Mr. Denenberg, it's time to go!

Posted

County Legislator Dave Denenberg’s campaign for the New York State Senate came to a screeching halt last week when news broke that he had allegedly stolen more than $2 million from a client of his law firm, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron. A suit filed by the firm charges that Denenberg routinely billed the client for work that had never been performed.

Denenberg’s campaign slogan was “Nobody Works Harder.” What a joke! It should have been “Nobody Works At All.”

After the story broke, Denenberg announced that he was withdrawing as a candidate for the State Senate. But quitting the Senate race isn’t enough. He should do himself, his family and, most important, his constituents a favor and immediately resign from the County Legislature.

Denenberg paraded around for years as a fighter for his constituents, but he has turned out to be nothing but a fraud. The lies and deception apparently have been going on for years. The lawsuit against him claims that his actions were a “cold, calculated scheme conducted without remorse over an eight-year period. It involved at least 374 separate acts of mail fraud, and resulted in his personal receipt of many hundreds of thousands of dollars he did not deserve and should not have.”

According to legal documents, Denenberg billed the client, Systemax Inc., $2.3 million for nonexistent work. He also put in for $800,000 in fictional expenses for out-of-town court appearances that never occurred. In an effort to validate these fake court appearances, he drafted false court orders and even forged the signatures of two U.S. District Court judges on court documents.

Denenberg is no stranger to forging signatures. In fact, he has plenty of experience. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to falsely affirming that he had witnessed nomination petition signatures, when in fact he had forged hundreds of those signatures. For that act of fraud, he was put on probation and suspended from practicing law for 90 days. He was given a slap on the wrist, and apparently learned no lessons.

Page 1 / 2