About a week after Adam Skelos began working for a medical malpractice insurer in 2013, his supervisor wanted to know if he’d start showing up to the office.
Despite making $78,000 a year plus medical benefits, and not possessing a license to sell insurance, the son of now former state Sen. Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) had been hired in the company’s sales and marketing department and worked just one hour in the last four days.
Adam Skelos returned the phone call, according to an expanded indictment against the Skeloses filed last Tuesday in federal court that lists two new charges of extortion and bribery.
He allegedly threatened to “smash in” his supervisor’s head, telling him he would “never amount to anything” and that “guys like” him “couldn’t shine my shoes.”
Skelos allegedly told the supervisor he didn’t have to show up to work because Dean Skelos was his father and, at the time, one of the most powerful politicians in the state.
The indictment does not name the insurance company, but it has been reported that the firm is the Roslyn-based Physicians Reciprocal Insurers, the second-largest medical malpractice insurer in the state.
Physicians Reciprocal in the last decade had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying the state Legislature, and its owner Anthony Bonomo and his family have been heavy political donors to Dean Skelos and other top state officials, according to lobbying and campaign finance records.
According to the indictment, Skelos later called Bonomo questioning why his son was “harassed” by his supervisor, and told him that any issues between Adam Skelos and the company needed to be resolved.
Following that conversation, Bonomo believed Dean Skelos could act against the interests of Physicians Reciprocal if the company did not retain Adam Skelos as an employee, according to the indictment.
The indictment goes on to say that Adam Skelos was not disciplined by the company, and in April 2013 he signed a consulting agreement for $36,000 per year that lasted until March 2015, for which he “did not complete even a small fraction of the required sales calls each week.”
The Skeloses have pleaded not guilty to the corruption charges against them. A website seeking donations toward their defense fund was recently established.
Bonomo, of Manhasset, was named chairman of the New York Racing Association by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but took leave shortly before the Belmont Stakes in June because he reportedly did “not want to have recent events distract from the ongoing work of NYRA.”
