Village Residents Party

Brookville, Long Island, New York

You may recall hearing accounts in the media that some (note that we said some) of Bernard Madoff's victims realized that he could not possibly produce, through honest investment practices, the sort of returns that he ostensibly produced, but, they assumed that he was utilizing insider information or some other illegal practices and said nothing. That is, they knew that he was crooked, but they assumed that they could participate in the profits from that corruption.

At times, it seemed like the residents of Brookville reasoned the same way during the Goodwin / Galgano era. The residents knew that the Goodwin / Galgano gang was crooked, but at least some residents assumed that they would somehow benefit from that corruption. Some residents even suggested to us that the Goodwin / Galgano gang's illegal and unethical actions somehow protected local property values.

We can make allegations of corruption against the Goodwin / Galgano gang without fear of liability because we have very extensive documentation of that corruption. We can document conflicts of interest and the violation of several parts of New York State Public Officers Law. The actual situation may have been much worse, but we will concentrate on the facts that we can verify. If you have evidence or can provide testimony relating to other crimes that the Goodwin / Galgano gang may have committed, please contact us and we will assist you in getting in touch with the proper government agencies, including prosecutors - it is not as easily done as one might think.

The transcripts from the hearings on the development of the Broadhollow estate and the Uris estate show that Galgano involved himself to a much greater degree than was customary or consistent with his level of involvement in other issues that came before the Planning Board or Zoning Board of Appeals. He seated himself on the board and declared himself to be an ex-officio member of it. (None of the "Board of Toadies" argued with him.) Subsequent revelations showed that he was engaged in commercial real estate dealings with the developers (Louis Evangelista and Vincent Polimeni).
A Newsday article further corroborated Galgano's dealings with one of the developers (Newsday, page 6, "Behind Closed Doors in Brookville," Liz Willen, June 5, 1990)
We have a letter in which the village clerk (then Jean Pailet) explicitly admits that the Citizens Party (the political committee of the Goodwin / Galgano gang) never filed a financial disclosure form
We have a tape recording of a village meeting in which he repeats that admission
We have copies of printed invitations from Citizens Party functions that prove that sums of money far in excess of the threshold for filing must have been spent
We have documents that show that secret meetings were held in violation of the New York State Open Meetings Law
We can demonstrate, with a pile of unanswered Freedom of Information requests, that they flouted the New York State Freedom of Information Law for many years (and continue to do so to this day)
Tape recordings of meetings further corroborate many of the forgoing claims, as well as documenting a long list of other, unrelated violations

address inquiries to mjdowden@panix.com