General
Stanley Simon, Bronx Leader Brought Down by Corruption, Is Dead at 93
After delivering improvements to the Bronx as borough president, he, along with others, was convicted in the 1980s Wedtech scandal and went to prison.
Stanley Simon, a former Democratic Bronx borough president whose career was shattered by a 1987 corruption scandal that sent him and other public officials to prison and exposed a South Bronx military contractor as a notorious racketeering enterprise, died last August. He was 93.
His wife, Irene Simon, confirmed the death on Tuesday by phone but provided no other details. It was not previously reported. A death notice posted on shiva.com said that Mr. Simon died on Aug. 27, 2023.
Despite his title, Mr. Simon was a relatively low-level elected official in the city’s second least populous and poorest borough, serving from 1979 to 1987. Possessing little power and only a small budget, he nevertheless managed to bring cultural, economic and public safety improvements to the Bronx at large, though far fewer to the blighted, crime-ridden South Bronx.
In 1987, when corruption across the city began to dominate headlines, Mr. Simon was indicted with other officials who had taken bribes to help the Wedtech Corporation, a South Bronx contractor that made Army engines and Navy pontoons, secure government contracts and approvals. The trials ended in convictions and prison terms.
In 1988, a jury convicted Mr. Simon of racketeering and extortion for taking a $50,000 bribe from Wedtech for arranging a city lease on a waterfront property; extorting $14,000 from the pay of an aide; demanding a job at Wedtech for his brother-in-law; lying to a grand jury; and evading income taxes on the illicit money.
He was sentenced to five years in prison, though he was released after two years and 14 days.
Four former Wedtech executives, who had accepted plea bargains, were the prosecution’s star witnesses. They admitted to paying bribes to a score of government officials and political figures, notably Stanley M. Friedman, the leader of the Bronx Democratic Party and one of the city’s most powerful politicians. Convicted of conspiracy and racketeering, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison (he was released after four) and barred from politics for life.
