Pols pressured to return Malinsky campaign contributions following bribery charges

Government officials are quickly washing their hands clean of indicted developer Aaron Malinsky, who was accused of bribing Brooklyn State Sen. Carl Kruger earlier this month in exchange for his support on two key projects. According to the Brooklyn Paper, Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are each returning the $250 in campaign donations they received from him last August, and New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez said he plans to donate $10,500 of the $33,000 he received to charity. But Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz appears to be the odd man out, and he’s now coming under fire from government watchdogs for delaying his decision about some $21,550 in Malinsky-tied campaign contributions until after he sees the outcome of the bribery case. Malinsky, his family and his PA Associates partner, Paul Slayton, began donating to Markowitz around the same time the developer was preparing to release his plans for the $65 Million canarsie shopping plaza, records from the city’s Campaign Finance Board show. The project, a big-box retail space on city-owned land on the corner of Avenue D and Remsen Avenue in Brooklyn, was referenced in Malinsky’s indictment as one whose outcome was affected by the Kruger bribes. Last week, PA Associates was fired from the CityPoint tower it was building in Downtown Brooklyn on the heels of its removal from a supermarket project in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. [Brooklyn Paper]

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