Guy John Velella was an American Republican politician serving as a New York State Senator from the Bronx.
39 Facts About Guy Velella
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Guy Velella ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in the fourth degree, a class E felony, admitting that he helped clients obtain business from government agencies, and that the clients paid fees in excess of $10,000 to his father's law firm, in exchange for a year in jail.
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Guy Velella served a total of six months of his sentence at Rikers Island.
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Guy Velella was born on September 25,1944, in East Harlem, then a heavily Italian-American neighborhood, in Manhattan.
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The Guy Velella family moved to the Bronx in the late 1950s.
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In 1967, Guy Velella graduated from St John's University, Jamaica, New York.
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Guy Velella then earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Suffolk School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, and joined his father's law practice.
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The incumbent Democrat withdrew from the race unexpectedly, and Guy Velella won the race.
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Guy Velella served in the Assembly from 1973 to 1982, sitting in the 180th, 181st, 182nd, 183rd and 184th New York State Legislatures.
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Many political observers expected Guy Velella to run for the seat in Congress held by Mario Biaggi, a Democrat, when he retired.
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Guy Velella received the endorsements of the Right to Life Party and the Bronx section of the Conservative Party of New York.
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Guy Velella was re-elected to the State Senate in November 1986 and in every subsequent election until November 2002, sitting in the 186th, 187th, 188th, 189th, 190th, 191st, 192nd, 193rd, 194th and 195th New York State Legislatures.
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Guy Velella resigned his seat on May 14,2004, as part of a plea bargain reached on criminal charges that he took bribes to help businesses win lucrative state contracts.
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Guy Velella endeared himself to his constituents through his advocacy on their behalf with the federal, state, and city government.
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In 1989, Guy Velella became chairman of the powerful Senate Insurance Committee.
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Guy Velella reached the height of his influence and power during the mid-1990s.
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Guy Velella used his many contacts to secure patronage jobs for his supporters.
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Later, when D'Amato and the Governor-Elect Pataki decided to foment a coup against then-Majority Leader Ralph Marino, who had clashed repeatedly with Pataki during the latter's brief tenure in the New York State Senate, Guy Velella acted as Pataki's and D'Amato's agent, drafting Senate Members for a Thanksgiving coup in 1994 against Long Island's Marino and in favor of upstate Rensselaer County's Joe Bruno.
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Guy Velella was a partner, with his father, in Velella, Velella, Basso, and Calandra, a law firm in the Morris Park section of The Bronx.
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In 1987, Guy Velella admitted that he had fathered a child out of wedlock with an Albany woman with whom he had had a longtime affair.
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Guy Velella later said he had made financial arrangements with the child's mother to support his newborn daughter, Alexandra Guy Velella.
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In 1993, Guy Velella was accused of fixing local school board elections.
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In 1981, then-Assemblyman Guy Velella ran for New York City Council President against the incumbent Democrat Carol Bellamy and lost.
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In 1985, Velella ran for New York City Comptroller against the three-time Democratic incumbent, Harrison J Goldin, but lost again, by a wide margin.
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In 1986, Guy Velella became the chairman of the Bronx Republican Party.
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Critics charged that Guy Velella did nothing to build the local GOP and maintained a "non-aggression pact" with the Bronx County Democratic organization.
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In 1994 and 1996, Guy Velella ran with the endorsement of the Bronx Democratic Party.
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In 1992, Guy Velella campaigned for Senator D'Amato, who was facing a tough re-election fight against Democratic challenger, New York Attorney General Robert Abrams.
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On Election Day, Guy Velella oversaw a "ballot security program," which sought to deter voter fraud at the polls.
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In 1994, Guy Velella devoted his resources to the Pataki and Vacco campaigns, which were both successful.
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In 2001, Guy Velella endorsed former Bronx Borough President and Congressman Herman Badillo, who became a Republican in the 1990s, in the race to succeed the term-limited Mayor Giuliani.
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When Guy Velella realized he was the only Republican county chairman in the city supporting Badillo, Guy Velella stopped actively campaigning for Badillo and publicly called on him to withdraw from the race.
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Guy Velella explained to the New York Post that he didn't like primaries although he enthusiastically backed Lauder in 1989 against Giuliani.
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Guy Velella then campaigned for Bloomberg, who went on to narrowly defeat Mark Green in the general election.
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Guy Velella announced that he would draft legislation that would require web site operators to register with the New York State Attorney General.
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On June 21,2004, Guy Velella was sentenced to one year in jail for bribery under a plea deal, but was released from Rikers Island on September 28,2004, after less than twelve weeks by the Local Conditional Release Commission, an obscure New York City agency.
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Guy Velella returned to Rikers Island in late December to resume his sentence, and was released on March 18,2005, after serving only 182 days of his original one-year sentence.
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Guy Velella continued to receive an annual state pension of $75,012.
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On January 21,2011, the New York Daily News disclosed that Guy Velella was suffering from "inoperable lung cancer" and moved to Calvary Hospital for the terminally ill in the Bronx, where he died on January 27,2011, aged 66.