Zehy Jereis: Like Cavallo, A Nick Spano Operative and Poster-boy For Political Corruption.

What more does one need to say about the utter stench of politics in Westchester, particularly in it’s largest municipality, Yonkers, than to state that the Chairman of the Yonkers Republican Committee is Zehy Jereis, convicted drug dealer, and election fraudster?

The shear unmitigated gall of this individual, born on November 22, 1971, the eighth anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, to think that he could continue to get away with the unlawful and underhanded activities he has engaged in for years, all the while feeding off the public breast. The pattern is a nauseatingly repetitious one, involving former State Senator Nicholas Spano, a politician who enjoys surrounding himself with slimy offensive criminals, Anthony Mangone, James Surdoval,and Jereis, to name a few.
His arrogance, and air of immunity from the legal consequences of his anti-social behavior and criminal conduct were encouraged by Big Nick, and reinforced by Jeanine Pirro, and a corrupt judiciary all too willing to follow suit. He walks about as though he is “someone special.” He must be. After all, he’s only 35 years old, and he is the Chairman of The Yonkers Republican Committee. And, that after selling drugs at 23, and forging election ballots at 25.

By age 26 Nicky saw that he was rewarded with a job in the Westchester Department of Mental Health, quickly moving on to become, not just any assistant, but a Senior Assistant to former Republican County Executive Andrew O’Rourke, the man who thought he deserved to be a federal judge but had to settle for the New York Court of Claims. Who knows, perhaps Jereis’ forgery of Conservative Party ballots, a few months earlier, earned him that coveted position in O’Rourke’s Administration? Anyway, he managed to cop a plea to a mere misdemeanor, getting off with a “pocket-change” fine.

Of course, with the coming of a Democratic Administration to the County Executive’s Office in 1998, and their need to make room for their own criminal hacks, Jereis moved in with Senator Nick’s daddy, County Clerk Leonard Spano. After doing all the behind-the-scenes mischief he could do while there, he was finally duly rewarded for his Election Fraud activities and hired in 2000 as the Republican Administrator for the Westchester County Board of Elections.

Naturally, after obtaining all that experience working hard for several different County agencies, in 2003 Big Nick “hired” him as his Executive Assistant, and made him Chairman of the Yonkers Republican Committee. What an American success story: Drug Dealer-Election Fraudster, Becomes Chairman of Republican Committee, truly an inspiration to us all. And, his meteoric rise to power, wasn’t a moment too soon as Nicky would certainly need him to help with the theft of the 35th District State Senatorial Election from Andrea Stewart-Cousins, something Anthony Mangone could never accomplish for Nicky by himself in 2004. Zehy still had his sister Susan Salem working at the Board of Elections. How does the expression go? “Blood is thicker than water.”

Never a dull moment in the world of a corrupt political operative, Jereis was accused the following year, 2005, by a federal gangster/informant in an Organized Crime investigation, with having taken $5,000 from him to gather information from Al Pirro about a possible investigation ongoing in his wife, DA Jeanine Pirro’s Office.
Most recently he was subpoenaed by the FBI for copies of Financial Disclosure Forms he was supposed to have filed with the City of Yonkers, as Chairman of the Yonkers Republican Committee. Jereis is denying any knowledge of the need to make such filings. Denials are something he’s quite used to. Sadly, all the years he was getting away with breaking the law, protected by his mentor Nick Spano, and Spano’s ally, corrupt former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, nobody ever told him he might be answerable to a higher authority, the United States Attorney’s Office.