Jury selected in Roger Corbin, Patrick Williams case

A jury was selected Monday for the trial of former Nassau County Legislators Roger Corbin and Patrick Williams, who were indicted by the district attorney’s office in July 2010 on corruption, larceny and bribery charges for their alleged involvement in multiple bid-rigging and bribery schemes in the New Cassel Redevelopment Project.

The charges resulted from a three-year investigation by District Attorney Kathleen Rice, which found that the legislators participated in a scheme to direct the multimillion-dollar project to developer Ranjan Batheja in exchange for $400,000 in bribes.

Corbin, 65, had represented parts of Lakeview and West Hempstead until he was ousted in 2009 from the 2nd Legislative District seat, which he’d held since the Legislature’s inception in 1995. Williams, 64, a Democrat, held the 1st Legislative District seat, which includes parts of Baldwin.

The alleged scheme began in 2003, when North Hempstead Town, its Community Development Agency and the Nassau County Economic Development Corporation issued a request for proposals for seven New Cassel land sites that were to be redeveloped. To rig the selection of a developer, Corbin and Williams allegedly worked with the CDA Executive Director Neville Mullings and town Building and Planning Commissioner David Wasserman. Both men sat on the CDA’s selection committee, which was responsible for reviewing developers’ proposals and recommending the best ones.

Mullings and Wasserman were indicted on the same charges as the two legislators and will be part of the upcoming trial. Batheja was charged with bribery and is part of a separate case.

Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Alan Honorof will hear the trial, which is expected to last months.

A month before Rice brought charges against Corbin, he was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for tax evasion.

Click here to read more about the scheme.