'We have the votes': Email on $2M town contract ex-Oyster Bay official Brian Noone sent bidder with ties to his private business

Former Oyster Bay Inspector General Brian Noone emailed a personal business associate four days before town board members were to vote on a $2 million contract to tell the vendor it looked like the deal was in the bag.

“We have the votes — things are moving forward very well,” Noone wrote in a March 17 email to Enterprise Security Solutions company owner Michael Esposito.

Esposito is listed as the cybersecurity practice leader for Noone’s private company, Nova Venture Partners, on the business' website. 

Noone, 76, of Syosset, resigned from his role with a probe by Nassau prosecutors underway three weeks after Newsday reported in June that he had recommended the $2 million cybersecurity contract for the vendor with ties to his private business.

Newsday recently obtained dozens of Noone’s town emails from 2023 through a Freedom of Information Law request.

Experts in government and law said Noone's March 17 email to Esposito, which included the subject line "Town Board Meeting on this Tuesday,” raises questions about ethical violations. 

Noone couldn't be reached by phone last week and the person who answered a knock at his door Thursday waved a reporter away. Esposito also couldn't be contacted.

Nassau County District Attorney's Office spokesman Brendan Brosh said last week his office's investigation was "ongoing" before declining further comment.

Professor: Should have recused himself

"Noone is supposed to be giving out contracts on a merit basis but … he's lobbying for his business associate to get the contract," said Bennett Gershman, a Pace Law School professor.

Gershman also said the email showed "dishonest self-dealing" and that Noone should have recused himself. 

"Other people who are seeking the contract, what are they going to think when they can see that, 'We've got the votes?' " Gershman said of Noone's email. 

The professor said more facts were needed to determine whether any laws were broken.

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a good government group, said Noone's email undermines public faith "that tax dollars aren't being used to line the pockets of people who have connections." 

Lerner also said it was a conflict of interest for someone with a private business in a particular sector to also oversee government contracts in that sector.

"Was this company chosen to provide essential services to the town government because they were the best company to provide those services?" Lerner said. "Or were they chosen because they had powerful friends in important places?"

'Don't like it one bit'

At the town board's March 21 meeting, legislators tabled the resolution that would have awarded the $2 million deal to Enterprise Security Solutions and referred the matter to the town's ethics board.

A week later, the town also canceled a preexisting $15,000 contract for electronic security assessment services with Enterprise Security Solutions, accusing the company of a confidentiality breach.

The ethics board's attorney, Steven Leventhal, who said a complaint from the public sparked the review of the cybersecurity contract issue, later cleared Noone of any conflicts of interest.

Leventhal said he found Noone had no ownership interest in Enterprise Security Solutions.

Town officials sidelined Noone from contract oversight duties in the three months before his resignation, but he kept collecting his $154,500 salary while retired State Supreme Court Justice Angelo Delligatti took over those responsibilities for $75 an hour.

Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino said in an interview last week he hadn't seen Noone's March 17 email but didn't approve of what he heard about it.

"If what you’re saying is correct, I don’t like it one bit," Saladino added.

The supervisor said he didn't know if Noone had lobbied any town board members to vote for the $2 million contract for Esposito.

"I would not approve of it. I would not allow it. And that’s wrong," Saladino added. 

Noone wrote in his June 20 resignation letter he had "served the Town faithfully, without conflict or self-interest," but the matter sparked a firestorm of criticism from local Democrats.

In 2019, the town's Republican board members had appointed Noone as Oyster Bay's first inspector general to provide contract oversight after a corruption scandal that ensnared high-ranking town officials and sent former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and his wife to prison.

'Strict and bright line'

Noone's town emails show on Jan. 9 he sent Oyster Bay's request for proposals for the cybersecurity contract to Esposito and another prior town contractor with whom he had a connection through his private business.

Other emails showed Noone sometimes used his Oyster Bay email account to conduct business for his company.

The town's ethics code prohibits the use of town resources for personal use with exceptions such as "occasional and incidental use" of telephones and computers for "nonbusiness matters such as family care and changes in work schedule."    

In one email, Noone sent a PowerPoint presentation about a radio frequency scanning technology to Trireme Solutions, a company listed on Nova Venture Partners' website as a "partner." 

He also emailed records for his private company from his Oyster Bay account to his personal and business email accounts.

In another instance, Noone emailed a business tax form to his private company's accountant with his town email account.

Lerner, from Common Cause New York, said government officials never should use government email accounts for private business. 

"It is incumbent upon every official, whether appointed or elected, to maintain a very strict and bright line between their personal business and their official duties," Lerner said. "And one of the ways in which you do that is you do not mix up your personal business with your official lines of communication, period."

Saladino said he has "zero tolerance" for town employees and officials using Oyster Bay resources for private business. 

Following Noone's resignation, in June the town board announced a framework for future policy or code changes to strengthen ethics and procurement rules.

In August the town board codified some of that framework with a requirement that vendors disclose the names and percentages of interest of all members, partners and stakeholders in their entities.