MONTICELLO – In the wake of a recorded conversation between Monticello Mayor George Nikolados and police dispatcher Yermia Solomon being made public, Village Trustee and former mayor Gordon Jenkins said an investigation into Monticello is warranted by either the US Justice Department, FBI, or State Attorney General’s Office.
The recording captured Nikolados telling Solomon that if he delivered the Orthodox block vote to him in his March re-election bid, he would appoint Solomon as a police officer.
Jenkins accused the mayor of trying to “hijack the Jewish vote” to get re-elected.
“We have a mayor saying something on tape about the Hasidic vote, and this and that, so what are we doing; where are the people… we need someone to monitor this village and if you have to, dissolve this village. Have someone come in and babysit this village,” he said.
Sullivan County District Attorney Brian Conaty has said that Nikolados and he were working together undercover on an investigation of corruption and that the promise of a police officer job for Solomon was part of a staged conversation.
“To be clear, the statements and actions of Nikolados as contained in the audio recording are neither criminal nor nefarious,” read Conaty’s statement. “Simply put, Nikolados was gathering intelligence for the District Attorney’s ongoing investigation and the public release of said audio recording was taken out of the larger context.”
