A prominent Peekskill businessman who operates a landscape company, a garden nursery and owns properties throughout the city has pled guilty to bribery charges and could be headed to federal prison following a three-year investigation.
Glenn Griffin, 55, of Cortlandt Manor, pled guilty on Monday, Aug. 26 to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, each carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York. Griffin is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vincent L. Briccetti on Dec. 5.
“In a difficult and complex situation, Mr. Griffin has chosen to accept full responsibility for the matter,” said Stephen McCarthy, Griffin’s attorney in the federal criminal case.
“He would like to apologize to the town, the entire community, all of the people who have supported him, and most importantly his family.”
Also pleading guilty to federal charges was Robert Dyckman, 52, of Verplanck. He will also be sentenced on Dec. 5 on one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Dyckman was the former assistant general foreman for the Town of Cortlandt and a 28-year employee.
The two participated in a scheme in which Dyckman gave Griffin unauthorized access to the Town of Cortlandt’s Arlo Lane facility to dump loads of unauthorized materials. After dumping these loads, Griffin later received payments from the town for hauling away the very materials that Griffin had illegally dumped, according to Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
“Robert Dyckman, a former Town of Cortlandt employee, used his important public position to enrich himself and damage public land and fragile wetlands by allowing Glenn Griffin, a business owner and president, to illegally dump harmful, unauthorized materials on public property,” Williams said. “Brazenly, Griffin then billed and received payments from the Town for removing and hauling away the very materials that he had illegally dumped.
“Today, thanks to our law enforcement partners and the dedicated prosecutors of this office, Griffin and Dyckman have admitted to their crimes and must pay $2.4 million in restitution to their victims. Today’s pleas are a reminder that this office will bring to justice any public official or business leader who defrauds the public and causes damage to our environment.”
According to the original indictment in the case, Dyckman was paid cash bribes by Griffin to allow the illegal dumping at Arlo Lane as well as improvements to his home in Verplanck, firewood, gardening materials and flowers. The government also alleged that Griffin gave Dyckman a false invoice that was backdated so Dyckman could file a false insurance claim.
A person familiar with the case told the Herald that Griffin is likely to receive a sentence in federal prison of three to six years.
Griffin also owns Hilltop Nursery & Garden Center in Croton and Diddell Farms, a 38-acre farm that grows perennials, annuals, and ornamental plants, as well as vegetables and organic blueberries in Wappinger Falls. His companies have held a variety of municipal contracts with the Town of Cortlandt, the Village of Croton, Verplanck and New York City.
Illegal dumping in Cortlandt, then billing the town to remove it
From 2018 until February 2020, Griffin and Dyckman engaged in the unauthorized dumping scheme. Dyckman gave Griffin and his employees unauthorized access to Arlo Lane, a Cortlandt facility, to dump hundreds of large truckloads of unauthorized materials such as thick concrete, cement with rebar, tiles, bricks, large rocks, and soil. After the illegal dumping, Griffin billed and received payments from the Town of Cortlandt for removing and hauling away the very materials that Griffin had illegally dumped at Arlo Lane with Dyckman’s assistance.
Dyckman generally allowed Griffin and his employees access to Arlo Lane on Saturdays or after working hours. To carry out the scheme, Dyckman would attempt to clear senior Town of Cortlandt management away from Arlo Lane around the time of the unauthorized dumping. When Dyckman arranged for a subordinate Town of Cortlandt worker to work overtime when Griffin was dumping unauthorized loads, Dyckman would falsely record the worker’s overtime as having occurred during the week in order to conceal the scheme. In exchange for access to Arlo Lane, Griffin paid Dyckman cash bribes.
Cortlandt town officials reviewed surveillance videos that captured the illegal dumping at the Arlo Lane property from Griffin’s trucks. The town referred the case to the Westchester County DA’s office and federal authorities.
