Lawrence Gray, Esq.

20 Fireplace Drive

Kings Park, New York 11754

 

Supervisor Patrick Vecchio

99 West Main Street                                                                              May 7, 2008

Smithtown, New York 11754                                                         

Re: “BonerbaGate”

 

Dear Supervisor Vecchio:

 

            Veteran prosecutors have an old saw – “when in doubt, brazen it out.”  Your abjuration of criminal complicity in Bonerbagate is not credible.  “You’re full of it.”  The question is not, “did you know of former Smithtown Chief Building Inspector Bonerba’s bribe receiving?”  Of course you knew of it.  The question is: “When did you first learn of it and did you get a cut of it, directly or indirectly?”  You never noticed the miracle the Planning Board worked for Frank Esposito and Robert Fitzpatrick at the Montclair Avenue site in St. James?  You never wondered about the miraculous negative SEQRA given by your DEW Department Director Russell Barnett regarding Montclair?  You never noticed the Zoning Board miracles for Yellow Top Estates, Hidden Pond or 97 Walnut Road in San Remo, etc.?  You never noticed that whenever a dirty deal was about to be surface your minion, David Ambro, would write an “expose” in the Smithtown News?  Telling the press in a loud voice, as you foolishly did after the May 6th Smithtown Council Meeting, that you “knew nothing about it” – shouting it like a wild man – is not going to scoop the poop off your suit.  Bonerbergate marks beginning of the end of your 30-year corrupt regime in Smithtown which traces its roots back to the era of Supervisor Fitzpatrick and even further --- the days of the potato-farm when Smithtown’s Republican Committee was chaired by Nicholas “Dirty Nick” Barbato.  Your protestation of ignorance is patently absurd and conspicuously unbelievable.  Bonerba was hired by you 18 years ago at the behest of certain crooks, one being Frank Esposito with whom you had a relationship for years.  He had money and you are addicted to it.  You did not know anything about Bonerba’s bribe receiving?  In 18 years you did not get a whiff of his criminality?  In 18 years you never had a complaint about him?  For example, you were in a diner with Councilman Edward Wehrheim and a builder who spoke to you harshly because his building permit was needlessly held up costing him money?  You called Bonerba at home, on his day off, and told him to come in and sign off on the guy’s permit so as to stave off the man’s threat to ruin you politically – as it were.  You never noticed disparate treatment of citizens?  You never wondered about the miracles worked by your Zoning (Adrian Giannadeo) and Planning (Robert Martin) boards?   Your last name is Vecchio, not Poppins.  So stop lying as if you were Smithtown’s present Republican Chairman William P. Ellis gone wild.  If you did not have actual knowledge Bonerba’s bribe receiving it is only because you kept yourself deliberately ignorant.  Deliberate ignorance equals knowledge.  You already knew what you now profess to be ignorant of.  Some of Dirty Nick’s old dogs are still above ground with the statute of limitations having expired, save that attending perjury.  They can only let themselves back in by lying under oath.  To do so, they would be as foolish as the Town Board’s resident  idiot who calls Bonerbagate “disappointing.”

 

                                                          Yours truly,

                                                Lawrence N. Gray, Esq.

 

 CC: Town Board, Planning Board & Zoning Boards