DeRosa Docs Show Secret $240K "Consultant" Payout to Ferro
By Maureen Daly and Niall Fitzgerald
Documents from Melville land fraudster Gregory DeRosa detail a secret, structured $240,000.00 six-month "consulting" payoff scheme in 2023 and 2024 between DeRosa and Huntington Town Councilman Sal Ferro and his wife Molly Ferro.
The "Consultant Agreement" was entered into on August 1, 2023, and provided for six monthly payments of $40,000.00 each to be paid to Ferro's shell company RSF Group - by ACH wire transfer - totaling $240,000.00. Molly Ferro is listed as the President of RSF Group.
Bank records confirm corresponding wire transfers were made from DeRosa's bank accounts.
DeRosa has been charged in multiple Court proceedings with running a $50 million land "Ponzi land scheme," of defrauding local business owners and investors, including stealing $4.7 million from former Jets Quarterback and Huntington School Board member John Paci.
DeRosa has now closed his businesses, "gone dark," and is currently under law enforcement investigation.
"It appears from these documents that my client's [Paci's] funds, which were invested for specific purposes in connection with certain real estate projects was instead used by DeRosa to pay exorbitant consulting fees to RSF [Ferro]" stated Paul O'Brien, the attorney for John Paci. "We intend to fully investigate what, if any, consulting services were provided by RSF under this apparent agreement."
Under the contract, the only tasks that Molly Ferro was to perform over the six months for the $240,000.00 were "consulting services," with her job tasks defined as "the duties of loyalty, obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, reasonable care, and diligence and full accounting."
Earlier this year in March - just days after the March 1, 2024 final $40,000.00 DeRosa payment - Councilman Ferro sponsored the first of seven Town Board resolutions to re-zone 800 acres - one square mile - of Melville from office buildings into high-density four-story apartment blocks.
DeRosa coincidentally purchased four office properties in Melville that could gain hundreds of millions in value from the lucrative Melville re-zone, with one property purchased by DeRosa just days after Ferro's November 2, 2021 election to the Town Board.
Ferro planned and crafted the resolutions to re-zone Melville, together with DeRosa and DeRosa's paid lobbyist, South Huntington Water Commissioner Paul Tonna.
The first of Ferro's Melville re-zone resolutions was approved by the Huntington Town Board just this past week, by a vote of 3 to 1, with Councilwoman Brooke Lupinacci (R-Lloyd Harbor) voting "No" on Ferro's resolution. The Resolution re-zones office buildings into 1,500 high-density apartments, plus an unspecified number of co-ops and condos.
In a similar "no show" arrangement between a politician, a corrupt businessman, and the politician's wife, former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano was arrested and indicted for arranging a "no show" job for his wife, Linda Mangano, from restaurant owner Harendra Singh.
The Linda Mangano "no show" job paid her $100,000.00 per year, and in exchange, Singh was given government favors by Ed Mangano, such as catering contracts and a golf course restaurant lease.
Both Ed Mangano and his wife were convicted by a federal Court of taking bribes, and were sentenced to long terms in federal prison, with Ed Mangano serving a sentence of 12 years. He will be in prison until at least 2032.
