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Co-op Manager Admits Guilt On Kickbacks
By JULIAN E. BARNES
A man who ran what was once the largest residential real estate
management company in the city pleaded guilty yesterday to a corruption
charge for rigging bids and accepting kickbacks from contractors
who worked in the co-op apartments he oversaw.
The man, Marvin Gold, president of Marvin
Gold Management, faces two to six years in state prison
and must pay $1 million in restitution to the co-ops he managed.
The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, brought
indictments last year against Mr. Gold and more than 30
other management company employees, co-op board members and contractors.
So far, 27 people have pleaded guilty in that investigation, which
implicated two management companies, Mr. Gold's and the
Elm Management Company. Both companies sold their assets last
year.
Manhattan prosecutors originally charged Mr. Gold with
defrauding 26 co-op buildings between October 1987 and July 1998.
Yesterday he pleaded guilty to one count of enterprise corruption
for rigging bids and accepting kickbacks in two building complexes
in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Mr. Gold's lawyer, Harvey L. Greenberg, did not return
a call seeking comment. But in court, Mr. Gold admitted
to running his company as a criminal enterprise and managing the
kickback scheme, according to a transcript provided by the district
attorney's office. He will be sentenced next month.
In 1994, Mr. Morgenthau announced the indictments of more than
70 real estate agents and companies in an investigation of widespread
corruption in the residential real estate management business.
The follow-up investigation in June 1999 led to the indictment
of Mr. Gold and his deputy, Jeffrey C. Gold, who
had helped write ethics rules that were supposed to clean up the
industry. Marvin Gold and Jeffrey Gold are
not related.