Syndicated Infamy
Some people spend their lives in service to others, only to have that good will destroyed at the end. How does your worst moment become your lasting legacy?
From Crimes In Progress editorial: True crime fans find their way to the genre by any number of avenues but there are a few touchstones. For Americans, one of the biggest doesn’t even need to be named. It can be identified with an onomatopoeia. Dun dun!
By most standards, the 1986 New York City Parking Bureau scandal is pretty tame.
Politicians destroyed their goodwill for kickbacks. Previously popular Mayor Ed Koch decided not to seek a fourth term. It’s a story repeated often in city history.
But New York is one of the biggest political stages in America. If you fuck up, the world knows. Stories are written in the newspaper of record. Playwrights, screenwriters, and producers start considering the possibilities of your story.
Donald Manes learned this the hard way. At 37, he was elected the Borough President of Queens, the youngest in history. An attorney that had worked as an executive at a collection agency, Manes quickly transformed his largely ceremonial office into a major political position.
$30,000
- Amount of money paid to Donald Manes through intermediaries by a Queens lawyer.
The exact moment Donald Manes became corrupt is difficult to pinpoint. It might have happened in the midst of great personal turmoil, as his wife of 20 years filed for divorce. There were early signs. One investigation into the purchase of a vacation home called the loan he received “advantageous”.
Still, politicians getting chummy with local banks is hardly criminal and, who knows, maybe Manes had stellar credit. Soliciting bribes to grant contracts to collection agencies, however, definitely crossed a line.
Then US Attorney for the District of Manhattan Rudy Giuliani received a tip from a reliable informant for the FBI field office in Chicago that NYC Parking Bureau contracts could be bought. As the investigation moved forward, things took a strange turn.
Donald Manes was found with serious injuries in his car in a Queens park. He claimed two men attempted to steal his car and wounded him in the process. The story struck investigators as odd. Carjackers don’t usually slice their victims’ wrists and leave without the car.
Manes soon admitted the truth, he had attempted suicide. The news shocked the city and convinced one of his co-conspirators to cooperate. Queens lawyer Michael Dowd had been paying Manes to secure city collections contracts for his company, CompuTrack. The most detailed account of the payoff was relayed to Peter Maas, author of Serpico. The two met when Maas was writing about a CIA agent accused of murder. Dowd was representing the agent.
Through Maas, Dowd describes an untenable relationship with Manes, one that weighed heavily on both men. Still, they continued with the scheme until Manes’s suicide attempt. For his cooperation, Dowd largely escaped punishment while Manes and several other would resign, be indicted, or worse. Worse would be the fate of Donald Manes.
While on the phone discussing treatment options with his psychiatrist, Manes stabbed himself in the chest with a large kitchen knife. He had resigned his political positions but had not yet been indicted.
That should have been the tragic end of the story. It wouldn’t be, of course. A TV producer still needed a good crime story.
456
- Number of episodes of Law & Order. There was also one made for TV movie.
As one of America’s older and more developed cities, New York has a robust memory. The anonymous masses cycling in and out seeking new lives will be forgotten but those that cross into celebrity and infamy never fade.
Some of this is the result of the city’s entertainment industry, especially productions like Law & Order. Over twenty seasons and hundreds of episodes, Law & Order explored the societal consequences of crime with plots “ripped from the headlines”.
But before the show’s first season was green lit by NBC, there was uncertainty the format would even work. The show’s creator, Dick Wolf, understood the pilot needed a unique plot that complemented their iconic location. Though it didn’t air officially until later in the season, the episode inspired by Donald Manes and the Parking Bureau scandal, “Everybody’s Favorite Bagman”, was the pilot episode for Law & Order, laying the foundation for a series that would lead to three spin-offs and generate billions for NBC.
Manes’s contribution to TV history is more trivia than legacy. He will forever be known for his scandal than his accomplishments. Perhaps the most important lesson for his life is not to betray the public trust, if only to avoid tormenting family and friends with syndicated infamy.
-30-
Andrew Egan is writer and editor of Crimes In Progress. His work has appeared in Forbes Magazine, ABC News, Atlas Obscura, Tedium, and more. You can read his article, “Any Which Way but Down or A Fair Amount of Male Nudity in the American West” in the December 2016 issue of Blue Skies Magazine. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. His novel, Nothing Too Original, is available now for Kindle and paperback.
Donate to Crimes In Progress and help support great content!
