By DAN MANGAN
May 12, 2008
Morris Talansky, the Long Island financier at the center of a corruption scandal involving Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, says he never bribed the leader.
In his first comments on the case, Talansky told Israeli TV that he "never thought in any way that the money that I gave him - it was for the purpose of his becoming mayor [of Jerusalem] or electioneering - was in any way illegal or wrong."
And, he insisted, he received nothing in return.
"I emphatically deny that I had in my mind any business in Israel," Talansky said. "It never crossed my mind to do business here. I don't own any land; I don't own any buildings; I don't own any factories . . . I have one apartment [here]. That's all."
Olmert "was going to be mayor . . . I respected him, too, like everybody else . . . That's why we helped him," he added.
