Guilty But No Jail for Ex-Supervisor Venditto

Former Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto plead guilty to charges of “illegal hiring” while Supervisor, but the deal he struck with prosecutors avoids any jail time.

The 70-year-old Venditto, of Massapequa, pleaded guilty to “corrupt use of position” and “official misconduct.” He was sentenced to a conditional discharge. When reached for a comment about where he goes from here, Venditto sighed, “Back to retirement - where every day is Sunday.”

The charges filed by Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas (D-Roslyn) alleged that Venditto had hired an employee at the Town; paid him “too much” for his credentials; and then later fired the same employee at the request of Fred Ippollito, a corrupt former Buildings Commissioner.

In a separate case last year in federal court, Venditto was charged with 27 counts of “honest services” fraud and “securities violations” regarding the Town’s lease of the TOB Golf Clubhouse building to caterer Herendra Singh.

Venditto was found “not guilty” of all federal charges last May, after a federal jury rejected the prosecutor’s novel theory that Venditto’s receiving a $25 “free taxi ride” constituted a “criminal bribe.”

The local charges Venditto plead guilty to stemmed from an investigation by Singas, a Democrat, into the Republican government in Oyster Bay.

Venditto served two decades as the Supervisor of Oyster Bay, but retired in 2017 after the federal charges. The Obama Justice Department was criticised for timing the federal charges against Venditto to do maximum electoral damage to his son, a former State Senator.