NEWS 12: Lorraine Lopez, ex-Yonkers mayoral aide, gets probation in turkey fund theft

Photo credit: Westchester County District Attorney | Lorraine Lopez, 45, of Yonkers, received probation for stealing more than $5,600 from a Yonkers Thanksgiving Day drive in 2011. 

A former Yonkers mayoral aide avoided jail time Tuesday for stealing thousands of dollars in donations for the poor during the city's annual Thanksgiving charity drive By TIMOTHY O'CONNOR (timothy.oconnor@cablevision.com)

Lorraine Lopez, 45, of Yonkers, faced a maximum sentence of 2 1/3 to 7 years behind bars for third-degree grand larceny, the crime to which she pleaded guilty in June.

Lopez admitted she took more than $5,600 in donations to the drive when she worked as an aide under former Yonkers Mayor Philip A. Amicone.

Lopez, who no longer works for the city, could not be reached for comment after her sentencing this morning in White Plains by Westchester County Court Judge Barbara Zambelli.

Her court-appointed lawyer could not be reached for comment.

It's not clear what Lopez, a former city council member, did with the $5,600 in checks that were donated for the Thanksgiving drive -- an annual city undertaking to provide holiday meals to the poor and indigent.

Nearly $7,000 in donations were received from corporations and businesses around the city -- the bulk of the funds coming from contracting firm Yonkers Contracting.

The theft was discovered in January after Yonkers Contracting contacted the mayor's office to inquire about the drive's success, Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore said.

City workers in the administration of the new mayor, Michael Spano, could not find records for the disbursement of more than $5,600 in donations.

The Yonkers Office of Inspector General investigated the matter and turned its findings over to county prosecutors. Lopez was arrested by Yonkers police April 1.

"It is this kind of conduct that erodes the public's trust and confidence in our government," DiFiore said at the time of Lopez's indictment on April 19.

Lopez has already paid back the $5,628 she stole.

PRESS RELEASE: Yonkers Film Office/ Website ReLaunched

MAYOR SPANO RELAUNCHES YONKERS MAYOR’S OFFICE OF FILM & PHOTOGRAPHY 

New Office and Website Provide One-Stop Shop for Film and Photography Production in Yonkers

Posted Date: 9/18/2012

YONKERS, NY – September 18, 2012 – Standing in front of the 32,000 square foot Yonkers Stage, Mayor Mike Spano today officially launched a newly revamped Yonkers Film Office, announcing the Mayor’s Office of Film & Photography (MOFP) and new website,

The MOFP and new website provide a one-stop shop for film and photography in the city, making it quicker and easier than ever for companies to utilize the many diverse and sought after locations Yonkers has to offer.

“We are sending a simple message today – Yonkers is open for filming,” said Mayor Spano. “Yonkers has always been a natural fit for filming and photography with its wide variety of urban and suburban locations just minutes from New York. The revamped film office focuses on enhancing the production experience while maximizing the benefit for our local economy.”

In addition to promoting a more film friendly city with expedited permitting of locations, the Mayor’s Office of Film & Photography is slashing permit fees, including a $500 fee that was previously charged to companies for filming on private property. The MOFP also is waiving the standard $300 fee for filming and photography permits at public locations for the remainder of the year. According to Mayor Spano, the MOFP also is working on a new Yonkers Production Partnership Waiver that will encourage production companies to support Yonkers local economy by waiving the public film permit fee in lieu of the purchase of goods or services from local Yonkers businesses.

“We have film and photography shoots of all sizes at locations in our city nearly every week,” said Mayor Spano who referenced the latest feature film, A Winters Tale, starring Russell Crow, Colin Farrell and William Hurt, which is currently preparing to shoot at the Yonkers Stage. “The Film Industry has had a tremendous economic impact throughout New York State and we want to further that impact here in Yonkers.”

Kenneth Adams, President, CEO & Commissioner of Empire State Development, which oversees the NYS Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development, acknowledged Yonkers’ renewed effort to enhance film production in the city.

