Land dispute spawned indictments
City Councilman Vince Anello owned a small, struggling electrical company when he decided to jump into the mayor’s race in Niagara Falls in 2003.
Joseph Anderson was a successful businessman on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation who had taken a keen interest in developing projects in the Falls.
The two joined forces during the heat of the mayoral campaign in an undisclosed gentle-men’s agreement that, two years later, would hang a dark cloud over the City of Niagara Falls.
The agreement — a $40,000 interest-free “loan” Anderson gave Anello during the campaign season — may never have come to light if it weren’t for an April 2005 incident on reservation land involving a backhoe and a property dispute.
Anderson’s former wife, Gail Anderson, told state police then that a man from Smokin’ Joe’s gas station next door drove a backhoe toward her at a high rate of speed as a worker she had hired tried to install a sign pole at her new tobacco retail business.
She told police the incident stemmed from a land dispute that had been festering for months between her and Anderson.
A week later, Gail Anderson gave the Niagara Falls Reporter, a weekly newspaper, documents detailing the loans made to Anello. The Reporter turned them over to the FBI, the paper’s editor, Mike Hudson, has written.
Anderson pleaded guilty on Friday to a felony charge of scheming to deprive citizens of honest service from a public official; Anello was indicted on a similar charge.
Falls City Council members have been bracing for an indictment since the documents first surfaced.
“I was saddened by it,” said Councilman Charles A. Walker. “I considered Vince a friend. I worked with him all those years, but it brings some conclusion to this whole matter that has basically been hanging over his head and the city’s head for years.”
Walker said Council members knew nothing of the deal between Anderson and Anello when the Council agreed to lease a prominent walkway between the Seneca Niagara Casino and the former Wintergarden to Anderson and two attorneys.
Former Councilwoman Candra
C. Thomason opposed the deal at the time and said Friday she felt pressured by Anello at the time to stop publicly questioning the lease.
“He was telling me I was trying to hold up progress,” Thomason said of the former mayor.
Anello first publicly introduced Anderson to the City Council a few months after he took office.
Anderson had been buying property in the Falls — real estate holdings that would grow to include two hotels, a nightclub and the former Wintergarden. Today, companies registered to the Smokin’ Joe’s business address own more than 20 properties in downtown Niagara Falls.
Anderson had been a fixture in the Western New York business community for two decades, and was best known then for the two Smokin’ Joe’s gas stations and a cigarette-making operation on the Tuscarora Reservation.
But Anello and Anderson’s paths didn’t publicly intertwine until Anello ran for mayor.
That year, Anello reported receiving $588 in election donations from Anderson’s company, Smokin Joe’s. He reported an additional $500 contribution in July 2004.
The money was a pittance compared with contributions that election records show Anderson has made — mostly in his company’s name — to elected officials and political groups, including $20,000 to the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee, $10,500 to State Sen. Antoine Thompson and $28,500 to State Sen. George Maziarz.
What didn’t show up on campaign records were the three checks — written to Anello in 2003 and totaling $40,000 from a company registered to Gail Anderson — that led to Joseph Anderson’s guilty plea and Anello’s indictment on Friday.
Anello has maintained he has done nothing wrong.
Now, Gail Anderson has moved on from the bitter land dispute that disrupted the start to her new business. The business has grown to include cut-rate gasoline sales.
She declined to talk Friday about her ex-husband.
