“No one in, no one out,” said a Ramapo police officer standing guard at one of the two back entrances to the Town of Ramapo offices Wednesday afternoon, reported Rockland Newsday reporter Sarah Armaghan.
Early reports suggest the FBI is seizing Ramapo financial records and documents from the office of Town Attorney Michael L. Klein related to the Ramapo Local Development Corporation (RLDC).
The Town Hall was on lockdown while federal agents began searching through financial records and other documents inside the building.
Some 40 FBI agents, along with Ramapo Police officers, descended on the Ramapo offices Wednesday afternoon between 3:30 and 4 p.m., and, according to various reports, politely told employees to step away from their computers and leave the building — a few other employees were ordered to stay. Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence arrived shortly after the raid began, unlocked a side entrance door, and told waiting reporters he was going inside to see what was going on.
Officials from the Rockland County District Attorney’s office wheeled dollies stacked with boxes and suitcase-like storage units through the town parking lot toward the Town Hall, entering the building for a long look.
According to initial Rockland Newsday reports, Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said “investigators from his office were assisting federal agents in executing a search warrant at the town hall and said the agents were looking for financial documents.”
Early reports from Journal News court and police reporter Steve Lieberman suggest that the FBI is seizing Ramapo financial records and documents from the office of Town Attorney Michael L. Klein related to the Ramapo Local Development Corporation (RLDC) and Provident Bank Park in Pomona, as well as housing and other data. St. Lawrence also serves as head of the RLDC.
Armaghan reported that law enforcement sources said the raid is not connected to the Moses Stern federal corruption investigation that involves Spring Valley Mayor Noramie Jasmin and Deputy Mayor Joseph Desmaret. Both were recently arrested on corruption charges related to a strange pay-to-play bribery scheme. In that case, Stern wore a wire and approached various Rockland County and New York politicians as an undercover FBI witness.
When contacted by the Journal News about the FBI swarming Ramapo Town Hall, Bob Rhodes, chairman of Preserve Ramapo, sounded nearly giddy about the raid. He told the Journal News he welcomed the news.
“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Rhodes said.
Preserve Ramapo has been a thorn in St. Lawrence’s side for years, with Rhodes running against him in the last supervisor election.
The group has amassed a colorful compendium of reported Town of Ramapo political and financial activities over the last decade, especially documenting various Ramapo land deals, including the Patrick Farm development and the finances surrounding the RLDC’s development of the stadium now known as Provident Bank Park.
As recently as last month, just as baseball season was kicking off, Armaghan reported on the sketchy stadium finances, with 2012 financial figures, scheduled to be released this past February, still unavailable to the public. State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s office conducted an audit of the stadium’s finances last year that raised questions about the ballpark’s financial viability.
Michael Castelluccio, Preserve Ramapo spokesman, called the stadium, now two years old, an “an economic crater.”
“It’s going to bleed and bleed and bleed for decades to come — if it lasts that long,” Castelluccio told Newsday. “The entire project was crazy to begin with.”
“We know there’s been an active FBI investigation for years,” Rhodes said. “I wonder why it took so long. Am I happy? Oh my God we’re happy. We’re just thrilled.”
Rockland County Legislator Joseph Meyers (D-Suffern), who represents District 12, showed up at the Ramapo Town Hall and was quoted as saying, “some of us never actually believed today would come.”
Update: Town of Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence said Thursday morning, May 16, before a town board meeting that he was not questioned by the FBI during the nearly 8 hours the bureau investigated town documents Wednesday evening. St. Lawrence also said that he did not know what documents the FBI was looking for or what they took from the town offices.
Photos of FBI agents walking across the Town Hall parking lot and entering the Town of Ramapo Town Hall courtesy of the Journal News.
