Mikey Suits Has Some Bargaining Chips He Hopes Will Keep Him Out Of Prison

You votin' for me?

FBI agent turned Gambino Crime Family thug turned Republican congressman Michael “Mikey Suits” Grimm has never had his ugly departure from the FBI publicly aired. That’s because his head wouldn’t be the only one to role if all the dirt comes to the surface. The FBI wants to make a deal and guarantee Grimm gets a lenient sentence with minimal prison time in return for him retiring from politics. He’s still threatening to spill the beans on everything. The FBI witch hunt he’s always whining about could even expose the $400,000 cash bribe that Thomas “Gus” Kontogiannis, another GOP gangster— this one spending the rest of his life in prison— gave Duke Cunningham for George W. Bush. Grimm was involved in this caper long before he ever imagined running for office— and it’s how DWT first came across him, way back in 2005 when the law was just starting to close in on Cunningham.

If anyone is confused about why Staten Island Borough President, Republican James Oddo, has steadfastly refused to endorse Grimm, they haven’t been following Staten Island’s claustrophobic politics.

“I have no comment about the congressional race, but I am supporting Assemblyman Cusick for re-election,” Mr. Oddo said, referring to his controversial cross-party endorsement of popular Assemblyman Michael Cusick, a Democrat.

…Mr. Oddo’s snub of his fellow Republican should come as no surprise to watchers of Staten Island politics, where GOP in-fighting and feuding is not uncommon. While the two pols were never particularly close, they had a falling out over a particularly bitter primary battle for Mr. Oddo’s former City Council seat.

Mr. Grimm and his mentor, former Borough President Guy Molinari, backed Lisa Giovinazzo in her challenge to the eventual winner, Councilman Steven Matteo— Mr. Oddo’s former chief of staff and his chosen candidate in a race so acrimonious it fractured the borough’s Republican party, leading to the ouster of its chairman.

Mr. Oddo and Mr. Grimm have mostly declined to speak about each other— “I have a standing policy because there are only 24 hours in a day not to comment on that individual,” Mr. Oddo said back in April, at a Hurricane Sandy recovery event Mr. Grimm declined to attend.

Mr. Oddo has clashed more often, and more publicly, with Mr. Molinari, the congressman’s political godfather— who recently told the Staten Island Advance that Mr. Oddo’s endorsement of Mr. Cusick amounted to “playing footsie” with Democrats and promised to teach him “a lesson.” In a blistering response, Mr. Oddo told the Advance that Mr. Molinari, who once held both his seat in Borough Hall and Mr. Grimm’s in Congress, reminded him “who and what I never want to become.”

Mr. Grimm has declined to attend any Sandy events held or attended by the mayor— including one at Mr. Oddo’s Borough Hall office, leading Mr. Grimm to criticize Mr. Oddo for attending the event and Mr. Oddo to criticize Mr. Grimm for skipping it.

Other than the mayor, all the elected officials at today’s event were Republicans— Mr. Oddo, Council Minority Leader Vincent Ignizio, and Mr. Matteo— and none of them took the opportunity to stump for Mr. Grimm, at least during the press conference. Mr. Matteo, the winner of that divisive primary, didn’t step up to the microphone to take the open question. Mr. Ignizio, meanwhile, declined to talk politics at the bi-partisan affair.

Mr. de Blasio, not for the first time, offered full-throated support for Mr. Recchia.

“I think he will be a fantastic congressman, so I strongly encourage people to support Domenic Recchia,” he said.

Although fools have tried painting de Blasio with an Elizabeth Warren liberal brush, he’s just another standard variety Democratic Wall Street shill. He and Recchia are perfect for each other— and deserve each other. Meanwhile, though, Capital New York’s Blake Zeff looks into what Mikey Suits has to lose. Zeff’s not high on Recchia; basically no one is but fellow crook Steve Israel.

[W]hoever wins, the victory is likely to be of the short-term variety.

The problem for Recchia, a former councilman from Brooklyn, is mostly that he’s a Democrat. Realistically, it’s going to be hard for him or any other Democrat to win that district against a Republican who isn’t Grimm. So even if Recchia wins this year, he’s likely to be running for his life again in 2016 (although a presidential ticket with Hillary Clinton at the top might help).

…As for Grimm, winning a third term could turn out to be merely a booby prize for a very different reason: There is a real likelihood that he won’t be at liberty to serve it out.

The Staten Island-based congressman has been indicted on twenty criminal counts ranging from tax and mail fraud to lying under oath. Among other things, he’s accused of hiring undocumented immigrants at his restaurant (not itself an uncommon occurrence), paying them in cash off the books to avoid paying payroll taxes, keeping separate payrolls (one fake and one real) to under-report his income, and lying to the feds about all of it.

The case against him appears formidable, with prosecutors saying they seized emails from Grimm that brazenly depict the alleged scheme in plain English.

But despite all this, the race is a crucial one for Grimm— for reasons that have nothing to do with politics at all.

That's because if things are as bad for Grimm on the legal front as they seem to be, then incumbency and the ability to offer his resignation in a plea deal could end up being his best protection against whatever potential penalty lies in store for him. In other words, he could essentially be running for his freedom.

The race is, at the moment, too close to call: A NY1/Capital New York/Siena College poll last week showed Grimm about even with Recchia— Grimm led 44-40, and the poll’s margin of error was 4 percent. In the meantime, in his appearances at candidate forums, parades and ribbon-cuttings, Grimm is playing to a sense among his conservative supporters on Staten Island that he’s the victim of a liberal conspiracy.

If Grimm wins— securing him an office he can resign from— he’ll have a major bargaining chip in plea negotiations if he turns out to need it.

Should Grimm decide to face trial, and not bargain with prosecutors, he would do so in December. The trial could last several weeks, and if found guilty, the congressman could face sentencing around late 2015.

On the other hand, he could be persuaded by his attorney to negotiate a deal, and offer his resignation in exchange for leniency.

Of course, prosecutors are loath to admit that such exchanges occur, but within the world of politicians who have crossed the legal line, it’s a barely concealed fact of life.

“When I was charged, my initial strategy was to get a plea deal where I could resign, in exchange for no prison sentence,” former Missouri state senator Jeff Smith, who served under a year in prison for obstruction of justice and now teaches at the New School, told Capital. “Having an elected office to use as a bargaining chip in negotiations is clearly better than the alternative.”

There’s certainly precedent for the maneuver. Last month, Chuck Vasquez, the mayor of Cathedral City, California, pleaded guilty to three felony charges and two misdemeanors, and— in return for resigning his office, reportedly— had his felonies withdrawn.

Justice Department policy prohibits federal prosecutors from forcing a federal official to resign as a condition of a plea agreement, presumably so that a partisan prosecutor couldn’t try to influence Congress’ partisan makeup. But it doesn’t actually mean that a plea agreement can’t include resignation in return for a reduced sentence; it just means the official would have to willingly agree to it (and perhaps have his side broach it) to satisfy the D.O.J. policy.

It’s very likely that Grimm, who has adamantly maintained his innocence, is not thinking this way at all. He may feel certain he’ll be acquitted of all charges, and that he’ll be able to continue in office as if the whole thing had been a bad dream.

But he may feel differently, come December. And if he does, the difference between beating Recchia by a few points and losing to him by a few could mean all the difference in the world.