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Health & Fitness

Sex, Lies and Videotape

Has Clarkstown become the Peyton Place of Party Politics or is a new Machiavelli now in charge of the Republican Party's House of Borgia?

[WARNING: THIS BLOG QUOTES STRONG AND OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE. IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.]

Machiavelli glorified an approach embodied by the saying that "the ends justify the means". Violence may be necessary for the successful stabilisation of power. Force may be used to eliminate political rivals and to purge the community of other men strong enough of character to rule, who will inevitably attempt to replace the ruler. Machiavelli has become infamous for such political advice, ensuring that he would be remembered in history through the adjective, Machiavellian". 

The Borgias were suspected of many crimes, including adultery, theft, rape, bribery, incest, and murder.  Today they are remembered for their corrupt rule, and the name has become a synonym for libertinism, nepotism and treachery. 

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This is a story of Machiavelli and the Borgias involving sex, lies and videotape.

THE SEX
[John said he wasn't f*****g Cynthia]
Ann: You never used to say the word "f*****g" .......
Cynthia: If Ann got freaked out by these, there must be something sexual: are these tapes of you having sex with these girls?
Graham: No, not exactly.
Cynthia: Well, either you are or you aren't; which is it?
Graham: Why don't you let me tape you?
Cynthia: Doing what?
Graham: Talking.
Cynthia: About what?
Graham: About sex...
Cynthia: What makes you think I'd discuss that with you?
Graham: Nothing.
Cynthia: Hmm. And you just want to ask me questions?
Graham: I just want to ask you questions.
Cynthia: That's all.
Graham: That's all.
Cynthia: Is this how you get off or something? .....
Graham: Yes.

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Clarkstown politicos had two discussion topics on their minds over the July 4th weekend. These conversations were not about those who had fought and died for their country in 1776 to bring freedom, justice and democracy.

On the contrary, the first topic was whether one who was charged with being unable to return a ‘pea’ coat to Macy's, and who was not removed as the Chairman of the Rockland County Republican Party as a result, would demand the removal from the Party of one who was charged with making a remark indicating that he would like to sodomize a person who is a County Legislator.  

The second topic was whether the same County Legislator had surreptitiously recorded two of his political colleagues thereby metaphorically sodomizing them

According to the Rockland County Times, Rockland County GOP Chairman, Vinny Reda, and County Legislator Frank Sparaco’s nemesis, Anthony Mele, pleaded guilty to harassing Sparaco over an incident that contained a "mock threat of sodomy".

The incident happened in Clarkstown’s 'Hall of Blushing Innocence’ during a Republican Convention on September 14, 2012. Upset with Sparaco’s tactics of undermining his Republican colleagues, including Mele himelf, the Rockland County Times reported that Mele stuck his nose in Sparaco’s face and said that he was “gonna [blank] Sparaco until the latter fell in love with him”.

According to the Journal News of July 10, 2013 Sparaco said that the ruckus started when Mele "exploded" after he told Mele to "mind his own business".  Mele, he said, had interrupted a conversation involving Republican Party Chairman Vincent Reda. Mele pointed his finger "within an inch" of Sparaco’s face and cursed him. Mele then used vulgar sexual language in describing how he would physically abuse Sparaco, calling him a “mafia tough guy”.  

Sparaco cursed Mele in retaliation. They were separated, but Mele approached Sparaco again and threatened to sexually abuse him until “you fall in love with me”. Later, Mele confronted Sparaco at a gas station on Main Street and challenged Sparaco to “take a swing at me”. 

Sparaco offered in way of explanation that he is "all for political disagreement” and has apparently had many such "screaming matches". 

Mele's version of events is that he was "conversing with Vinny Reda about Reda's "back stabbing" of Republican Dan Weisberg for judge and Reda's support of Democrat Rolf Thorsen when Sparaco stuck his nose in my face and said shut the f**k up you big f*g punk" To which Mele claims he replied: "Frankie, if I was (a big f*g punk) I would f**k you until you love me".

Whatever the truth is about this matter we the voters in Rockland County appear to be led by local politicians whose exchanges stoop so low as to involve crass references to sex, certainly some lies, but fortunately no sordid videotape of political discourse involving "screaming matches". 

"Falling in love” is not at all likely to occur between these three individuals given that Mele claimed his car was keyed by GOPers while he was attending the "screaming" meeting and Sparaco claimed that after the meeting Mele stalked and taunted him at the nearby gas station.

As a result of the verbal sodomy exchange, Sparaco had a restraining order instituted against Mele valid for one year. However, given Mele's "mafia tough guy" comment and given a Nanuet Patch article of December 24, 2012 which brought up a discussion of previous questions about Sparaco’s financial backers that were raised by the Journal News a couple of years ago, one might wonder whether Mele himself might also need a protection order. 

