Hudson Valley Real Estate Developer Corrupted Election
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A local real estate developer pleaded guilty to conspiring to rig a Hudson Valley election.
Kenneth Nakdimen, 64, of Monsey pleaded guilty to conspiracy to corrupt the electoral process in connection with an election in Bloomingburg.
“Fair elections are the bedrock of democracy. As he has now admitted, Kenneth Nakdimen devised a scheme to advance his real estate project by falsely registering voters and corrupting this sacred process,” Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said. “We will not allow greed to influence elections at any level.”
According to the allegations contained in the indictment, Nakdimen tried to build and sell real estate in Bloomingburg starting in 2006. Nakdimen and others anticipated making hundreds of millions of dollars with the Orange County real estate developments.
In late 2013, the first of their real estate developments still remained under construction due to local opposition.
Nakdimen decided to corrupt the democratic electoral process in Bloomingburg by falsely registering voters and paying bribes for voters who would help elect public officials favorable to their project, including in the 2014 election for the Mayor of Bloomingburg.
The fraudulently registered voters included people who never intended to live in Bloomingburg, some who had never kept a home in Bloomingburg and some who had never set foot in Bloomingburg in their lives, officials say.
Nakdimen created and back-dated false leases and placed items like toothbrushes and toothpaste in unoccupied apartments to make it seem as if the falsely registered voters lived there. He and others also bribed potential voters by offering payments, subsidies and other items of value to get non-residents of Bloomingburg to register unlawfully and vote there.
Nakdimen faces up to five years in prison when sentenced in September.
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