MONTICELLO – After Zev Schlesinger was given several tickets for violating the Village of Monticello’s no overnight parking rule on Broadway, he allegedly harassed Mayor Rochelle Massey.
She filed charges against him with the local police department claiming he would drive past her home and blast his horn, and in other instances, got in her face using vile language.
But Sullivan County District Attorney Brian Conaty declined to prosecute the charges and said an order of protection filed in favor of the mayor should be dismissed.
The village’s special legal counsel, Michael Sussman, disputed Conaty’s decision.
“It would be better if we had adjudicated the case and come to a resolution based on the facts of the case. If the gentleman, the defendant Schlesinger’s lawyer wanted to make an argument about constitutionality, he or she could do that and a court can decide, based on briefs, whether there was a constitutional problem,” he said. “But I think the district attorney’s office simply asserting that there is a constitutional problem enforcing these laws in this case when the police chief feels there is a warrant for their enforcement, poses problems.”
In a memo to Monticello Village Court Clerk Janelle Deppa, Conaty wrote that dismissing the charges is appropriate “so as not to infringe upon Mr. Schlesinger’s state and federal constitutional rights.”
Sussman argued, though, that Schlesinger’s alleged actions were outside the scope of the mayor’s role and if he wanted to state his case about parking rules, he should have done so at village hall.
