily Point

Blakeman's friendly and well-paid lawyers

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has spent extravagantly on legal representation during his first term. Often these outside counsels are politically connected lawyers Blakeman hobnobs with personally, and some have gotten contracts awarded at higher fees than Nassau’s standard allowance for government work. The firms have been hired to defend some of Blakeman’s controversial laws or respond to lawsuits challenging county procedures and actions by its workers, according to a review of county documents.

Several million dollars are going to big law firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell, which was unsuccessful in defending the county’s environmental review for a casino at the Nassau Hub. The firm has been engaged again by Blakeman for legal action against New York State for its takeover of Nassau University Medical Center. Sullivan partner Robert Giuffra Jr. is also an adviser to President Donald Trump and a longtime friend of former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato.

Then there is Howard Fensterman, whose political connections make him a rainmaker for his Lake Success law firm, Abrams Fensterman LLP. While Fensterman is closely aligned with Democrats and a big donor to the party’s candidates, the Sands Point attorney also has a close alliance with Blakeman whom he recruited to the firm as a partner in March 2007. Blakeman was a partner there until 2013, and according to news reports got a multimillion-dollar commission for working on the sale of a 52-acre pumpkin farm to Canon for its U.S. headquarters.

Fensterman and Blakeman clearly still have a relationship. Since 2022, the county has allotted his firm $735,610 for representation, including two contracts the legislature approved earlier this week.

In that same time frame, the Abrams Fensterman firm donated $27,000 to Blakeman’s campaign fund. State campaign records show a $7,500 “in kind” donation to Blakeman in June. Fensterman did not respond to a request for comment about his contracts or political donations. Neither did a spokesman for Blakeman.

The Abrams Fensterman firm is handling cases for the county that includes long running litigation over problems in the construction of the Yes We Can Center in New Cassel, asbestos concerns at Nassau Coliseum and most recently a case filed by the Town of Babylon against Nassau in federal court that alleges the county’s tax rates illegally shifted more of the property tax burden on Suffolk residents in the Farmingdale and Amityville school districts, which have students from both counties.

The monies paid by Nassau to Festerman's firm do not include significant legal fees from NUMC after Blakeman took office in 2022 and put Meg Ryan in charge of the county’s public mission hospital, The Point has learned.

The Fensterman and Blakeman connection was newsworthy in January when the two were spotted at a Manhasset restaurant with New York City Mayor Eric Adams during the swirling rumors that Trump’s Justice Department would drop a federal criminal indictment against the mayor, which it subsequently did. Adams has since retained the firm to reverse the city’s Campaign Finance Board’s refusal to award him public campaign matching public funds.

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com

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