[Editor’s Note: This story has been updated as of Wednesday afternoon, March 19, 2025.]
Glenn Griffin’s next visit to a White Plains courtroom now appears to be the day he finds out how much time he will spend in a federal prison cell.
Judge Vincent Briccetti has ordered Griffin to appear on April 22 to be sentenced in his bribery conviction for illegal dumping in the town of Cortlandt, charges that Griffin pleaded guilty to in August 2024, only to change his mind three months later and try to plead not guilty.
Jeffrey Hoffman, the attorney representing Griffin in the request to withdraw the guilty plea, told the Peekskill Herald, in an email on Wednesday, March 19, that Griffin will appeal Judge Briccetti’s decision.
Griffin operates Griffins Landscaping out of offices at Lincoln Terrace in Peekskill. Griffin and his related companies own 11 different properties throughout Peekskill.
The plea agreement Griffin accepted last August called for a $1.2 million fine against him to help restore wetlands near the Arlo Lane dumpsite and the possibility of 37 to 46 months in federal prison. He was arrested in July 2022 and faced 62 years imprisonment if all the original six charges had been pursued.
On March 13, Judge Briccetti ruled that Griffin cannot withdraw the guilty plea. At a six-hour hearing held last December, Griffin told Judge Briccetti he regretted his guilty plea. “Your Honor, I was confused. I did say it [plead guilty] but I really didn’t understand what was going on. I was mad. I was confused. I wasn’t thinking straight,” Griffin said.
Griffin, 55, of Cortlandt Manor, pled guilty on Aug. 26, 2024 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.
He said then that he bribed town employee and co-defendant Robert Dyckman to let him illegally dump construction debris and other material at the Cortlandt town facility at Arlo Lane.
In addition to Griffins Landscaping, Griffin also owns Hilltop Nursery & Garden Center in Croton-on-Hudson 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-on-Hudson, the Cortlandt hamlet of Verplanck and New York City.
He has won significant bids in New York City for landscaping work over the years. According to documents supplied to the Peekskill Herald, Griffins Landscaping was the apparent low bidder on three separate jobs in New York City in 2024. Two of them were for street tree planting in the Bronx (low bids of $5.9 million and $5.5 million) and another in Queens ($6 million). The next lowest bidder on the two Bronx jobs was JR Cruz Corp., a company that uses union labor.
Judge won’t let him reverse guilty plea
Griffin had his dramatic change of heart three months after the August 2024 guilty plea. He hired a new attorney, Jeffrey Hoffman, of the Manhattan law firm Windels Marx, and filed court papers asking federal Judge Briccetti to let him withdraw his plea and go to trial on the charges. He claimed he did not receive adequate legal counsel from his previous attorney.
At the Dec. 5, 2024, all-day hearing in White Plains in front of Judge Briccetti, Griffin took the stand and explained his actions on the day of the guilty plea Aug. 26.
Griffin told Judge Briccetti, “About four or five days before the plea [Aug. 26], I asked Stephen [his original attorney] to postpone the plea. He said he would,” Griffin said in his Dec. 5 testimony.
Griffin claims that he then got a call on Aug. 25 saying that if he didn’t go to court the next day and plead guilty, even more charges would be lodged against him. He went to White Plains that morning and called his attorney from his car outside. “… I told him, I’m not coming in, and I had to get dressed in my car outside the street.”
In the Aug. 26 plea deal, Griffin and Dyckman agreed to pay the Town of Cortlandt and the Westchester Land Trust, owner of the damaged wetlands abutting the Arlo Lane property, a total of $2.4 million to remediate and restore their property, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
However, in his Dec. 5 testimony, Griffin denied any responsibility for damaging the wetlands. “What’s accurate is, number one, I did not fill in the wetlands, and I’m not responsible for one iota in the Westchester Land Trust [owner of the wetlands]. It never happened. I couldn’t get there and I did not do it. We tried to convey that to [the assistant U.S. attorney] and he did not want to hear it.”
In his March 13, ruling last week, Judge Briccetti rejected the request to reverse his plea. “Griffin argues he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea because it was involuntary and he was misled as to the strength of the government’s case against him. The Court is not persuaded,” Judge Briccetti wrote. “[Mr. Griffin’s prior attorney] told Griffin he had the right not to go forward with the plea, but Griffin decided to move forward. As such, there is no dispute [he] gave Griffin the option of calling off the guilty plea, yet Griffin chose to plead guilty.
“In sum, the Court finds that Griffin’s guilty plea was knowing and voluntary,” Judge Briccetti ruled.
An attorney for Robert Dyckman, Griffin’s co-defendant, asked that Dyckman’s March 13 sentencing date be postponed for 30 days. Dyckman pleaded guilty on Aug. 26, 2024.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York did not respond to an email requesting comment.