“We congratulate the City of Yonkers on the relaunch of its Office of Film & Photography and its website,” said Kenneth Adams, President, CEO & Commissioner of Empire State Development, which oversees the NYS Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development. “This is an extremely exciting time for the film and television industry in New York and the production of A Winters Tale in Yonkers is testament to that. Working together with our partners in local government, like the City of Yonkers, we will be better able to attract new investment in the film industry that will create jobs and generate economic opportunity across the state.”

Roger Paradiso, Co-Chairman of Greenwich Street Production which owns and operates Yonkers Stage, thanked Mayor Spano and the Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development for their joint efforts in helping bring new business to the city, as well as property owner Stop & Shop Supermarkets Corporation of America/Ahold USA for their support.

“The Yonkers Stage has had great success attracting some of the biggest productions to our studio and we are very excited about the Mayor’s new efforts to further Yonkers as a central city for film production,” said Paradiso.

Other films that have shot at the Yonkers Stage include Wall Street Two, American Gangster, Hitch, The Manchurian Candidate, Rollerball, I Am Legend, Doubt, The Bounty and Taking Woodstock. Mayor Spano also said the City of Yonkers has also been host to recent television productions including CBS’s The Good Wife, CBS’s Made in Jersey, CBS’sPerson of Interest, CW’s Gossip Girl, as well as productions at City Hall including HBO’sBoardwalk Empire and FX’s White Collar.

The Mayor’s Office of Film & Photography is operated directly out of the Mayor’s Office and has brought tens of thousands of dollars in revenue to the city.

Yonkers RiverFest is Tomorrow!

The 20nth annual Yonkers RiverFest is tomorrow, and features the first opening of the Daylighting project of the Saw Mill River

YoLoGo Contest Entries due Sept 4

Design a logo that will Accompany the Yonkers City Seal (right) and be used on social media sites and in other printed materials.

There's no money or compensation in it, you'll give up your artistic rigthts to your work and allow the City of Yonkers to own it forever, but there's a small amount of glory.  [AMENDED NOTE: after reading the terms in the waiver, I've decided not to apply.  Too onerous for too little.]

Here's what the deal is:

The Mayor (Mike Spano)  is calling on the people of Yonkers for the development of a new City Logo to Accompany the City Seal; a logo that is reflective of the City's rich history, culture and natural beauty. 

• The Yonkers Logo Contest will draw from the artistic roots of Yonkers residents ages 12 and up. 
• All logo designs should be electronically submitted to YoLoGo@yonkersny.gov
• The contest deadline is Tuesday, September 4th at 5 pm. 
• On September 5th, all of the submissions will be available for public viewing on the City of Yonkers Facebook page. 
• The public will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite design. 
• The top 3 highest vote getters will be selected as finalists and will be presented to the City Council at the October 23rd City Council Meeting during which a winner will be determined. 
• The winning logo will be proudly and prominently displayed on the City's Website and on our social media outlets.

As you can imagine, vulgarity, jokes and already used or copyrighted material are not allowed.

Three dimensional, relief, holographic, motion, or other complex multimedia art is also not acceptable as an entry.

Empire City Casino Concerts

Empire City Casino kicks off its Summer Concert Series on Sunday, July 1^st with Cornell Gunter’s Coasters, The Platters and Sounds of the Drifters.  (Already passed)

Other acclaimed acts of the concert series include Pat Benatar, Eddie Money, The Spin Doctors, and The Marshall Tucker Band.  Concerts will be performed outdoors trackside every Sunday through the end of August.  Ticket prices start at $22.50 and can be purchased by visiting www.empirecitycasino.com or on-site at Empire City Casino at the second floor redemption window. 

Empire City Casino’s Summer Concert  lineup includes: 

July 8                     Eddie Money
July 15                   The Spin Doctors
July 22                   The Marshall Tucker Band
July 29                   Frankie Avalon
August 5                Village People
August 12              Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo
August 19              Otis Day & the Knights
August 26              Sara Evans

Magic Day at the Hudson River Museum June 10

The Hudson River Museum has some great stuff going on today in celebration of their fantastic exhibit: Gilded Age Magic .  The exhibit runs through the summer through September 9, 2012.

One of the starting points of the exhibit is former Yonkers magician Harry Kellar (1849-1922), who was an international stage magician durning the turn of the century but lived in Yonkers in between touring.

