After guilty plea, Denenberg starts consulting firm

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Dave Denenberg, the former Nassau County legislator from Merrick who resigned on Jan. 21, the same day he pleaded guilty to mail fraud in connection with swindling a law client of $2.3 million, co-founded a business two weeks later to advise clients about how to reduce their property taxes. It is called Cobra Consulting Group, LLC.

Denenberg started the company with Jericho attorney Steve Adler, an old law school friend, on Feb. 6. They graduated together in 1988 from Brooklyn Law School and speak of each other as friends. CCG shares a suite with the Law Offices of Steven M. Adler, PLLC.

CCG’s website advertises the firm’s services filing clients’ property-tax assessment challenges in Nassau and Suffolk counties. “Cobra charges the lowest rate in the industry,” the website reads. “Cobra charges only 40 percent of the tax reduction secured through the assessment reduction.”

Denenberg said that he and Adler founded CCG to do consulting work in areas in which they have expertise, including the environmental, engineering, intellectual-property and land-use sectors. Denenberg said they decided to focus first on property-assessment challenges, also called tax certiorari, because Nassau’s filing deadline was March 2. CCG’s website, however, only details the firm’s services in the “tax-cert” business.

The site states that Denenberg “has over 25 years experience as an engineer and attorney, and 15 years experience as a Nassau County legislator.” It does not mention that he resigned from the Legislature in disgrace and likely has or will lose his license to practice law.

As Denenberg prepared to plead guilty to eight felony counts of mail fraud on Jan. 21 in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, Judge Joanna Seybert informed him that doing so would likely result in his disbarment as an attorney. Denenberg said he understood. He now awaits sentencing in May.

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