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http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500181936-500240644-501173032-0,00.html
Poughkeepsie residents try to make sense of scandals
Copyright � 2000 Nando Media Copyright � 2000 Associated Press
>From Time to Time: Nando's in-depth look at the 20th century
Key figures in Poughkeepsie scandals
By MICHAEL HILL
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (March 19, 2000 12:01 a.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - When the town assessor disappeared in 1997,
people were puzzled. When his shoes, cigarettes and SUV were found by the
Hudson River, they began to worry. When his body was fished from the river,
their bewilderment grew.
And that was only the beginning.
Here are some other things that have happened since then in this
comfortable corner of the New York City commuter belt: a mother of two is
shot to death leaving church choir practice; a political boss is convicted
of running a shakedown scheme; the town water supervisor fires a bullet
into his head as police come to his door; aforesaid official is then
accused of orchestrating a lesbian tryst in a town pump station.
"The citizens don't know what to expect every time they pick up the
newspaper," says John Mylod, a longtime citizen of Poughkeepsie. "As they
say commonly these days, you can't make it up. It's really as bizarre as it
can be."
The arena for all this skullduggery is the Town of Poughkeepsie, which hugs
the better-known Hudson River city of the same name but has its own
government. It is known as home to an IBM plant and Vassar College. It is
NOT known as a place where people get shot outside church or engage in sex
on municipal property.
Details of the federal probe into the town's web of scandal have been
seeping out ever since assessor Basil Raucci disappeared on Oct. 4, 1997.
Even before he vanished, 55-year-old Raucci lived under a cloud. A few
years earlier he had been accused of manipulating assessments in a
neighboring town where he worked. He left that job without the charges ever
being proven.
Once he disappeared, the FBI showed interest, but wouldn't say why. Only
later was it revealed that federal officials had been investigating the
town government following a businessman's complaint. businessman.
Prosecutors say they uncovered systematic extortion: A paving company would
be told it could get municipal contracts for a payoff of $5,000; a
contractor would pay $15,000 to clear up his bureaucratic problems with the
town. And so on.
Money went to the town Republican Party and corrupt officials.
Raucci, court documents allege, was the money collector, and agents were
keeping tabs on him with secret help from a cooperative businessman.
Raucci disappeared the day after an FBI agent confronted him in a hotel,
offering a deal: cooperate or face prosecution. Divers scoured the river
for days, but it was a passerby who found the body. His death was ruled a
suicide.
More whiffs of something rotten in Town Hall would come in 1998, when two
town officials were convicted on corruption-related charges. But the degree
of Raucci's alleged involvement would only come to light last year, among
even more jarring revelations.
William Paroli Sr. was at the pinnacle of his political power in 1999.
Paroli, who turned 72 on March 16, is a bear of a man with an earthy manner
- a former high school fullback and beat cop. He laughingly admits to
humble beginnings in politics: "When the boys had parties and ran out of
booze I had to find them a bottle somewhere."
The Republican Party has historically dominated this town of 41,000 - and
Dutchess County for that matter. Even though Franklin D. Roosevelt lived in
Dutchess County, he never carried the county in four successful runs for
president.
By 1997, Paroli was the GOP chairman for both the county and his town. So
when he was arrested last May 26, it hit like a thunderclap.
Paroli recalled being in his yard, wearing an old flannel shirt and work
pants and sitting on his garden tractor. Looking up, he saw a half-dozen
men walking toward him. They were FBI agents.
Still wearing his work clothes, Paroli was brought before a federal judge
in White Plains. He was accused of controlling the shakedown scheme, as
well as having town workers do electrical and landscaping work on his
property. Prosecutors portray him as an iron-fisted political boss who
ruled by fear to "dominate his party and consequently town government."
Paroli professed his innocence, saying others invoked his name in their
schemes without his knowledge. Believing the federal government was trying
to get him to cut a deal, he said: "I'm not going to allow them to break
me."
Paroli quit as a GOP boss, but held on to his $58,000-a-year job as county
elections commissioner - despite requests from Gov. George Pataki and
others that he step aside. Ever the political mover and shaker, he was
fighting the Feds on one front while waging an unsuccessful battle to undo
an election result that unseated his son as county clerk.
Meanwhile, on the day Paroli was arrested, Fred Andros, the head of the
town's water department, suddenly resigned. The next day he pleaded guilty
in the federal court to a count of conspiracy, admitting to extorting
bribes from contractors. Prosecutors say that Andros, like Raucci, worked
with Paroli. And at the time it seemed the water chief might be a crucial
witness against the party boss.
But the story was about to get a lot more lurid. Enter Dawn Silvernail.
