More prison delays for Manganos as post-conviction bail bids continue

Former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano won’t start his 12-year prison term this week after a federal appellate court granted a stay Tuesday as his motion to remain free on bail during the appeal of his 2019 corruption conviction remains pending.

The former Republican leader was due to surrender Friday to the federal Bureau of Prisons before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order.

A jury in 2019 convicted the former county executive and his wife, Linda Mangano, in a bribery case tied to politically connected former restaurateur Harendra Singh — a longtime family friend.

The latest Second Circuit order postpones Edward Mangano’s surrender not to a different date, but until the court rules on a defense motion seeking to overturn U.S. District Judge Joan Azrack’s July rejection of his bid to stay out of prison until his appeal is decided.

It's unknown when that bail ruling will happen.

“We remain confident and are looking forward to presenting our case,” Edward Mangano’s attorney, Kevin Keating, said Tuesday.

Eastern District U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman John Marzulli declined to comment on Tuesday’s order and a recent decision in Linda Mangano’s case.

Earlier this month, the Second Circuit delayed her prison surrender. Instead of Friday, Linda Mangano is due to start her incarceration Sept. 9.

That delay came at the request of federal prosecutors, who asked for the change while seeking more time to respond to Linda Mangano’s motion to stay free on bail during her conviction appeal. Azrack rejected her initial such effort last month.

Tuesday’s court order also gives prosecutors until Sept. 9 to respond to Edward Mangano’s bail motion.

The Second Circuit’s rulings regarding changes to the prison surrenders of the spouses mark the fourth incarceration delay for Edward Mangano, 60, and the third such delay for Linda Mangano, 59.

She is scheduled to serve her 15-month sentence in a minimum-security satellite camp at a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is due to file its opposition to her latest bail motion Monday.

Linda Mangano’s appeals attorney, Bradley Simon, said Tuesday that the principle of fairness is at the heart of his client’s most recent bail motion.

“Absent relief from this Court, Linda Mangano — who, undisputedly is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community — will likely serve the entirety of her prison sentence while she pursues her good-faith appeal. Neither law nor common sense demands such a perverse outcome,” he wrote in an Aug. 5 filing.

Azrack previously called such an argument “not a relevant factor” in a bid for bail pending appeal.

Linda Mangano's new bail motion also presents multiple arguments Simon said raise substantial questions of law likely to result in a reversal or new trial, one of the standards for granting bail during an appeal.

The filing said one of those questions will be whether sufficient evidence supported Linda Mangano’s convictions for making false statements to the government when the government couldn’t produce an exact record of her words — an issue Simon said the Second Circuit never has ruled on.

Keating made a half-dozen arguments in Edward Mangano’s latest bail motion, filed Aug. 19, that he said would be raised in the former county executive’s appeal and are relevant to Mangano's bid to stay out of prison now.

Among them, Keating said there was an error in jury instructions that meant jurors could have convicted Edward Mangano based on the performance of any official act after the payment of a Singh bribe, regardless of whether the act was the subject of an agreed-upon quid pro quo between Mangano and Singh.

 "A properly instructed jury might not have convicted Mangano," Keating wrote in the filing. 

Jurors found Edward Mangano 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 jury convicted Linda Mangano of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice and two counts of lying to the FBI.

The jury found Edward Mangano used his influence as a newly elected county executive to sway Town of Oyster Bay officials into indirectly backing $20 million in loans for Singh, a town concessionaire, after an outside lawyer for the town said such a transaction was illegal.

Singh, the government's cooperating witness, testified he bribed Edward Mangano with a $454,000 "no-show" job for Linda in his restaurant business, along with perks that included meals, furniture, vacations and hardwood flooring.

The jury also found the Manganos conspired to obstruct a grand jury investigation by scheming with Singh to fabricate examples of work Linda Mangano supposedly did for his company.