Free speech at issue in Ossining development fight
The long-thwarted developer of the historic Brandreth Pill Factory site in Ossining has been accused of “stifling” the free speech of an opponent of the riverfront development in court papers recently filed by attorneys responding to claims by the developer, Peter Stolatis, that he was defamed and libeled by his opponent, Miguel Hernandez, in comments posted on Facebook earlier this year.
In a separate related case in state Supreme Court in White Plains, an attorney for the village of Ossining last month asked a judge to dismiss a petition by Stolatis”™ Pleasantville company, Plateau Associates LLC, to lift a stop-work order issued in April by Ossining”™s building inspector that halted Plateau”™s demolition of the 19th-century factory building. The move to raze the deteriorated building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was landmarked in 2013 by the village”™s newly formed Historic Review Commission, incensed village officials and historic
preservationists who want the building preserved and restored for new uses.
- The Brandreth Pill Factory in Ossining after demolition was stopped last spring.
Hernandez and other opponents for several years have claimed that Plateau Associates, owned by Stolatis and his brother Nicholas Stolatis, has pursued a strategy of “demolition by neglect” since buying the property in foreclosure in 2001. Hernandez repeated that claim in a Facebook posting in April.
The brothers”™ initial plans for Hidden Cove on the Hudson, a luxury residential complex, incorporated the distinctive mansard-roofed pill factory in the development. The developers later presented revised plans to replace the graffiti-covered structure with a six-story, 137-unit apartment building, and told village officials that new flood barriers required on the building after Hurricane Sandy and historic preservation work would exceed the property”™s value.
“The only thing they”™re trying to do now is clean up this property so they can sell it,” said John M. Murtagh, the attorney at Gaines, Novick, Ponzini, Cossu & Venditti LLP in White Plains who represents Peter Stolatis and Plateau Associates in the two lawsuits. “They”™re nothing but two property owners in the village who want to sell their property, but the village is hamstringing them.”
The village granted Plateau Associates a demolition permit in 2008, but attached additional conditions before the work could begin that the developer failed to meet, according to a court document defending the stop-work order that was filed by attorney Paul E. Svensson of Hodges Walsh & Messemer LLP in White Plains. Among them, Plateau was barred from beginning demolition work while any development application that provided for the red-brick factory building to remain standing was pending before village officials.
The demolition work at 36 N. Water St. last spring was reported to village officials by Hernandez, who observed it from his adjacent home property, according to court papers filed by Hernandez”™s attorney at Oxman Law Group PLLC in White Plains, Stuart E. Kahan. A front portion of the building was reduced to heaps of rubble and exposed graffiti-covered interior walls before the work was halted.
Hernandez did post the comments on two Ossining community Facebook sites that prompted the libel and defamation charges by Peter Stolatis, the defendant”™s attorney acknowledged in court papers. The neighbor, a former Ossining mayor and trustee and historic preservation commission member whose property the Stolatis brothers initially sought to acquire for their Hidden Cove development in exchange for a future townhouse condominium there valued at $550,000, labeled a photo of the plaintiff at the Brandreth site, “Peter Stolatis at the site of his crime.” He later posted “additional photos of the crime scene” and described the demolition contractor as “unwitting accessories to the crime.”
Arguing for the libel suit”™s dismissal, Hernandez”™s attorney said a “reasonable reader” of his client”™s posted comments “would believe that the defendant”™s language was conveying the defendant”™s opinion as to plaintiff”™s actions and was not a factual assertion or accusation of any criminal conduct.” The attorney also claimed that Stolatis did not show “clear and convincing evidence” that Hernandez “acted with actual malice.”
In a counterclaim brought against Plateau Associates, Hernandez”™s attorney argued that Stolatis leveled the libel and defamation charges because he and Plateau Associates “want to stifle defendant”™s right to comment upon” the developer”™s actions, particularly regarding the demolition of the Brandreth Pill Factory building. The developer”™s legal action was an attempt to “harass” and “intimidate” the project opponent from exercising his constitutional right of free speech.
The defendant”™s attorney asked the state court to award Hernandez compensatory and punitive damages and reimbursement by Stolatis or his lawyer of all costs and attorney”™s fees stemming from the developer”™s “frivolous” legal action.