BY MAUREEN TRAXLER

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers
University and a law degree from New York
Law School, Anthony Curto set his mind on
practicing law and has since been rewarded with a
remarkable career. After getting his start at a
Manhattan law firm, one of Curto’s clients, Tom
Whitney, approached him about establishing a business
to acquire oil reserves in the United States. Tony
became president and chairman of Whitney
Enterprises, while continuing to expand his law practice.
His legal prowess helped him successfully handle
transactions involving the purchase of oil
reserves, which later sold for substantial profits.
Curto’s talent and business acumen quickly earned
him a reputation as a “consummate advisor.” He was
retained to represent Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the
Russian novelist and 1970 winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature. Solzhenitsyn would become the first in
a long list of celebrities and personalities that Curto
would represent, including Harry Chapin; Mike
Francesa, TV commentator and co-host of the popular
WFAN “Mike and the Mad Dog” show; Father Tom
Hartman, and actress Lisa Minnelli, among others.
In 1981, Curto joined a prominent Long Island law
firm as a member of its three-person Executive
Committee. In 1991, he founded and became president
of Curto, Barton & Alesi, P.C., which would later
merge to become Forchelli, Curto, Schwartz, Mineo,
Carlino & Cohn, LLP (FCSMC&C).

Curto’s areas of practice include corporate, commercial,
tax, trusts and estates law. As partner-in-charge of the
FCSMC&C Corporate and Commercial Department, he
focuses on structuring, negotiating and documenting
complex relationships on behalf of public and private
corporations in transactional matters, including mergers
and acquisitions, joint ventures, partnering arrangements
and the reorganization of business enterprises
and assets across industries. He advises clients in private
placements and public offerings of securities, and
has represented businesses in formation, early stage
and venture capital financings.

“As the economy on Long Island moved away from
manufacturing and into the service industry, my practice
followed the shift,” Curto explains. While he had
represented victims of the deindustrialization such as
Photocircuits and Izumi, today his representation
includes clients such as Greenstone/Fontana, Dairy
Barn, Austin Travel, Ingenious Designs, writers, performers
and athletes.

As counsel to Harry Chapin, Curto recalls the entertainer’s
“ incorrigible” efforts to stop world hunger and
his desire to elevate “the arts” on Long Island. “Chapin
used to sing to my staff. He would sing everywhere,
even in the elevator, all to attract attention to world
hunger issues.”

With Father Tom Hartman, he developed a friendship
that he describes as “amazingly dear.” A regular
panel member on the talk show “Father Tom and
Friends,” a weekly Telecare broadcast, Curto refers to
himself as “one of Father Tom’s ten-thousand closest
friends,” adding, “The show ran about a dozen years,
that’s longer than Seinfeld!” Curto has chaired the
annual Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman “Tommy
Awards” Gala and has been an honoree at Father
Tom’s annual fundraising golf event. He’s served on
the Board of Directors of Telecare since 2002.
An advocate of community service, Curto served
as advisor to the Board of Directors of the
Huntington Arts Council, and has been a member of
its board, holding every office up to president. He
joined the nonprofit organization when it was operating
from rented space.

“ We obtained a line item grant sufficient enough to
buy the building that we currently occupy,” Curto
explains. With the help of hard-working executive
directors, he continues, “The Arts Council was transformed
from a local, small-time Arts Council to probably
the best Arts Council in the state.” With his
assistance and leadership, the Council has guided
other arts councils and community organizations.

“ The Huntington Arts Council is a model for charitable
entities today,” notes Curto, in its legal formulation,
as well as its ability to demonstrate how to
receive tax exemptions, attract and retain board members,
obtain grants and establish successful programming.
Over the years, Curto has assisted in the formation
of more than a dozen Long Island nonprofit
organizations, including 100 Black Men and 100 Black
Women.

In the 1980s, after the establishment of the national
holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., Curto, partner
Barbara Shaheen Alesi, and former partner Basil
Paterson, were asked by clients Percy Sutton, Charles
Rangel and David Dinkins to assist them in kicking
off a national effort to raise funds for the King Center
in Atlanta, Georgia. For a period of four months,
Curto devoted himself to developing a star-studded
performance at Radio City Music Hall that raised
hundreds of thousands of dollars. As chairman of the
gala and lead attorney, Curto created the “Living the
Dream” Foundation. His exceptional efforts eventually
earned him a Martin Luther King “Living the
Dream” Service Award and Lifetime Medal, as well
as a Congressional Achievement Award. Curto also
counseled financier, statesman and presidential advisor
Bernard Baruch in the creation of the Bernard
Baruch Foundation, which he says, “has given many
millions of dollars to benefit environmental causes.
Baruch was way ahead of his time.”

In 2000, he raised funds to underwrite the
Huntington Cinema Arts Center’s “Italian-American
Film Festival.” In 2003, newly elected Nassau County
Executive Tom Suozzi appointed Curto to his Council
of Economic Advisors, which was designed to counsel
the County Executive on ways to attract new business
to the county and bolster its economic climate.
Curto is a member of the New York State Bar
Association, and has been admitted to the United
States Tax Court and the United States District Court
for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York.
A Northport resident, Curto has a lovely wife
Linda. His son Andrew, a partner in FCSMC&C, and
Andrew’s wife Lara have a toddler named Tyler, and
his daughter Karen and her husband Wales are the
parents of newborn twins, Oliver and Julien. An avid
golfer, Curto has enjoyed building, designing and racing
sailboats to world championships and was
inducted into the Yacht Racing Hall of Fame. As he
nears 50 years of practice, the law and its power to
change, create and serve continues to inspire him.

NETWORKING® January 2008