Silvernail is a heavyset 50-year-old who supervised a highway rest stop
cleaning crew. She met Andros around 1977 through CB radio chats (his
nickname was "Neptune"). They became good friends, even intimate for a
time, according to court documents summarizing her statements to police and
prosecutors.
Last year, Silvernail claimed, Andros coerced her into killing the town
personnel director, Susan Fassett, because he feared she was "going to blow
his deal with the Feds" - an apparent reference to the single count he
pleaded to in the corruption probe.
Silvernail said she reluctantly agreed to kill Fassett. But where?
A plan to kill her outside her Jazzercise class was dropped because the
site was too public, according to court documents, so it was decided the
48-year-old married mother of two boys would be shot outside Pleasant
Valley Methodist, a white clapboard church where she attended choir
practice.
On the night of Oct. 28, according to her statement, Silvernail drove to
the church and parked next to Fassett's Jeep Cherokee. She reclined her
passenger seat, loaded her .45 caliber pistol and lay back to wait.
Fassett got into her car. Silvernail sat up and emptied her gun into
Fassett's window, killing her, then slid over to the driver's seat and sped
away, according to the police account of her confession.
Court documents show that Andros claimed he had nothing to do with
Fassett's murder.
Silvernail also claimed that the water chief paid her $350 to have lesbian
sex with Fassett at a town pumping station last year, that he videotaped
the sex and that he himself joined in. There were several other encounters
for pay, according to Silvernail's account in court papers.
Silvernail confessed a few days after Christmas, and pleaded innocent to a
charge of second-degree murder. Silvernail's lawyer, D. James O'Neil, has
since said that her statement to police was "involuntary" and that he would
challenge its validity.
Andros denied to his interrogators that he had sex with Silvernail, but
admitted to an affair with Fassett. He said Fassett had a lesbian
relationship with Silvernail, but didn't corroborate the salacious details
presented by Silvernail.
After Silvernail confessed, police came to Andros' house on Dec. 29 to
execute a search warrant. As they entered the house, they heard a gunshot.
Andros, who was upstairs, had fired a gun into his chin.
The bullet did not kill. Andros was indicted for second-degree murder as he
lay in an intensive care unit at Westchester County Medical Center.
As Andros was led shackled into county court on Feb. 17, the Town of
Poughkeepsie struggled to make sense of it all: Raucci, the assessor,
drowned; Paroli, the political boss, indicted; Fassett, the personnel
director, shot to death; and now Andros, a respected civil servant who had
worked for the town for decades, facing a murder charge.
Not to mention five people convicted in the federal corruption probe,
including Andros.
In court, Andros looked gaunt in a loose-fitting jacket, and his jaw
appeared shrunken by his gunshot wound. His lawyer entered the innocent
plea, and Andros quietly said "thank you" to the judge before he left.
Paroli has not been linked to Fassett's murder. But in federal court in
White Plains a day after Andros entered his plea, he sounded nothing like
his old, defiant self.
Speaking softly in his weathered voice, Paroli told a judge he did indeed
conspire to shake down contractors.
"I knew what I was doing was wrong and illegal," he told the court.
In a plea bargain, Paroli pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit
extortion. The deal includes a fine of $4,000 to $40,000; community
service; up to $20,000 in restitution to the town and the resignation from
his job as county elections commissioner.
If the sentencing judge accepts the deal on May 18, Paroli could face 15 to
21 months in prison.
After Paroli's plea, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said the federal probe is
continuing. She would not elaborate, but insisted to The Associated Press:
"We've substantially broken the back of corruption in the Town of
Poughkeepsie."
But the murder case remains unresolved, a grand jury is looking at the
evidence and the Town of Poughkeepsie is staying tuned.
===
http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500181936-500240644-501173031-1,00.html
Key figures in Poughkeepsie scandals
Copyright � 2000 Nando Media Copyright � 2000 Associated Press
>From Time to Time: Nando's in-depth look at the 20th century
(March 19, 2000 12:01 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - These are key
figures in the scandals that have engulfed the Town of Pougkeepsie:
Fred Andros, 60: Head of the town water department who pleaded guilty in
federal corruption probe. Accused of second-degree murder in death of Susan
Fassett.
Susan Fassett, 48: Town personnel director shot to death as she left church
choir practice.
William Paroli Sr., 71: Local Republican boss accused of running an
extortion scheme targeting developers.
Basil Raucci, 55: Town assessor, body found floating in the Hudson River;
later implicated in extortion scheme.
Dawn Silvernail, 50: Highway rest stop worker charged with second-degree
murder in death of Fassett.
--
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