The blacklisted Bronx boiler company that allegedly bribed indicted City Councilman Larry Seabrook also steered thousands of dollars to another council member with her own set of legal woes, records show.
Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who has been identified as a target of an ongoing Department of Investigation corruption probe, collected $8,000 in campaign donations from executives at Eastmond Corp., the same firm that federal prosecutors say paid Seabrook $50,000 to win a Yankee Stadium contract, according to campaign finance records.
Even though the company was virtually blacklisted after the Mayor’s Office of Contracts Services issued two “cautionary” advisories about its questionable activities, Arroyo publicly has gone to bat for it.
Arroyo — who funneled more than $80,000 to her nephew’s nonprofit group only to see him indicted last year for embezzlement — helped get a corner of Leggett Avenue in The Bronx renamed after Eastmond’s founder, Arlington Leon Eastmond, in 2008.
Campaign records show that his son, Arlington Leon Eastmond Jr., the current president of the boiler company, donated the maximum amount of $2,750 to Arroyo’s campaign last year. Two people listed as affiliates of the firm also donated: Tyren Eastmond, manager of the company, gave her $2,750 and Robert Reyes, listed on the company’s Web site as a former manager, gave her $2,500.
Arroyo also helped win a community-benefits agreement with the Yankees that ensured a quarter of all construction contracts went to local firms. But, federal prosecutors say, the agreement wasn’t enough for Eastmond.
Eastmond Jr. allegedly paid Seabrook $50,000 over several years beginning in the summer of 2006. Seabrook then lobbied aggressively for the firm to win a $283,000 boiler contract with the Yankees.
Neither Arroyo nor Eastmond returned calls for comment.