Ex-Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano heading to prison after appeals court denies his bail bid

Former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano will be heading to prison after a Manhattan federal appeals court on Tuesday denied his motion for bail as he appeals his corruption conviction.

Mangano, 60, is slated for incarceration at a federal prison in Massachusetts, according to John Marzulli, a spokesman for the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's Office.

The spokesman said after the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued its decision denying bail Tuesday that Mangano has to surrender immediately to start his 12-year prison term.

"If he can't get there by the end of the day today, he has to be there tomorrow," Marzulli said in an email to Newsday on Tuesday afternoon.

Mangano's attorney, Kevin Keating, said then that the defense was awaiting further guidance from the court in terms of the timing of the former county executive's surrender.

The three-sentence Second Circuit order didn't provide any direction on the timing of Mangano's surrender.

But U.S. District Judge Joan Azrack, who sentenced Mangano in April, told him to surrender by 5 p.m. Wednesday in an order later Tuesday. She denied a request by Keating to let Mangano surrender on Friday.

However, Azrack's order also seemed to leave room for the Second Circuit to chime in on the timing of his surrender.

"The Court believes that it lacks jurisdiction over this request as this case is now on appeal before the Second Circuit. To the extent that this Court does have jurisdiction over this request, the Court directs Mangano to surrender by 5:00 PM on September 14, 2022," Azrack's ruling said.

Mangano's wife, former Nassau County first lady Linda Mangano, 59, began her 15-month incarceration term Friday at a minimum-security satellite camp at a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, after her bids for bail pending appeal also failed.

A jury in 2019 convicted the spouses in a bribery case tied to politically connected ex-restaurateur Harendra Singh — a longtime family friend.

Edward Mangano's attorney vowed Tuesday that the former Republican leader would continue to fight to prove his innocence after his surrender at the Massachusetts prison.

"We are disappointed. But we remain confident that after a full briefing of these issues and a thorough review of the trial record, Ed Mangano's narrow conviction will be reversed," Keating said in a statement to Newsday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office didn't comment further on the court's decision Tuesday. Prosecutors had opposed Mangano's bids for bail during his appeal.

The Massachusetts prison, known as FMC Devens, has 963 inmates. Located in the town of Ayer, about 35 miles northwest of Boston, the prison has a minimum-security satellite camp adjacent to its Federal Medical Center facility.

The medical facility is where former Town of Oyster Bay Planning and Development Commissioner Frederick Ippolito died in June 2017 at age 78 while appealing his tax evasion conviction.

Mangano's surrender will come nearly six years after his arrest in October 2016 as he sat atop Nassau County's government. 

His surrender also will follow four postponements of his incarceration amid two failed bids to stay free on bail as he challenges the corruption conviction that followed a 2018 mistrial and a 2019 retrial in U.S. District Court in Central Islip. 

The jury found him guilty of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery, federal program bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, honest services wire fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The same panel found Linda Mangano guilty of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice and two counts of lying to the FBI.

Singh testified under a cooperation agreement with the prosecution that he lavished Edward Mangano with bribes that included free meals and vacations, furniture, wood flooring and a $454,000 "no-show" job for Linda Mangano in his business.

By its verdict, the jury decided Edward Mangano used his influence as the newly elected county executive to sway Town of Oyster Bay officials into indirectly backing $20 million in loans for Singh, a town concessionaire, after a lawyer for the town said that was illegal.

The jury also found the Manganos conspired to obstruct a grand jury probe by scheming with Singh to fabricate examples of work Linda Mangano supposedly did for his now-defunct restaurant empire.