FBI Probes Putnam

Secrecy is surrounding a federal investigation involving Putnam County government.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Putnam Legislature, prior to adjournment, Legislature Chairman Vincent Tamagna requested an executive session to discuss a “pending legal matter.”

The nine-member governing body left the chambers in the historic Putnam County Courthouse, and after meeting in executive session for 27 minutes Tuesday evening, the lawmakers emerged from a conference room with County Attorney Jennifer Bumgarner and unanimously approved a resolution waiving the “attorney client privilege attached to any and all communications contained on vouchers for legal services provided to the county by outside counsel.”

Two anonymous sources close to the matter told the Courier Wednesday that a U.S. attorney had subpoenaed “1,500 original invoices and all vouchers regarding our previous county attorney and procurement and procedure of how we choose outside counsel.”

The sources said that a grand jury investigation is underway and that the FBI “started the investigation.” One of the sources added that the U.S. attorney requested unredacted copies of the invoices and vouchers “associated with Servino, Santangelo, Randazzo & Mangone as a firm and as sole practitioners. Obviously they want to see what they were paid for and how much they were paid.” The firm, which had been based in Westchester, no longer exists. Neither Servino, Santangelo, nor Mangone wished to comment; Randazzo could not be reached.

Carl Lodes, whom the two anonymous sources identified as the former county attorney associated with the subpoenaed invoices, was the immediate predecessor to Bumgarner. Prior to serving as county attorney, Lodes was executive director of and counsel to the Hudson Valley Trust. He also has served as attorney to the Putnam County Industrial Development Agency. In New York, according to the website of the state comptroller, an IDA is a “public benefit corporation” intended to “promote, develop, encourage and assist in acquiring, constructing, improving, maintaining and equipping certain facilities” to advance the “general prosperity and economic welfare of the people.”

Tamagna told the Courier that Putnam County had been subpoenaed to “produce certain specified records to the Grand Jury for the Southern District of New York” that included invoices and “how the county procured outside legal services.”

The resolution stated after the documents were subpoenaed Bumgarner “immediately consulted with the County Executive, who authorized her to retain private counsel to represent the county’s interests.”

The resolution goes on to say that the county attorney “delivered the documents responsive to the subpoena to the law firm of Critchley, Kinum and Vazquez for preparation and release to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.”

Tamagna called it the “Legislature’s prerogative to knowingly and voluntarily waive the attorney-client privilege attached to such communications since the waiver of privilege would result in a cost savings to the county since the information contained on all of the vouchers will not need to be individually reviewed and redacted by outside counsel prior to their release.”

Tamagna said the county was not the least bit concerned: “The FBI is investigating a series of documents. We in county government will give a full transparent review and will cooperate fully with the federal government and the grand jury as the probe continues.”

Tamagna said he was bound to refrain from divulging any additional information. As of press time, neither Bumgarner nor Lodes could be reached for comment.