Most Americans never heard of Michael Grimm until the infamous "I'll break you in half like a boy" incident on the balcony of the Congress. If you're a DWT reader, you've been reading about Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm, Gambino Crime Family mobster turned Staten Island GOP congressman, since 2005 when he had a tangential role in a hushed up case of New York mobster/real estate developer Tom "Gus" Kontogiannis giving Randy "Duke" Cunningham $400,000 to try to buy a pardon from then President George W. Bush. Kontogiannis, a Long Island Republican real estate developer, could have his picture in a dictionary next to the definition of "sleaze." And he knew just where to turn for a presidential pardon after pleading guilty in a serious bribery, kickback and contract-rigging scandal that cheated Queens school students out of $5 million dollars worth of computers: Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Kontogiannis' partner in crime-- who also plead guilty, was the District School Superintendent and a failed Republican candidate for Congress (financed, of course, by Kontogiannis), Celestine Miller who wound up with 4 houses (worth approximately $1 million) + $80,000 in campaign contributions for her participation in the felony. Kontogiannis bought a boat, now abandoned and worthless, from ole "Duke," the "Kelly C." for at least $400,000 more than it was worth, to obtain Duke's help in getting Bush to pardon him.Grimm later tried getting Kontogiannis off the hook for a life that was basically, like his own, an unending crime spree.
Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm urged a federal judge to spare a New York-based developer with three bribery-related convictions from serving a day in prison, the Daily News has learned.Grimm sought leniency for Thomas Kontogiannis in 2008, before Grimm entered Congress as a Republican and after he had left a career as an FBI agent. Kontogiannis then faced sentencing on his third conviction-- for helping funnel $1 million in bribe money to former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-Calif).In a three-page letter, Grimm asked California Federal Judge Lawrence Burns to “be as lenient as the law will allow and your conscience accepts, granting him a noncustodial sentence.” Burns sentenced Kontogiannis to eight years [a sentence that has grown over the years].
Grimm had been kicked out of the FBI for extracurricular activities, working with the Mob, taking payoffs from Kontogiannis, as well as for shady dealings with Florida real estate and a Texas-based biofuel company. He later went into business serving fake organic food at an unhygienic "health food" restaurant, Healthalicious, a front for Gambino crime family boss Anthony (Fat Tony) Morelli, where he got into trouble with the law for cheating his employees. This is long before he financed his congressional campaign almost entirely with illegal foreign contributions-- and for urging Boehner to allow Members of Congress to pack heat. NY Times ace reporters Alison Cowan and William Rashbaum have been on Grimm's tail for a long time and reported on his unsavory "business dealings" for years, including the Healthalicious scandal that is reportedly part of the current indictment.
Twelve years later, Mr. Grimm was back in business in New York, where he formed a company called Granny Sayz, L.L.C., which operated Healthalicious, a restaurant on Second Avenue near 83rd Street in Manhattan. The company was affiliated with a company now connected to Mr. Biton, the Grimm fund-raiser who is under investigation.The New York State Workers’ Compensation Board last month ordered Healthalicious to pay $88,000 for not carrying workers’ compensation insurance. And in 2011, two former deliverymen retained a lawyer, Dan Knauth, asserting that the restaurant had paid them less than minimum wage, did not pay for work beyond 40 hours per week and paid cash to evade scrutiny.Mr. Knauth said he contacted Mr. Grimm’s office about the complaints. Shortly afterward, Mr. Grimm filed papers with the state to dissolve his company, Granny Sayz.On Dec. 1, the deliverymen sued the restaurant, Mr. Grimm and others.The defendants have not responded in court. But the restaurant has engaged in maneuvers that make it more difficult to sue.The restaurant’s legal name originally contained the word Healthalicious, with a C. Then in 2010, it was changed to Healthalitious NYC (with a T).Finally, right after the lawsuit was filed, the restaurant changed its legal name again, to Healthalicious Upper East Side-- with a C.
He became more famous for campaign finance fraud that included organized crime in Cyprus and Israel and for shocking public escapades like incidents in nightclubs involving guns and sex in toilets.The indictments that have been filed could involve any of criminal activities that have defined Michael Grimm's life. Maddow got that right in the opening segment of her show last night (above). She did forget to mention that Grimm, who has already paid shady DC law firm/political entrepreneurs Patton Boggs around a quarter million dollars to keep him out of prison, owes them another $417,478. Rashbaum reported in the Times last night that the U.S. Attorney's case was "expected to include mail fraud and wire fraud, and to focus largely on his conduct in connection with a health food restaurant he owned on the Upper East Side of Manhattan after he left the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2006, two of the people said. He was also expected to be charged with obstruction of justice, for allegedly lying under oath in a federal lawsuit."
The investigation of the second-term congressman, by the F.B.I. and the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, began more than two years ago with an examination of Mr. Grimm’s fund-raising for his 2010 race and expanded. Two of his fund-raisers have already been charged. One, Diana Durand of Houston, was charged with illegally funneling more than $10,000 into his campaign. The other, Ofer Biton, pleaded guilty to visa fraud charges.But on Friday, it did not appear that the indictment would include any campaign finance charges or accusations that the congressman had misused his office, although several of the people noted that the investigation was continuing. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity as the charges had not been formally announced and they were not authorized to discuss the case.
Sad, tiny postscript: the two conservative Democrats running for Grimm's seat, Domenic Recchia (a corrupt Steve Israel "mystery meat" pick) and religio-sociopath Erick Salgado, are both so unsavory that even Grimm could beat either of them... campaigning from a prison cell! Recchia's only hope is that the rumors of Grimm be willing to resign as part of a plea bargain are true. Reportedly, it's now too late for the Republicans to get his name off the November ballot.
