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This fellow's death is just TOO convenient....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Man at Center of Bribe Case Dies of Stroke January 8, 2003 By CHARLES V. BAGLI For the last year, New York's powerful real estate industry has been crackling with tension as federal investigators have pressed for the names of any property owners who may have knowingly benefited from a long-running bribery scandal. That possibility all but evaporated late Monday afternoon. Albert Schussler, 85, the man indicted last February as the ringleader of the bribery scheme - and the one person who investigators thought could tell exactly how the scheme worked and who benefited - died after a severe stroke. In the scandal, city assessors lowered the tax bills for many of Mr. Schussler's clients, the owners of some of New York's most valuable skyscrapers, hotels and apartment houses. So far, 15 assessors have pleaded guilty to bribery charges related to the allegations against Mr. Schussler. A person close to him said that Mr. Schussler had decided to make a decision on Monday, the day he died, on whether to forge a defense for his trial, which was to begin Jan. 27, or plead guilty and tell all he knew about what Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has called "the largest and most financially damaging corruption scheme ever conducted within city government." But Mr. Schussler never got the chance to make the choice. He had a stroke at his East Side home on Sunday evening and never awoke from a coma. He died on Monday at New York Presbyterian Hospital. "I would suspect that everybody who ever hired him, whether or not for illegal activity, is breathing a sigh of relief," said William K. Block, a tax lawyer and a former deputy commissioner at the Finance Department. "He couldn't do any good for anybody." For investigators at the United States attorney's office and the city's Department of Investigation, who have tried to break a case against corruption in the city's Finance Department for at least 14 years, Mr. Schussler's death was frustrating. While the investigation is continuing, one law enforcement official said that investigators had been hoping that Mr. Schussler might provide information about developers who may have been involved in the scheme, and that his death had ended that hope. There were those who mourned the man, who was by all accounts a philanthropist and a former city tax assessor who came to own such well-known New York landmarks as the Ansonia apartment hotel. "Albert Schussler was a good and gentle person," said his lawyer, Stephen E. Kaufman. "The only plea he ever entered was `Not guilty.' He is therefore presumed innocent." But after months of speculation and worrying about what might come out at the trial, the reactions from prosecutors and real estate executives were far different. His death was the first topic of conversation yesterday at the Real Estate Board of New York and at the luncheon meeting of the City Tax Review Bar Association. Defense lawyers said that prosecutors had been pushing hard for the names of property owners who were aware of the bribery scheme and had hoped that Mr. Schussler would talk. "He had a lot of nervous owners and lawyers out there," one defense lawyer said of Mr. Schussler. But the owners of the 562 properties that prosecutors claim benefited from the illegal scheme say they were unaware of any wrongdoing. "There was never any insinuation of anything underhanded when I talked to him," Dr. Axel Stawski, a developer, said in an interview last year. "I was shocked." Prosecutors vowed yesterday to press forward with the case. Two assessors, Joseph Iovino and Fady Sidaross, are to go on trial Jan. 27. A former investigator for the city's Department of Investigation has pleaded guilty to related charges, and another assessor, Joseph Marino, pleaded guilty in 2000 to taking over $4 million in bribes from Mr. Schussler in exchange for lowering the tax bills on some properties. "The death of Albert Schussler is certainly a stunning event in this case," Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the investigative department, said in a statement released yesterday. "The impact of the tax assessors' corruption scheme with which he was charged cost the city an enormous revenue loss and will hurt the city for years to come. We will continue to pursue all remedies available for civil recovery of the money that should have gone into the city's coffers. The investigation will continue unabated." Prosecutors and city officials say the bribery scheme cost the city $160 million in tax revenues over the past four years alone. They have moved in court to recoup the money from the assets of Mr. Schussler by forfeiture, and from the assessors who have pleaded guilty, by making restitution a condition of their sentence. Mr. Schussler had become a pariah in the same circles where he was once lauded as a brilliant analyst with an extraordinary ability to persuade assessors to alter their property assessments. It was a jarring change for a man whose friends and clients were a who's who of city real estate, including Aaron Gural, Stephen L. Green, Burton P. Resnick, Leonard Litwin and Sheldon H. Solow. He had been a director of the Real Estate Board and the Association of Building Owners and a leading benefactor of the American Friends of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. "At one point in time, Al was a friend of mine," said the chairman of another real estate company, Stephen L. Green. "I feel bad for the family to have him pass away with this huge cloud over his credibility." Mr. Schussler worked for 30 years as a city assessor before retiring in 1967. According to the indictment, he became a tax consultant and immediately established the bribery operation, starting with a friend still working in the assessor's office. It eventually encompassed 15 of the 38 city assessors in Manhattan, who prosecutors say took $10 million in bribes to lower assessments for hundreds of properties. According to the indictment, Mr. Schussler worked with three lieutenants, who met the assessors at restaurants downtown, passing envelopes of cash and lists of properties whose assessments were to be altered. The 15 assessors who pleaded guilty to bribery said that they never actually met Mr. Schussler, whom they often referred to, in taped conversations, as the Old Man, or A.S. Investigators did persuade Mr. Schussler's three lieutenants to cooperate with the investigation, and one of them, Stephen E. McArdle, recorded his meetings with the assessors. Still, it was Mr. Schussler who had the clients and the contacts with some of Manhattan's biggest landlords. He had been talking to prosecutors at the time of his indictment last February, a friend said. But he was both angry and ashamed about his arrest, the friend added. One person who had talked with Mr. Schussler about the Monday deadline he had set for himself on deciding whether to plead guilty was "spooked" by his friend's death. "He was tortured," the man said. "He had a lot of nervous owners and tax lawyers out there. I don't think he wanted to end his life by giving up the names of the owners. Maybe he had information about some higher-ups at the Finance Department." Mr. Schussler is survived by his wife, Claire, a son, Harvey, and a daughter, Carol. 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