Contemporaries and friends of Kellar included Harry Houdini (1874-1926)and Howard Thurston (1869-1936). Previous to Kellar, magicians often posed as Chinese conjurers, even when they were Caucasian.  Kellar was one of the first to come up with his own persona, and blazed a trail for the traditional top hatted magician that we see today. The exhibition will feature vintage theatrical posters, costumes and magic ephemera from little seen private collections.
The exhibition was inspired by the research of current Yonkers magician Benjamin Levy on Harry Kellar’s connection to Yonkers. The objects on view are drawn from The Rory Feldman Collection and The Bjorn Hanson Collection.

Lorraine Lopez, Former Aide to Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone, Charged with Grand Larceny, Tampering with Public Records

Lorraine Lopez, a former Yonkers City Councilwoman and aide to former Mayor Phil Amicone, was charged today with swindling thousands of dollars from a city-run Thanksgiving charity she helped run.

Prosecutors unsealed a three-count indictment today against Lopez, charging her with third-degree felony grand larceny, first-degree felony tampering with public records and misdemeanor official misconduct.

Lopez, 45, could not account for nearly $7,000 in money donated to buy more than 100 turkeys and other items for the 2011 Thanksgiving Turkey Drive. Lopez, who retired last year as Amicone’s special assistant, also said in a statement to officials in January that she kept about $1,500 of the money for herself.

“The allegations in this indictment are stark,” Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore said in a statement today. “This defendant pocketed thousands of dollars in donations made expressly for a charity holiday food drive, putting herself and her wants and desires before those of hundreds of needy families in the city of Yonkers.”

Lopez declined to comment Thursday through her lawyer, Todd Lamond. She appeared gaunt in court and had previously told officials that she suffered from AIDS and had been hospitalized around the time of the turkey drive.

At the time of her alleged larceny, Lopez had just retired from her $129,708-a-year job as a special assistant for minority affairs to Amicone.

But the former mayor said Thursday he had no knowledge of her alleged misconduct and defended his former employee.

“All I can say is she did a wonderful job for all the years that she worked for me,” Amicone said. “She maintained her innocence when this initially came up in the press. I hope it turns out that she is innocent, because she did a lot of good work.”

Prosecutors said that between Nov. 7, 2011, and Jan. 17, Lopez received about $6,900 in donations for the Thanksgiving dinners and cashed the checks through the Yonkers Parking Authority.

Lopez’s alleged theft came to light when Yonkers Contracting Corporation Inc., the major contributor to the 2011 drive, contacted City Hall after Jan. 1 to ask about the success of the program, prosecutors said.

When no record of any purchases or disbursements could be found, the Yonkers Inspector General’s office launched an investigation, eventually interviewing Lopez Jan. 24, when she admitted to keeping some of the money.

Lopez “stated that she was afraid to go to jail and that she was willing to repay the money,” Lopez told investigators then. “When asked to describe where she purchased the additional items for the turkey drive she replied, ‘I don’t want to lie. I just don’t remember.’”

Lopez also said she took $1,500 for herself and an additional $600 for volunteers, while claiming to have fed around 250 families with the remaining money — though she did not have receipts for the expenditures or remember where she spent the money, according to the Inspector General interview.

Lopez also claimed to have spent extra money on food for the families, “because she wanted to go out with a bang,” investigators said. “Defendant also acknowledged shredding all the paperwork associated with the 2011 Turkey Drive because she did not want Anthony Piacente to have it.”

Piacente and Lopez had been accused by the city’s inspector general in 2009 of mismanaging a charity, the Yonkers Alliance for Latino and Immigrant Services, or YALIS, as well as deliberately filing inaccurate and misleading documents.

The inspector general referred that case to the Yonkers ethics board, which concluded in 2010 that there was a separate conflict arising from the YALIS board being comprised solely of city officials, but it did not recommend any sanctions.

Though Lopez told investigators in Thursday’s case that she still had her “work BlackBerry and number,” she also said that she was in poor financial straits and that her house was in foreclosure.

Lopez turned herself into city police this morning and was released on $2,500 bail. She is due back in court May 8.

If convicted, she could face a maximum of seven years in state prison.

