POUGHKEEPSIE – Town of LaGrange Councilman Alfred Rabasco is suing fellow Councilman Richard Ryan and a member of the public in Dutchess County Supreme Court. In the complaint filed on Wednesday, Rabasco alleges that Councilman Ryan has been working with David Mashiah to create an illegal YouTube page while also recording confidential “executive sessions” of the town board.
Rabasco says that Ryan and his co-defendant Mashiah of Hopewell Junction created a YouTube channel using the name “The Town of LaGrange NY” in November and used the town seal, “without legal authority to do so.” Town officials have intimated that the YouTube channel was not an authorized social media platform of the municipality. A cease and desist letter was sent to YouTube reporting the channel as a fake account. The social media company shut the channel down on February 16.
Forty-seven videos and audio recordings were posted on the channel between November and February. The videos, Rabasco says, are of town board meetings with audio recordings from executive sessions dubbed over the video. Accusing Ryan of recording the confidential executive sessions, Rabasco called the practice “unlawful and inappropriate behavior of a town board member.”
Mashiah, a longtime critic of the town council is accused of conspiring with Ryan to produce the videos to make Rabasco sound as if he has solicited bribes. One such video, Rabasco said, was viewed nearly 10,000 times.
Mashiah also took to another social media community platform, Nextdoor.com, and posted “If I don’t end up murdered by Al Rabasco, I will be on the next ballot,” which the councilman says is defamatory and malicious in his lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages from the two named defendants.
