Thursday, October 1, 2026
The Nassau County district attorney’s office launched an investigation last December into allegations that the Town of Oyster Bay’s deputy supervisor, Greg Carman, sent letters to some town employees seeking political contributions for the Farmingdale Republican Committee, which he serves as executive leader. In September, District Attorney Madeline Singas concluded that Carman may have sought contributions from town employees, and asked for different amounts of money based on their salaries.
Carman could not be reached for comment.
At Tuesday’s Town Board meeting, one resident said he was concerned that no action had been taken against Carman, despite the D.A.’s findings, which were released over a month ago. Carman is also still involved with the town ethics board, sitting in on interviews with potential board candidates, which Syosset resident Kevin McKenna said also needed to be a separate investigation.
“Mr. Supervisor, I request, on behalf of the public, that you demand the ethics board have a meeting and make a statement about this before the election,” McKenna said, addressing Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino. “The deputy supervisor should be prevented from having any involvement right now in the ethics board — the ethics board that needs to take a look at what he did. This is just bizarre. It’s just unbelievable.”
According to the district attorney’s report, from March 2020 through the beginning of October 2020, the town approved raises for 151 employees, 32 of whom were working on the state Campaign Finance Board. The donations they made to the Farmingdale Republican Committee matched the amounts requested in a letter sent to them by Carman — $250, $500 or $750, depending on their salaries.
“When your boss asks you for political contributions, you don’t have a choice,” State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, who is a candidate for district attorney in Tuesday’s election, said in an Oct. 22 statement. “The fact that these are civil servants being made to have to contribute to the local Republican Party is unacceptable.”
In a statement issued last Dec. 21, the Republican committee confirmed that the letters were authentic and asserted that “all campaign fundraising is done within the letter of the law.”
State campaign finance law prohibits government officials from using their authority or official influence to compel the payment of “political assessments,” but the statute does not define the term, nor does it prohibit voluntary contributions.
Alfred Constants III, chairman of the Oyster Bay Town Ethics Board, said in a Newsday interview on Sept. 24 that the board had not seen the district attorney’s findings, and that if “something comes up, we will review it at our next meeting.”
McKenna said he saw a member of the ethics board at the Hicksville Community Center a couple of weeks ago. “Of course they aren’t going to talk to me about [Carman]; I respect that,” he said. “But what I did get out of the conversation is that … there is no sense of urgency about [arranging an] ethics board meeting on the deputy supervisor.”
The ethics board can impose fines of up to $10,000 for ethics code violations. It meets every three months, and its next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 8, which McKenna said was not soon enough. He asked the Board to meet before Tuesday’s election, in which Saladino, who appointed Carman, is running for re-election.
“The ethics board is a fully autonomous body in the Town of Oyster Bay,” Saladino said at Tuesday’s meeting. “The Town Board, the elected officials of this town do not influence them. They decide their meeting dates … and they hold them. It would be inappropriate for us to interfere in any way with the ethics board. We await their findings.”
Kaminsky is calling for Carman to be fired, describing his actions as “disgraceful” and “corrupt.”
At a news conference last Dec. 21, State Sen. James Gaughran said that he had introduced a bill in the State Legislature that would prohibit appointed government officials from also serving as political party officials. The bill, S04366, had not progressed past its introduction as of press time.
As things stand now, neither Saladino nor the ethics board has removed Carman from his position.
“I really want to believe that you want openness, transparency and honesty …,” McKenna said on Tuesday. “I’ve said it a couple times before: You need to terminate Deputy Supervisor Greg Carman. What he did was shake down employees for their hard earned money.”