Thursday’s indictment comes two months after the sentencing of two Yonkers men who pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the fatal beating of Lopez’s brother, Robert Lopez, outside a Yonkers bar last year. The ex-girlfriend of one of the men also pleaded guilty in February to witness tampering and hindering prosecution in that case.

The charges against Lopez mean that all three officials who held the 2nd District seat on the Yonkers City Council between 1999 and 2009 have now faced criminal charges.

Lopez, a Democrat, was elected to the seat in November 1999 and resigned in May of 2001 to take a $135,000-a-year post as a Hispanic community liaison and advisor for then-Mayor John Spencer, a Republican.

Wilson Soto was appointed to complete Lopez’ term. Soto lost a bid for the seat that year to Sandy Annabi, who served eight years on the council as the 2nd District representative. Annabi was convicted last month of federal corruption charges that she sold her vote on the council by taking bribes to approve two large Yonkers development projects — a housing development at the former Longfellow School and the $842 million Ridge Hill development. Annabi was convicted along with former city Republican Chairman Zehy Jereis.

Then in March 2011, Soto pleaded guilty to filing a false affidavit, a misdemeanor, for falsifying a ballot during the Sept., 2009 primary.

“It is this kind of conduct that erodes the public’s trust and confidence in our government,” DiFiore said Thursday.

Former Yonkers fire union treasurer gets probation in $97,000 theft

A former treasurer for a Yonkers fire union will serve no jail time for stealing $97,000 from its general fund, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Former fire Lt. Kai Irwin was sentenced to five years’ probation in Westchester County Court in White Plains, after the judge acknowledged his betrayal of his fellow firefighters.

“These officers trusted you to work and operate in their best interest,” acting state Supreme Court Justice Richard Molea said before sentencing. “You violated that trust and you violated that bond of loyalty that all firefighters must have.”

Molea also acknowledged Irwin’s attempt to make amends since his arrest a year ago. Irwin has repaid the full amount, plus investigatory fees and pledged to pay any other fees, such as tax penalties, connected to his theft, according to his lawyer, Anthony Piscionere. He’s also resigned his position as a firefighter.

“You have expressed remorse and acknowledged the gravity of your betrayal by resigning. I find that significant,” Molea said.

Irwin, a Yonkers resident, pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny in August. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in state prison.

Irwin was secretary-treasurer of Yonkers' Uniformed Fire Officers Association from Aug. 1, 2007, to Sept. 30, 2008. His theft was uncovered when the union began auditing its books in December 2010 to account for $100,000 that appeared to be missing.

Irwin had signatory authority for the fund and stole the money through counter withdrawals, debit-card withdrawals and ATM withdrawals without the permission of the union or its membership, authorities said.

Irwin had to step down as treasurer in the summer of 2010 during the city's budget crisis, when several firefighters were demoted. The treasurer who succeeded him could not ascertain the location of the funds, and the union hired a forensic accountant to unravel what the union's president at the time called “sloppy bookkeeping.”

Prosecutors had recommended a state prison sentence for Irwin, who declined an opportunity by the judge to make a statement at sentencing.

Investigative Report: The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving 2011 is Alleged to Be Lorraine Lopez

YONKERS, NY – February 6, 2012 -- Lorraine Lopez worked as the food drive coordinator at the Yonkers Office of Constituent Services. It was claimed that under her aegis and effort over 3,000 Thanksgiving meals were provided in 2010.  The financial stress felt throughout the country also revealed itself in Yonkers. Donations were down, hunger continued to grip those who could not easily fend off the higher costs for food. The Thanksgiving table promised a beautiful table bedecked with trimming laid out about a roasted turkey placed in the middle of a table with family and friends about it, enjoying the meal and the company. 2011 would conjure images that would sate the stomach and quiet its growl of hunger pangs. And yet, despite the charitable donations and the empathy of many, the needy would not be served in 2011. They would be collectively dismissed by the now former Phil Amicone Administration; it seems Lorraine Lopez, in her presumed effort to comply with her yearly task, did not. The fact is that she solicited and received a donation of $8,000.00 from one donor. But rather than using it to serve those in need, Ms Lopez is said to have cashed the check, as permitted by a protocol set up by former Mayor Phil Amicone, through the Yonkers Parking Violations Bureau.

YONKERS CITY COUNCIL DISTRICTS