Senator Pothole could be walking into a landmine.
Expecting her husband to take the stand as a witness, the estranged wife of former US Sen. Al D’Amato attended the corruption retrial of Long Island Republican Dean Skelos on Monday hoping to psych out her soon-to-be-ex.
Katuria D’Amato, who is in the midst of a bitter custody battle with the former lawmaker from Long Island, sat in the gallery and diligently took notes as Anthony Bonomo, the ex-head of Physicians’ Reciprocal Insurers, testified to giving Skelos’ son Adam a do-nothing job.
Outside court, Katuria declined to say just why she was there but hinted it had to do with her divorce proceedings, saying she was waiting for her husband to testify.
“He’s going to flip out,” she said of the man once known as “Senator Pothole” for his attention to constituent services while in Congress.
Katuria’s divorce lawyer Thomas Liotti said his client’s purpose will become evident soon after D’Amato takes the stand, which could happen Tuesday.
“I promise you it will be newsworthy. It will be astounding,” Liotti said.
Bonomo testified that he hooked Adam up with a $78,000-a-year-job in early 2013 after his dad, who was the powerful state Senate majority leader, asked the insurance executive to help his son out financially.
Not long after, Dean Skelos called Bonomo to ask “what was going on with Adam,” Bonomo said. Dean said Adam “was upset that his supervisor was picking on him.”
Adam’s supervisor explained that Adam “would come in when he felt like it,” and was disrespectful when he was there — saying things like, “I’m Adam Skelos and do you know who my father is,’” Bonomo said.
Bonomo called Dean back to say that Adam was the problem, but an “upset” Dean said “to just work it out,” Bonomo said.
The conversation made Bonomo “upset” and “a little nervous” so he decided not to take any action against Adam, he said.
“I didn’t want Adam’s problems to become a wedge to our legislative pursuits up in Albany,” he said. “I just didn’t want to have a problem with the Senator.”
D’Amato is expected to take the stand in the Manhattan federal court trial to testify that he also spoke to Dean about Adam’s problematic performance at PRI — to no avail.
At the time, D’Amato’s lobbying firm, Park Strategies, was working with Bonomo on pushing for legislation that would help PRI.
The Skeloses stand accused of using Dean’s position as the Senate’s powerful majority leader to pressure companies doing business with the state to give Adam do-nothing jobs and consulting gigs.
Their 2015 convictions were tossed on appeal.