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Robert Dyckman, age 53, of Verplanck, and the former Assistant General Foreman for the Town of Cortlandt, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for accepting bribes from a local business owner, 56-year-old Glenn Griffin of Cortlandt, in exchange for allowing illegal dumping at a town facility, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced on Wednesday, June 11.
Dyckman's sentence was handed down on May 20 by US District Judge Vincent Briccetti in White Plains. Meanwhile, Griffin was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in prison for his role in the same scheme, as well as for a separate bid-rigging conspiracy.
According to federal officials, Dyckman gave Griffin, the owner and president of Griffin’s Landscaping Corporation, unauthorized after-hours access to the town’s Arlo Lane facility from 2018 to 2020. Griffin and his employees used the site to illegally dump hundreds of truckloads of debris—including cement with rebar, bricks, tiles, and other construction waste—next to fragile wetlands owned by the Westchester Land Trust.
Griffin later billed and was paid by the town to remove the very materials he had illegally dumped, federal prosecutors said.
In return for the access, Dyckman received cash bribes and took steps to conceal the operation. He redirected senior town managers away from the facility during dumping times and manipulated overtime records to hide the activity.
Prosecutors also said Griffin submitted inflated and sham bids for municipal projects in Croton-on-Hudson and Verplanck, securing more than $133,000 in public contracts by deceiving officials into thinking his bids were competitively earned.
Griffin was ordered to forfeit $220,000, pay a $50,000 fine, and make $2.4 million in restitution, in addition to serving three years of supervised release.
As part of his sentence, Dyckman was ordered to pay $2.4 million in restitution, split between the Town of Cortlandt and the Westchester Land Trust, which owns the adjacent damaged wetlands. He will also serve two years of supervised release following his prison term.
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