Town of Tonawanda backing out of deal with indicted political donor

TOWN OF TONAWWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) -- The Town of Tonawanda is backing out of a deal to buy a building from a local political donor who's accused of federal charges.

The town was negotiating a deal to buy a building from Hormoz Mansouri for over $1 million, but according to the Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Joe Emminger, that deal has fallen through.

This is a story WIVB News 4 has been staying on top of for months.

Mansouri made headlines earlier this year when he resigned from two city park projects, after WIVB discovered that the City of Buffalo hired him as a consultant even though he was facing federal charges.

"He has a property that's up for sale, just like we have an interest in doing something that's better for our community," Emminger said in March, when town leaders were in discussions to buy Mansouri's office building at 2060 Sheridan Drive.

Mansouri is a top political donor who's given nearly $4,000 in campaign contributions to town Democrats since 2009.

He has been accused of fraudulently getting millions in COVID-19 relief funds.

The deal with the town appeared to be imminent until now.

"We discovered at the 11th hour that we could not get tax-free bonds to bond the project because we would not be occupying over 75 percent of the site, so that kind of threw a wrench into our thought process," Emminger said.

Because of this, Emminger said the potential financial impact to the town was not something the town wanted to pursue.

Also, according to Emminger, the size of the building was an issue.

"It is 100,000 square feet, that's kind of what scared us a bit away a little bit," he said. "It's just so large -- 100,000 square feet is a large footprint, you don't want to buy all these properties because then you need to maintain them."

Emminger said for years the town has been looking to consolidate town services, such as engineering and planning, under one roof.

Earlier this year, Emminger told WIVB, after exhausting all options, that the town was eyeing Mansouri's building and a neighboring property. He said the town received word from the U.S. Attorney's Office that there was nothing prohibiting the town from buying Mansouri's building.

But with the deal falling through, the town supervisor now says the town has shifted its attention to finding another property.

QUESTION: The collapse of this potential deal right -- I just want to make sure we're getting the language right here -- that that has nothing to do with the legal issues that Mr. Mansouri is facing?

"Absolutely not, I would do it tomorrow," Emminger said. "If everything were to fall into place, I would do the deal tomorrow. It was a good deal for the Town of Tonawanda." Emminger said.

Emminger said the deal with Mansouri would've been a good one for taxpayers. WIVB attempted to contact Mansouri to get his reaction to the deal with the Town of Tonawanda falling through, but has not heard back.

Mansouri is set to go on trial in the fall.