Statement from William Hermann, Town of Mamakating Supervisor on Guilty Plea of Chestnut Ridge Developer Kenneth Nakdimen on Federal Voter Fraud Charges

(Mamakating, NY – May 25, 2017)  “Kenneth Nakdimen’s guilty plea to the federal voter fraud charges for committing this terrible injustice against our community represents the beginning of the unravelling of a major corruption scandal. This is the first step in vindication for the entire community that has fought so hard to expose the efforts of Nakdimen and his co-conspirators, Shalom Lamm and Volvy Smilowitz. The fraud they committed on our community must be fully revealed. Something very wrong went on here. I applaud all those in this community who have fought so hard to expose this wrongdoing. We anticipate that more charges will follow, and more of those responsible for hurting this community will be punished.Thank you to the FBI and the US Attorney's office for their hard work in bringing these men to justice.” 

"This Town board was elected by the citizens of Mamakating regardless of political persuasion with the clear mandate to stop corruption in our town. We are pleased that the public, law enforcement and now the judiciary are seeing the bad actors who sought to pillage and plunder our town for what they are. We are confident that justice will prevail and that all these developers and their co-conspirators will pay the price for all the damage they have done.”

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, prosecuting the voter fraud case against the developers of the Chestnut Ridge project, said that the investigation is "ongoing" and could result in revised charges.  

The voter fraud case involved efforts to fraudulently influence elections in order to get approvals to build a large housing development in a tiny town in the Catskills.

Developers had proposed 125 luxury homes and a golf course, and then plans were later submitted for a 396-unit development, It was revealed that developer had intentionally submitted false information during the project review and approval process and planned to build much larger project than the one presented for approval. In documents unsealed by a federal court judge, developers intended to annex land from the Town and build up to 5,000 units in the Village of Bloomingburg. Blooming burg has a population of 420 people. 

According to the original indictment dated December 15, 2016, Shalom Lamm, Kenneth Nakdimen and Volvy Smilowitz allegedly bribed voters by offering payments, subsidies and other items of value to get non-residents of Bloomingburg to unlawfully register to vote. “Lamm, for example agreed to pay an individual $500 for every voter that the individual procured and Lamm and Nakdimen’s real estate company ultimately paid the individual more than $30,000 per month for his efforts.” See indictment, http://bit.ly/2kEAGRH.

"The defendants hoped to make hundreds of millions from their real estate projects" in Bloomingburg. "When met with resistance rather than seek to advance their real estate projects through legitimate means, the defendants instead decided to corrupt the electoral process in Bloomingburg by falsely registering voters and paying bribes for voters who would elect public officials favorable to their projects."