New York – Jurors at the corruption trial of a former state Senate leader got a taste of smash-mouth politics Wednesday when a witness testified that the politician’s son threatened to smash his head in if he again criticized the son for failing to show up for what had become a no-show job.
Chris Curcio’s testimony, a day after opening statements in the Manhattan federal court trial of 67-year-old Sen. Dean Skelos and his 33-year-old son, Adam Skelos, came as prosecutors sought to show that the father-son team put their interests to earn the son over $300,000 from businesses dependent on legislative support.
Curcio, vice president of sales and marketing at a medical malpractice insurer, said Adam Skelos rarely went to work after he was hired in January 2013. Prosecutors contend his hiring was a favor to his father, then the state’s most powerful Republican.
Curcio said he called Adam Skelos midway through the year to get him to show up in the office and he seemed receptive.
Shortly afterward, Adam Skelos called back with a different tone, Curcio recalled.
“Let’s stop pretending,” Curcio said the son told him. “Guys like you aren’t fit to shine my shoes. And if you talk to me like that again, I’ll smash your (expletive) head in.”
Later in the day, prosecutors introduced tapes of phone calls between the father and son as the government tried to show how brazen the father and son had become.
One conversation came after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last December that the state would not be lifting its moratorium on the gas drilling technique knowns as fracking.
Adam Skelos, already receiving $10,000 monthly from an environmental technology company, would have gotten a percentage of income derived from fracking contracts, testimony revealed.
“Ahhh! This day sucks!” Adam Skelos said in a taped conversation played for the jury.
“It does. Well, we’re going to totally focus on that other thing now. OK?” Dean Skelos replied.
“Yeah. Oh my god,” Adam Skelos said.
Prosecutors have said the “other thing” was income the son derived from helping obtain stormwater projects for the environmental company.
In another conversation played for jurors, the son urged his father to run for governor against Cuomo, a suggestion Dean Skelos did not discourage.
Dean and Adam Skelos have pleaded not guilty, and their lawyers have told jurors they did not act illegally.
As reported by Vos Iz Neias