Omaha Mayor Calls On Indicted City Council Member To ‘Immediately' Resign

From Nebraska Examiner:

By Paul Hammel

April 21, 2023

LINCOLN — Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert called for City Council member Vinny Palermo to “immediately” resign after he and three other men were indicted Friday on charges of fraud and influence peddling involving two police-associated groups.

“He has violated the trust of the citizens he was elected to represent and damaged public confidence in the City Council,” said Stothert in a press release.

Later Friday, the mayor’s office clarified that while Palermo is presumed innocent and is not required to quit due to the federal indictments, if he misses several council meetings he could be required to step down because “pretrial incarceration on a federal indictment is not an excusable absence.”

Trip to Vegas

Palermo, 49, was indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of charges, including allegedly receiving benefits, including a trip to Las Vegas, in exchange for taking official acts to aid the Latino Peace Officers’ Association and Police Athletics for Community Engagement. PACE is a free, youth sports program launched by the Latino police officers.

The council member, who was first elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2021, also is charged with failing to disclose private benefits he received from two companies he had voted to award city contracts.

Discounted concrete work

The benefits, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, included income and gifts from one firm, and discounted concrete work on his backyard pool from another.

Attempts to reach Palermo for comment were unsuccessful Friday afternoon.

Two retired Omaha Police officers, Capt. Rich Gonzalez and Officer Johnny Palermo, were also indicted, along with Jack Olson of Council Bluffs.

Among other indictments, the trio are alleged to have defrauded donors of the Latino Peace Officers’ group and its board. Johnny Palermo and Gonzalez are further accused of gaining personal benefits via fraud involving the LPOA and PACE.

‘Politically motivated’

Steve Lefler, an attorney for Gonzalez, told the Omaha World-Herald on Friday that he is “positive” that when details are released about the case it will reveal a “politically motivated effort to embarrass the Gonzalez family.”

Gonzalez’s sister-in-law, former Omaha Police Capt. Katherine Belcastro-Gonzalez, recently won a $700,000 judgment for retaliatory discrimination in connection with being rejected for a promotion by the police department.

The four men indicted Friday will make their first appearance in court Monday at the federal courthouse in Lincoln.

‘No level of corruption tolerated’

“Corruption tears at the foundation of our democracy,” said FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Eugene Kowel. “No level of corruption should be tolerated or accepted.”

Federal officials thanked the Omaha police for their help on the case.

In December, Stothert had withheld city payments to PACE after learning that a federal investigation was underway.

Vinny Palermo has been in legal trouble before. In 2019, he was sentenced in federal court to four years of probation and to pay a $35,000 fine and $21,000 in restitution for failing to file income tax returns for three years.

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