Thanks for nothing.
A top Atlantic Yards executive who requested state funds for Prospect Park’s skating rink from embattled state Sen. Carl Kruger was never asked to do so by the park’s fund-raising group — and now park advocates are furious at being linked to the corruption scandal, sources told The Post.
“He has dragged our name through the mud,” fumed a Prospect Park Alliance source about Forest City Ratner Vice President Bruce Bender, whose conversation with Kruger was featured in a federal criminal complaint against the Brooklyn Democrat.
FBI wiretaps captured Bender asking Kruger for $11 million in state funds for two Ratner projects in Brooklyn — a Mill Basin development, and the massive arena and high-rise project downtown — as well as $4 million to renovate Prospect Park’s skating rink.
While the rink was not a project of the development company headed by Bender’s boss, Bruce Ratner, Bender’s wife is a Prospect Park Alliance board member, and the couple live near the park.
When Kruger told Bender that just $4 million could be allocated to either the park or Mill Basin, Bender replied, “I guess the park,” the complaint said.
Kruger later told him that an additional $500,000 was available for the park, the complaint said.
A Prospect Park Alliance spokesman said the group never got the money, and another official there said they doubt it ever will.
The development came as a Brooklyn restaurateur who rejected an offer by the feds to play a role in a corruption case against Kruger has landed an even bigger role — in a TV show.
Michael Levitis, owner of Rasputin Restaurant and Nightclub, and his wife, Marina, will be cast members of the upcoming Lifetime reality show “Brighton Beach, sources confirmed yesterday.
Levitis last month pleaded guilty to lying about his role in an effort to bribe Kruger after previously declining to help the FBI in its ongoing case against the embattled pol. Levitis faces up to six months in jail.
Additional reporting by Mitchel Maddux