Espada Up in Smoke? Connecting the Dots.

Phony addresses on either side of the state, sleazy political veterans, and large sums of money might, just might (pretty please!), be the investigation that breaks the camel's back for Pedro Espada.

WCSBTV-2 and Marcia Kramer broke the story that the feds are investigating Westchester Pete's connections to a company called A-1 Multiservices, LLC, reportedly run by Espada's son and said to be located at a cigar shop (pictured below, courtesy of ErLu) on 2384 Hughes Avenue in the Belmont section of the Bronx.
The only problem is that the landlord has no clue about this company:

"I don't know who this guy is," landlord Salvatore Dimaggio said. "Nobody ever told me that name."

DiMaggio is the landlord at the Hughes Avenue building. He says letters occasionally arrive for A-1, but he returns them because there's no A-1 at that address. [wcbstv.com]

It turns out that the company paying A-1 is a similarly shadowy entity on the other side of the state with ties to Espada's post-coup $150K/year counsel, Steve Pigeon. The clandestine company funneling money to A-1 is a GDP Consulting, whose address state records indicate as 7305 Porter Road in Niagra Falls, NY (pictured below, courtesy of Charles Lewis/Buffalo News). The only problem? The Buffalo News is reporting that said address is actually the home to Parenti Accounting Group.
The Buffalo News is also reporting that there is absolutely no physical or material indication of GDP sharing the space on Porter Road with Parenti. Although, there does seem to be some connection to Steve Pigeon.

Jerry Parenti, chairman of the accounting business, is the father of Gary D. Parenti, a longtime political associate of Pigeon. [...]

But what ties, if any, Gary Parenti might have to GDP remains unclear.

“Talk to Gary about that,” Jerry Parenti said Saturday. A telephone number he provided for his son was not working, and Gary Parenti did not return a message left with his father. [buffalonews.com]

I don't know about you, but this whole situation sounds awfully fishy to me. I think I smell Tom Golisano involved in this. There always needs to be a money man, right? Golisano and Pigeon's relationship centered around political spending and maneuvering is long. It kind of makes sense when you learn that GDP was formed July 23, 2009 - a mere two weeks after the Golisano-backed (funded?) coup propelled Espada to Majority leader ended. Maybe we should add any payments from GDP to A-1 to the list of ways people profited from the coup.

~ErLu