Metro

Ratner scraps pol-tainted retail project

A controversial Brooklyn retail project caught up in the federal corruption case against state Sen. Carl Kruger has quietly been scrapped.

Developer Forest City Ratner confirmed yesterday that it’s dropping plans to build its proposed 137,000-square-foot retail center as part of the city’s 15-acre Four Sparrow Marsh project in Mill Basin.

The firm denied that the move was tied to Kruger’s case, saying it simply wants to focus more on projects such as Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. But two sources said the company also wants to avoid a costly legal battle with project opponents who do not want to see Flatbush Avenue parkland removed to make way for the commercial development.

Kruger (D-Brooklyn) has been charged with trading political favors for more than $1 million in bribes in the past five years.

According to a criminal complaint in March, FCR Vice President Bruce Bender was caught on FBI wiretap in December asking Kruger, a longtime political ally, for $11 million in state funds for two FCR projects — the Mill Basin project and Atlantic Yards — and another $4 million to renovate a Prospect Park skating rink near Bender’s Park Slope home.

Kruger later offered a total of $4.5 million and said to pick a project. Bender picked the skating rink — not any of FCR’s projects. Kruger agreed but never delivered. Bender’s wife is a board member for the fundraising organization Prospect Park Alliance.

Bender has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

City officials declined comment on FCR’s decision to pull out of Four Sparrow but said the city would still move forward with a Cadillac car dealership planned for the project. The project site already includes a Toys R Us that will remain and marshland.

The Post previously reported that Kruger sent former Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber a scathing letter in January 2008 threatening to sue the city because it then wanted to begin the mandatory public review process on the dealership’s portion of the Four Sparrow project, without FCR’s part. At the time, the car dealership plan was in jeopardy if the city didn’t move quickly, but FCR wasn’t ready to begin a public review – and was concerned that segmenting the project could hurt its plans, sources said. “It is our intent, and the shared intent of the community and other elected officials, to commence legal action if necessary,” Kruger said in the letter.

The city ultimately gave in to Kruger’s demands, setting back the entire project three years.