By Ryan Thompson Brooklyn Daily Eagle
WILLIAMSBURG — The man who conspired with the vice president of an HSBC Bank in Brooklyn has pled guilty to numerous crimes, including conspiracy, bribery and solicitation to commit a crime of violence.
Gerald Nimberg, however, will not receive a jail sentence, as he agreed to cooperate with federal agents in exchange for leniency. Two weeks ago, he was sentenced to only two years of probation. It all began with an IRS and FBI investigation several years ago when Russian mobsters were believed to have been engaged in multimillion-dollar money-laundering schemes in connection with several New York financial institutions. Undercover FBI agents were put into contact with Nimberg by Andrew Peri, the branch manager and vice president of the HSBC Bank branch located at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge on Broadway.
Peri, 59, pled guilty to accepting bribes in 2005 and was sentenced to a year in prison. Peri, who allegedly helped facilitate money-laundering crimes, introduced federal agents to Nimberg in January 2003, according to court documents.
Peri told undercover agents that Nimberg was a ''crook,'' but an ''honest'' crook who did business with ''crooked people,'' and that Nimberg would falsify bank records for them so as circumvent the IRS from taking notice of the transactions that exceeded $10,000, according to the federal complaint filed against Peri and Nimberg. Peri was also accused of stating to the agents that their conspiracy would be successful ''as long as you're not cops.''
When federal agents followed up with Nimberg the following month at his Battery Park office, not only did Nimberg agree to expedite the money-laundering proceeds that he believed were derived from health-care frauds, but Nimberg further solicited the undercover agents to commit additional crimes. Nimberg, apparently believing the undercover FBI agents to be Russian mobsters, asked them if they would do some ''collection work'' for him, in which violence was the apparent method of collection. Nimberg, of course, offered the ''mobsters'' a percentage of the monies that they collected, but said that he doesn't ''want to be in the middle of it, if there's gonna be anything beyond the beating.''
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008