It was three years ago this month, in May 2005, that the Niagara Falls Reporter came into possession of documents showing that then-mayor Vincenzo V. Anello had accepted checks totaling $40,000 from Tuscarora businessman "Smokin' Joe" Anderson.
We had the check registry from one of Anderson's businesses, Aarrow Brokers, along with copies of the canceled checks that showed a series of three payments Anderson made to Anello during 2003, right before and immediately after Anello was elected mayor by one of the largest majorities ever in city history.
In addition, we had a witness, a person who had been privy to Anderson's financial dealings and knew all about the Anello matter and about all the other politicians whose names had been listed in the check registry. Like many civilians, this person didn't exactly know how to become an FBI informant, and had asked us to help out in that regard.
The implication was clear: While on the City Council, Anello had led the charge for a no-bid deal that saw the former Wintergarden sold to Anderson by the city, and after he was elected mayor he also gifted the developer with a highly favorable long-term lease on the valuable East Mall pedestrian walkway. Located in the heart of the city's tourist district, the two parcels were the most desirable properties owned by the city at that time.
Was the $40,000 a quid pro quo payment made in gratitude for Anello's services as a public official?
It was dynamite and we knew it. It would cripple the Anello administration and make it impossible for the mayor to effectively continue. But there was nothing we could do. We called the Buffalo FBI office and told them what we had, and within 15 minutes agents from the Niagara Falls field office over on Third Street were sitting in our newsroom.
You've got to love the FBI. Since the days of John Dillinger and "Baby Face" Nelson, our country's top law enforcement agency has been known for its dogged pursuit of the criminal element. In the underworld, it's understood that, once the FBI comes after you, they'll stay after you until they've got you.
Apparently, the political reporters at the other papers have been unaware of this. Shortly after we published our first story, detailing the payments and stating the FBI was on the case, they tried to outdo each other in proving the Niagara Falls Reporter -- that "weekly tabloid," as they called us then -- had the whole thing wrong.
The Niagara Gazette led the pack by printing Anello's complete denial. He hadn't taken any money, he said, and the Reporter -- in league with a shadowy cabal of local business interests -- was out to destroy him because he was trying to bring honesty and integrity to City Hall.
He backed off a bit in a followup Buffalo News story, saying now that, while he actually had taken the money, it had constituted nothing more than a business loan, albeit one with no interest or repayment schedule attached. He told the gullible News stenographer that he would produce paperwork during the next couple of days showing the Reporter article to be both scurrilous and malicious.
By the time he got around to sitting down with Buffalo's Business First, he was publicly threatening the Reporter with legal action.
In the background, the FBI was quietly doing its work. The U.S. Attorney's office seated a federal grand jury, and agents bearing subpoenas began carting documents away from City Hall. Employees from the corporation counsel's office, the comptroller's office and the city clerk's office were summoned to Buffalo to testify.
While we reported on each of these developments, the other papers focused more on the easy-to-reach mayor's protestation that he was the victim of a persecution led by the Reporter. We were the real criminals, he argued.
The years dragged by and things got worse. It was found that the mayor had also taken money from the fly-by-night operators of the Hyde Park golf dome before it collapsed under the weight of a spring snowfall. Then it was discovered that Anderson, who had also by that time picked up his long-term lease on the city's East Mall, hadn't been paying the electric bill there, leaving it for the taxpayers of Niagara Falls to cover instead.
Anello was picked up on a harassment charge that led to an ACD and a restraining order against him. His brother, Matteo, was arrested during a City Council meeting following a fracas in which he attempted to grab a police officer's service pistol. The mayor's daughter circulated pictures on the Internet of herself and some friends drinking and otherwise partying in her daddy's office.
Throughout this, our former mayor showed neither the grace nor a love for the city that would have led a better man to simply resign for the greater good. Like many of history's villains, he had convinced himself, and was trying to convince others, that he had done nothing wrong. The other papers served as enablers in the charade.
The city languished. No legitimate developer or politician wanted to be alone in a room with the mayor of Niagara Falls, who was clearly under federal investigation and who was perceived as a crook or a crazy man by everyone except state Assemblywoman Francine Del Monte, who has never been too careful about the company she keeps.
When Anello left office in disgrace last year, after being unable to even scrape up 700 Niagara Falls voters willing to sign his nominating petitions, the Gazette and the News each published lengthy pieces on the "Anello legacy" -- I swear to God they called it that -- in which the ongoing federal investigation received scant attention, and even then only to give the focus of the investigation room to deny that there ever had been any investigation in the first place.
And both the News and the Gazette largely ignored the FBI raid on City Hall last November, in which subpoena-toting agents again seized documents relating to various backdoor dealings.
Anyway, we were a little surprised last week when both papers reported on a new round of subpoenas.
This time, the FBI visited City Hall with a list of specific documents it wanted, and another list containing the name of city workers it wanted to testify before the federal grand jury, which is still hearing evidence in Buffalo, despite Anello's repeated assertions that it isn't, and despite the eagerness of local daily journalists to print such assertions whether they're true or not.
We were surprised not by the raid itself, though that was newsworthy enough. What raised our eyebrows was the fact that, after four years, the dull dailies seemed to finally be taking an interest in the case beyond trying to prove that what we printed about it was wrong.
It turns out that Mayor Paul Dyster -- perhaps in an effort to forestall the inevitable conclusion that he, after almost six months in office, has nothing to show in the way of real accomplishment -- couldn't wait to provide the News and the Gazette with his behind-the-scenes account of the raid, even including a copy of the federal subpoena!
Dyster's time might have better been spent by just taking a look at some of the people he's got around him right now. In fact, since the law department's office is directly above his at City Hall, he might just want to climb those well-worn stairs and ask some questions of his own.
Because when this whole thing comes down, and it's going to be very soon now, Vince Anello will be just one of those who will be called upon to answer for what has been done to our fair city.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | May 20 2008 |