{"id":100,"date":"2023-11-15T22:28:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T22:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/table-of-success.local\/?p=100"},"modified":"2024-09-26T01:34:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T01:34:34","slug":"eric-ulrich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tableofsuccess.mysites.io\/eric-ulrich\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Ulrich"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Eric Ulrich is a son of Queens, a political prodigy, a key figure in Eric Adams’s election and administration, and, to date at least, the only member of his administration to be indicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what indictments they are! In September\u2014was it only September?\u2014Ulrich was arrested on 16 felony corruption charges spread across five indictments, alleging that for years, first as a City Council member and then in the Adams administration, he had used his public office to trade favors for bribes totaling more than $150,000. What does it take to bend NYC government to your will? Ulrich, according to the indictment, could be swayed by, among other things, a suit, a painting by a guy who studied under Salvador Dal\u00ed, and Mets tickets. Ulrich, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg alleged<\/a>, “monetized each and every elected role that he held in government.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The full story is a juicy and tangled one, going back years. In 2009, Ulrich won a special City Council election on the Republican ticket to represent his home neighborhood of Ozone Park in southern Queens. He was just 24. He stayed on the City Council for more than a decade until he was finally term-limited out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were early signs<\/a> that Ulrich rubbed shoulders with sketchy figures. He wrote letters vouching for a Bonnano-family-associated loan shark and for Gambino soldier \u201cOld Man Willy\u201d Pazienza, who was found guilty of trafficking Eastern European women into New York strip clubs. “I have known the defendant for the past seven years,” Ulrich wrote of Pazienza in 2011, “and consider him a personal friend.” Ulrich also had spoken about his hi<\/a>s<\/a>tory of alcohol abuse<\/a> on social media, and his enthusiasm for gambling was documented in public disclosures<\/a>.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n But Ulrich was also in a position to help Eric Adams win votes and campaign donations in his section of southern Queens. Ulrich hosted multiple fundraisers for Adams’s mayoral campaign, raising more than $175,000. Cohosting were pizza restauranteur brothers Joe and Anthony Livreri, as well as Mike Mazzio<\/a>, who was facing indictments in connection with his tow-truck company and had had his license to operate the company revoked for alleged bid-rigging. Mark Caller, a Brooklyn developer, also attended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Adams won his mayoral election, Ulrich became an influential adviser to his transition. Around the same time, unfortunately for virtually everyone involved, law enforcement got a wire up on Ulrich’s phone. What that wiretap revealed, according to the indictments, was that many of the people Ulrich had enlisted to support Adams’s campaign wanted something in return. The Livreris wanted health code violations at their pizzeria to go away, and wanted a vacate order at their bakery resolved. Mazzio wanted back in the tow truck game (and was already suing the City to get there, using the law firm where Eric Adams’s soon-to-be chief of staff, Frank Carone<\/a>, worked.) Caller, the real estate developer, wanted his projects fast-tracked and wanted the City to push through a zoning change in Rockaway Park. Victor Truta, a former NYC corrections officer, wanted his relatives hired by the Department of Environmental Protection. A permit expediting consultant, Paul Grego, wanted his clients’ projects expedited, and wanted certain inspectors hired or reassigned.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The indictments allege that Ulrich worked to make sure all these wants were addressed, in exchange for accepting pricey Mets tickets, a suit, a sweet apartment, and, most bizarrely, a painting by an apprentice of Salvador Dal\u00ed. Ulrich was apparently planning on giving the painting to his girlfriend, Rhonda Binda<\/a>, a lawyer who worked on Adams’s transition team<\/a> before landing a position leading the mayorally controlled Gracie Mansion Conservancy. Ulrich also allegedly received cash to gamble with\u2014throughout this time, according to the indictments<\/a>, Ulrich was spending time and money at an illegal Queens gambling operation run by the Livreris. Ulrich did not respond to requests for comment made to his lawyer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n