Griffin and Dyckman have agreed to pay the Town of Cortlandt and the Westchester Land Trust, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization which owns damaged wetlands abutting the Town of Cortlandt’s Arlo Lane property, a total of $2.4 million to remediate and restore their property following Griffin and Dyckman’s criminal conduct, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
In January 2021 Griffin’s attorney vowed his client would help authorities investigate the illegal dumping the town had discovered.
“As one of the dozens of private contractors who have worked with the Town of Cortlandt to provide municipal services over the past five years, Griffin’s Landscaping Corporation has been part of an ongoing investigation, offering to provide full and complete assistance so that the town may successfully complete its investigation and resolve the matter fairly and completely,” McCarthy said.
Following Griffin’s July 2022 indictment, McCarthy said “Glenn Griffin is one of the most professional and well-respected landscaping contractors and designers in Westchester County. We have absolute and complete faith in the fundamental fairness of the criminal justice system.”
Town officials also suspected that Cortlandt was billed by Griffin for repairs to 100 catch basins that were mostly never done. Dyckman signed off for payment of the invoices.
Cortlandt Town Supervisor Dr. Richard Becker said that the efforts of law enforcement will prevent taxpayers having to pay for the crimes committed by Griffin and Dyckman.
“The town board is pleased and we’re very grateful to the FBI, the Westchester County Police, and especially the United States Attorney’s office who worked so hard on this and did a very thorough investigation,” Dr. Becker said.
“The best part of this is that the town will be made whole. We have a lot of remediation of contaminated soil on our property that will cost about $1 million to remove and we’re grateful that we will now be reimbursed for that.”
Dyckman officially resigned from his Cortlandt job in a letter to the town board in January 2021 with an effective date of Oct. 22, 2019, a date a couple of months after the town first discovered suspicious activity at the Arlo Lane site. He had left full-time employment in October 2019 when he was suspended without pay pending the investigation and found another job in a Bronx company with help from Griffin.
Dyckman then sued the town to get his job back but was arrested in July 2022 on the charges he subsequently pled guilty to. His lawsuit was dismissed in 2023.
In a second separate case against Griffin, the U.S. Attorney said that between 2015 and 2018, Griffin also engaged in a bid-rigging scheme. Griffin defrauded Croton-on-Hudson for work on its schools, and Verplanck for work at its fire department.
Griffin made sham, non-competitive, and inflated bids on behalf of entities that Griffin did not work for or have authorization to submit bids on behalf of, so that Griffin would be the low bidder in a pool of purportedly competitive bids and receive public money for work on the projects. Based on these sham, non-competitive, and inflated bids, Griffin was awarded contracts with a combined value exceeding $133,000.
Major property owner in Peekskill
According to land records and documents at the New York state Department of State, companies connected to Griffin own 11 different properties in Peekskill.
Those companies are: Dimarb, Inc. (698 Highland Ave. and 215 N Broad St.); 820 McKinley Corp. (418 Highland Ave. and 820 McKinley St.); 1234 Lincoln Terrace Corp. (1234 Lincoln Terrace); Remllots Realty Inc. (1565 Park St., 1563 Park St. and 1305 Lincoln Terrace); G G & M R Realty Corp. (1311 Lincoln Terrace and 1301 Lincoln Terrace); and G G & K E Realty Corp.(1034 Howard St.)
According to a published report, in 2018 Griffin tried to develop land he owned in Buchanan to construct 42 units of senior affordable housing on a project named Buchanan Mews.
The proposed seven-acre site for Buchanan Mews is across from a nine-acre village park, with ball fields, trails and a boat launch into the Hudson River at Lent’s Cove.
The project sought funding from a state low-income tax credit program but was denied by the Department of Housing and Community Renewal, claiming that air pollution and truck traffic would pose a significant health and safety risk to residents. “The state has made my land un-buildable,” Griffin told the Journal News at the time.
News of the investigation that led to the guilty pleas this month was first reported in January 2021 by Rick Pezzullo in the Northern Westchester Examiner.
A receptionist at Griffin Landscaping in Peekskill said he was not in his office when the Herald called Griffin for comment.
Jim Striebich contributed research assistance to this article.
