Pol’s ‘crooked’ pals
Lineup of Meeks cronies in jail or hot water
He’s in bad company.
A number of Congressman Gregory Meeks’ friends are now in jail or under indictment, as prosecutors ramp up a federal probe into the New York Democrat.
One old pal, Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford, is already in federal prison; another, Edul Ahmad, is facing sentencing in a $50 million mortgage scam; and Albert Baldeo was recently charged with campaign-finance fraud.
Baldeo, the latest of Meeks’ pals to be arrested, is a Queens immigration lawyer whom the congressman described as a “good friend.”
Baldeo was arrested by federal authorities in October, charged with using straw donors in his failed 2010 City Council bid. He was accused of giving friends and associates money to donate to his campaign in their own names in an attempt to boost contributions and gain city matching funds.
When Baldeo learned the FBI was investigating the donations, he sought to intimidate the contributors into lying to authorities, court papers charge.
After one of the straw donors told Baldeo he was going to come clean about the scheme, Baldeo allegedly retaliated by arranging to have a phony report made to the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, contending that the donor was abusing his own grandchild, authorities said.
Meeks, 59, had a satellite district office in a building owned by Baldeo from 2002 to 2004.
Baldeo told The Post he gave Meeks a break on the rent because he wanted the congressman to have a presence in his Richmond Hill community. House rules prohibit representatives from receiving below-market rent.
“Private office space must be leased at a fair-market value as the result of a bona fide, arms-length marketplace transaction,” according to the Members’ Congressional Handbook.
Records obtained by The Post show Meeks paid $1,450 a month from Jan. 1, 2002, to Aug. 31, 2003. The rent then rose by 51 percent, to $2,220, and Baldeo also received a $6,000 lump-sum payment.
Baldeo said the money was a retroactive increase because Meeks took larger office space.
Baldeo is negotiating a possible plea deal with the feds. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the four charges.
Asked about his relationship with Baldeo, Meeks would only say, “My office complied with the law and continues to do so.”
Stanford, who is accused of bilking investors out of more than $7 billion, was sentenced to 110 years in prison in June. In 2006, he allegedly asked Meeks to use his influence with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The billionaire wanted Meeks to nudge Chavez to begin a criminal investigation into a whistle-blower at Stanford’s Venezuelan bank.
Two years later, Stanford hosted a lavish fund-raiser for the congressman in St. Croix.
Ahmad in 2007 gave Meeks $40,000, money that the congressman said was a loan but that he did not pay back until after the FBI had asked about it. Meeks was cleared of wrongdoing last month by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
