Donald Manes

Mr. Manes's suicide came amid an increasing despondency that paralleled the growing focus upon him in the investigations into municipal corruption - a despondency heightened by the decision of Mr. Manes's longtime friend, Geoffrey G. Lindenauer, to plead guilty and agree to testify against him in return for possibly lighter penalties. At 27, the youngest assistant D.A. in the Queens office; at 31, the youngest person ever elected to the City Council (a record later beaten by two other scandal-touched Queens pols, Anthony Weiner and John Liu), Donny Manes was always a comer. In 1985, when he was reelected for the fifth time as borough president with 85 percent of the vote, he was widely considered the second-most-powerful politician in New York, a likely successor to Koch as mayor.