Levy Fires Back at Guldi Witness

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy spoke out against testimony given Monday by , a key witness in George Guldi’s trial, which suggests he traded county work for campaign contributions.

Guldi, a Westhampton Beach resident and former Suffolk County legislator, is facing including fraud, grand larceny, forgery, and criminal possession of a forged instrument and is currently being tried in the Arthur M. Cromarty Courthouse in Riverside.

During Ellner’s cross-examination by Guldi, who is representing himself, Ellner testified that to obtain county title work he made campaign contributions to a high-level county official in excess of $8,000 through one of his mother’s companies.

In court, he said he was told directly, and in a county building, how much money to contribute in return for county work.

While Judge James F.X. Doyle has ruled that the high-level county official’s name can’t be named in open court, outside of court, Levy’s name has been mentioned more than a few times by the defense.

, the court-appointed legal advisor to Guldi, said, “We can’t name the Suffolk County official involved in the bribery. It was basically a pay-to-play situation. Campaign contributions for continued business.”

Levy was also allegedly issued a subpoena to appear in court; however, Judge Doyle ruled to quash it.

“To save his own skin, this individual had to come up with something,” said Dan Aug, spokesman for Levy, in response to the allegations, made by Ellner, who outside of court proceedings said he informed the Suffolk County district attorney's office of the pay-to-play request in June 2009 after he was arrested and charged in a separate $80 million fraud case.

Guldi is also a defendant in that case, in which Guldi, Ellner and Donald MacPherson and Carrie Coakley, both Westhampton Beach business owners, are all charged with using forged documents, false employment and income information on applications, straw buyers, false powers of attorney, deed flipping and mortgage stacking.

Ellner has stated, in court, that he hopes the information he provided to the DA in Guldi’s current trial will help reduce his charges in his case.

Aug believes Ellner, who said he has been long-time friends with Levy, “simply lied without substantiation” because he already made the donations.

“It never happened, and no one in the county executive’s 25-year career other than this individual facing years in prison, ever made such a claim,” Aug said.

Aug went on to note that not only has the county executive never asked for a donation in a county building, but also if someone were to read the exact transcript of Ellner’s cross-examination, he never said he was directly told to give $8,000 for county work. Instead, Aug said, he responded to a question, asking, “How much did you contribute?”

His response, Aug said, was "$8,000."