Key Figures in the Trial of Dean Skelos

An influential figure in real estate circles, Mr. Dorego was the general counsel of Glenwood Management, one of Manhattan’s biggest developers. Glenwood benefits from favorable state tax abatements and rent regulations that must be periodically renewed by the Legislature. It is among New York’s most generous donors to state candidates and political action committees controlled by legislative leaders, including Senator Skelos.

Among Mr. Dorego’s responsibilities was managing Glenwood’s political operations. The charges in the case say that Senator Skelos repeatedly solicited Mr. Dorego and others at Glenwood to direct payments to his son, at times during meetings at which Mr. Dorego was lobbying the senator on legislation that was important to Glenwood. Mr. Dorego arranged for payments to be sent to Adam Skelos through a title insurance company and through AbTech Industries, an environmental technology company, in whose parent company he had an investment, according to court papers. He is a cooperating witness and is expected to testify at trial.

A grandson of Glenwood’s 101-year-old founder and principal, Leonard Litwin, Mr. Swarzman also had ties to Abtech Holdings, the parent company of the environmental technology company that made over $200,000 in consulting payments to Adam Skelos. He signed public records filed by a company that invested in Abtech Holdings, and the indictment against Mr. Skelos notes that Glenwood’s “founding family” had invested in the company.
According to a 2006 article in Newsday, Mr. Swarzman became friends with AbTech’s founder in Arizona, and was impressed by the company’s primary product, a spongelike water filter that the company says can be used to treat storm water runoff and water contaminated by hydrofracking. Mr. Swarzman became the company’s East Coast distributor.

Mr. Rink was the president and chief executive of AbTech Industries. AbTech, which is based in Arizona, allegedly made over $200,000 in consulting payments to the senator’s son. Mr. Rink hired Adam Skelos as a government relations consultant at the urging of the general counsel of the real estate developer Glenwood Management after Senator Skelos had repeatedly solicited Glenwood executives and lobbyists to direct payments to his son.

Glenwood’s general counsel, Mr. Dorego told Mr. Rink that the senator’s son would be able to use his father’s influence to get business from New York municipalities, the court papers say. There “is great potential for [Adam Skelos] to exploit his father’s contacts statewide,” Mr. Dorego wrote in an email to Mr. Rink, the papers say. Shares of Abtech Holdings, the parent company of AbTech Industries, have fallen since news broke of AbTech’s involvement in this case and are currently trading at three cents.

Mr. White was the vice president of strategy and business development at Abtech Holdings and headed an affiliated company, AEWS Engineering. When AbTech Industries began making consulting payments to Adam Skelos, it was trying to get Nassau County, in Senator Skelos’s political backyard, to hire the company for a multimillion-dollar storm water project, according to court papers.

AbTech’s chief executive and founder, Glenn R. Rink, told Mr. White that his job included managing the company’s relationship with Adam Skelos, according to court papers. After a recommendation by the senator, the company provided Nassau County with “an unsolicited conceptual proposal,” prosecutors have said. The county later issued a request for proposals and AbTech was subsequently awarded the contract, which was valued at up to $12 million. Court papers say Senator Skelos then intervened with Nassau County when payments to the company slowed.

Mr. White began cooperating with prosecutors and investigators in February and recorded his telephone calls and conversations with Adam Skelos. Mr. White is a cooperating witness in the case and is expected to testify at trial.