That former Niagara Falls mayor Vincenzo V. Anello is a thief is well documented. He pleaded guilty in federal court to ripping off his own union brothers at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local here, and he went to prison for it.
The guilty plea came as part of a deal with the feds that saw them dropping official corruption charges related to $40,000 in under-the-table payments Anello took just before and immediately after he was elected mayor from a downtown developer who later turned state's evidence in the case.
Plea bargains are nothing unusual. Dope dealers, pimps, murderers and rapists take them all the time. Prosecutors like them because they save the government the time and expense of a trial, and the scumbag still goes to jail.
So Anello pleaded guilty to felony charges just like a dope dealer or a pimp, and went to prison. He did his time at the Cumberland Federal Correctional Institution, a penitentiary managed by the federal Bureau of Prisons.
They cut him loose back in December, and last week, barely two months after he got out, Anello began a media blitz that included a two-hour appearance on Sal Paonessa's online chat show and interviews with the Niagara Gazette and the Buffalo News.
To hear Anello tell it, he hadn't been in prison at all, but at a camp, complete with a "campus-like" setting. One might easily have been under the impression that he'd attended some sort of rural retreat sponsored by Harvard University.
Anello seems to think it's very important that the charge he pleaded guilty to wasn't one related to the corruption he engaged in while he was in office.
That's kind of like a dope dealer who pleads guilty to heroin-trafficking saying the crack and marijuana he was also caught with didn't exist because the charges relating to those substances were dropped in the deal his attorneys made with the prosecutor.
He went on to say that his administration was an unqualified success, completely overlooking the reality that his years in office were an embarrassment for the people of Niagara Falls and, in particular, the great Italian people of Niagara Falls.
Anello, the proud Italian, disgraced his own heritage. And Anello, the Falls' biggest booster, gave the city he professed to love the blackest eye it had in decades.
My initial reaction to Anello's rehabilitation tour was simply to be amused by it. He always was a buffoon, a clown sent here to amuse us, and his peculiar blend of dumb street patter mixed with delusions of grandeur about himself and the sandbox he'd chosen to play in were always good for a laugh.
But he said a couple things that for reasons legal and otherwise I think I ought to address. He lied about a lot of things, but specifically, he lied about me and this newspaper, and I'm going to respond to that.
After supporting Anello during his run for office, I became increasingly disenchanted with him after he was sworn in as mayor in January 2004. There were too many inexplicable deals, things like no-bid contracts and -- quite frankly -- there were too many creeps hanging around City Hall all the time.
I began expressing my reservations in the pages of the Niagara Falls Reporter and was eventually given some documents showing Anello had taken money from at least one of the people he was doing business with on behalf of the city.
To make a long story short, the documents attracted the attention of the FBI, who launched the investigation that led to Anello's imprisonment.
It was as simple as that, though not to the former mayor. The career politician who cut his teeth on Machiavelli's "The Prince" sees darker forces at work, a vast capitalist conspiracy.
On Sal Paonessa's show, Anello lied, saying I personally took a payoff of $50,000 from Niagara Falls Redevelopment to destroy his reputation and career.
He destroyed his own reputation and career, and he's the one who took payoffs, not me. I would sue him, except he doesn't have any money.
NFR has been an advertiser in this paper for nearly 13 years. It's no secret. They advertised during the Elia administration and the Anello administration, and they continue to advertise under the odious regime of Mayor Paul Dyster.
It's part of their community outreach. They subsidize ads for Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, Community Missions, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and many other charities in which fundraising drives are promoted and other important information is imparted.
I never made $50,000, or even close to that, in any year Anello was mayor, and I have the tax documents and accounting records to prove it.
I've known many thieves in my life, and some of them have been very nice people.
There's one thing I never could stand, though, and that's a liar.
That Vince Anello is a thief is a matter of public record. He admitted to it.
He's also a lying bag of garbage who is continuing his attempts to deceive the good people of Niagara Falls.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Feb. 28 2012 |