You see, two of the people reported to be supplying funds to one of Sparaco’s campaigns, Michael Persico and John Staluppi, were described as being linked to the mafia.  Michael Persico, for example, copped a plea to an extortion charge on the eve of his racketeering and murder trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.

THE LIES
John Mullany: You're lying to Ann, too.
Cynthia: Yeah, right, but I didn't take a vow in front of God and everyone....

Before the 2011 election for Town Supervisor, Reda tried to persuade Ralph Sabatini, who eventually succeeded in becoming the Republican Party candidate, not to run for Town Supervisor by offering Sabatini a County patronage position that would pay the same as Sabatini could hope to make if he were elected to the Supervisor's position.

Sabatini spurned this solicitation and relates that he subsequently received no support from Reda while his Republican colleague and Reda's sidekick, Frank Sparaco, openly worked in support of Gromack and against him just days preceding the election.

Not much has changed in two years. Here is how Sabatini describes the situation today:

"This is Clarkstown and the politics are rigged. Frank Sparaco (a registered Republican) controls the Independence Party and uses that control to endorse Gromack. Sparaco has been spending a lot of time recruiting Republican and Independence voters for the Working Families Party which he also hopes to control.  Any Republican who hopes to win an election in this town needs to find a source of voters from other parties (there just aren't enough Republican voters to carry a candidate). I have been honest in my run and spoken my mind on behalf of the taxpayers but I'm not naive."

Sabatini opted not to run again citing lack of County Republican support and insufficient funding, which is why septuagenarian, Ralph Riverso, staggered up to the microphone, caught his breath, and announced that although he had no money and not much hope of raising any he "would do his best". Sabatini "respectfully declined" to accept a nomination from the floor concluding that the lies of the Republican leadership were clear for all to see and that the fix was in to see Gromack safely re-elected by running a “placeholder” candidate who would not, and could not, run a credible campaign against the incumbent Gromack who had Reda's and Sparaco's support.

Meanwhile, standing behind Reda on October 26, 2010 were two future patronage appointees in Gromack's administration. Frank Sparaco and Jay Savino were listening as Reda spoke in support of Sparaco’s candidacy to the State Assembly attributing the State Democrats implied connections of Sparaco to mobsters as being lies promulgated to smear Sparaco and his campaign. 

Since the time of that press conference Savino has been arrested by the FBI and fired by the Town of Clarkstown.  Sparaco, however, after his loss to Zebrowski, received the 'runners-up' prize when he was given a $75,000 part time patronage appointment to be the Constituent Services Representative in the Town of Clarkstown's Highway Department under Wayne Ballard. Ballard’s unconvincing explanations of how he concluded that Sparaco was the best of 260 applicants, if not a downright lie, was certainly a remarkable Doo Wop dance.  

Lies and more lies seemed to have been involved in sending Sparaco’s mother-in-law to prison even with Savino’s legal skills as her defense attorney. The story of this trail of lies is that Town Attorney Marsha Coopersmith, who until December 31, 2011 conducted the Town's tax cert matters, was Chair of the Independence Party. She controlled that election line and Mr. Gromack ran on it. Coopersmith was subsequently ousted by Debra Ortutay, Sparaco’s mother-in-law and Ortutay then controlled the Independence Party election line. Ortutay resigned under indictment for lying under oath and fraud and served a prison sentence in the Rockland County Jail after pleading guilty to perjury and falsifying records.

Ortutay was represented in court by Bronx GOP Chairman Jay Savino, who was reported to be friends with her son-in-law, Sparaco, as well as Rockland GOP chair, Vinny Reda. It is believed that Savino was in line to be the next Rockland County GOP chair had he not been arrested by the FBI.  Reda has run the Rockland GOP for almost 20 years and is reported to have been instrumental in getting Savino the patronage job of tax certiorari in Clarkstown.

With the above history one would expect that Town Attorney Mele and Supervisor Gromack would be quite able to state that they know perfectly well who Savino is, how he came to be given an $87,000 per year 'retainer fee'.

Yet at a May 1, 2012 Town Board meeting when New City resident, Tom Nimick, asked Town Attorney Mele a very simple question as to how Mr. Savino's name came to her attention with regard to tax certiorari work she stated that she "wasn't sure".  Mr. Gromack then stumbled his way to offering a 'maybe' and a 'probably' as part of his response before revealing that Mr. Savino may have placed a telephone call to the Town Attorney's office.  After Savino was arrested and fired Supervisor Gromack said Savino was hired because he sent in a “resume of interest” which is no longer available as it has been “discarded”.  The Town Board had voted to hire Savino because the Town Attorney said Savino had submitted a “proposal for services”.  Strangely, when Savino was asked at a reception held in the La Terrazza restaurant in New City about the proposal he declared that he had not submitted one.

Who has lied in this matter of the documents underlying Savino’s hiring by the Town Board has yet to be determined but it is a fact that the Town Attorney and the Town Board have been asked to produce Savino’s proposal and they have not done so.

Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a good governance advocacy group, said: “It’s clear the town administration is hiding things. This is not unusual for town governments”, Lerner said. “They feel they have no obligations to be transparent. Ultimately there will be an investigation. Or this will be an election issue.”

Who is lying is yet to be determined.  That someone has lied has now been established.


THE VIDEOTAPE
Ann: Nothing's what I thought it was. John's a bastard. Let's make a videotape.
Graham: No, I don't think that's a good idea.
Ann: Why not?
Graham: Because I don't think it's a choice that you'd make in a normal frame of mind.
Ann: And what would you know about a normal frame of mind?

Moves to have Reda removed as chair of the Rockland County Republican Party accelerated in 2012 after he made major headlines when arrested and charged with shoplifting a coat from Macy's. The case was resolved through what is known as an "Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal."  In layman's terms it meant that the charge would be erased as long as Reda did not find himself in trouble again with the law presumably returning any other purchases. 

Reda
subsequently survived a challenge to his leadership by Mele and was reelected by voice vote to head the remnants of the Rockland Republican Party for another two years. The Rockland County Times in the article 'Republican Rebels Launch Assault on Reda' described how Mele, charged Reda with being less than loyal to Republican candidates. Mele charged that Reda did not actively support him when he ran against St. Lawrence (Supervisor in Ramapo) in 2007, instead horse-trading for the “bloc vote” support in another election.

His assertions appear to have merit. As mentioned above Reda also did not support the Republican candidate for Supervisor of Clarkstown, Ralph Sabatini, in the 2011 election thus tacitly endorsing Democrat Gromack. According to Sabatini, the Republican minority leader in the County Legislature and major player in the 'legal racket’ Independence Party, Frank Sparaco also betrayed Sabatini's candidacy by supporting Democrat Gromack with a targeted campaign mailing three days before the election. 

This whole sad scenario seems set to replay in this Fall’s elections for both County and Town positions with the July 4th ‘hot-dog’ talk being that two of the ‘hot dogs’ in the Republican Party have struck a deal with Democrat Ilan Schoenberger to support him against Ed Day in return for another patronage job in the County for one of the ‘hot dogs’ and support of the bloc vote in a future run for a seat in the State Senate.

The Rockland County Times reports that Mele is continuing to fan flames against Sparaco, by a blog in Patch. In the blog entitled “What Legislator Is Secretly Taping His Colleagues?” Mele accused “an unnamed legislator” of recording fellow politicians. It was clear the accusation was directed against Sparaco.

Mele wrote in the blog that a Rockland County Legislator, has been bragging, while swearing friends to secrecy, he has been recording conversations with other politicos without their knowledge".

Mele went on to speculate as to what the “thought bubbles” might say above this County Legislator’s head commenting that “since the FBI swooped down and arrested Jay Savino, this inspired the (bubble head) genius idea of recording others, as a cover for himself and an alibi to say.."Look at me, I went to the FBI with all of these tapes, on all of these politicos, except I did not have any recordings of the guys, who are the real target of the FBI investigation. I only have tapes of everybody else. I can now use this because; "I have bigger plans" and I can't wait to have a press conference and pull the wool over the eyes of all these fools."

According to Mele his information on this perverted tape came to his knowledge because Mele was asked to consult for one of the targets of the mystery recordings. Mele was asked in his capacity as a security consultant how one might know if one is being secretly recorded. Mele suggested that one would look for suspicious behavior. For example:  When the typical conversation would normally shift from the mundane to something like - "If I give you the party line to run on, will you give me a ‘no show’ job that pays more than my current ‘no show’ job?" – that would be an indication one is being led to make a felonious statement.

Clarkstown’s politicians must all be fans of either The Sopranos or Peyton Place. My bet would be for Grace Metalious’s soap opera novel given that the intellectual capacity of most of the characters in this Clarkstown soap opera does not rise to even that of the minor characters in the Sopranic drama. Peyton Place is the sine qua non of all small towns where ugliness rears its head, and where the people try to hide all the skeletons in their closets. "Peyton Place" is the generic label for any community whose inhabitants engage in the exchange of sordid secrets.

When the Clarkstown Peyton Place’s video/audio tape will become public record is unknown but one thing is perfectly clear; all of the participants who attended the meeting that was supposedly recorded have admitted to being present and the one who stands accused of making the recording has made no denial of this accusation.  

Additionally, the Town of Clarkstown is searching its trash cans for Jay Savino’s “resume of interest” and I am awaiting receipt of a copy of Savino’s “proposal for his services” that has been promised to me by one of the Town Board members in response to a Freedom of Information request.  As we await release of this sordid and phantom material may I provide you with the rumored, but by now the certainly discarded, “proposal for services” from Mele’s unnamed “bubble head”?  It reads as follows:

Dear Members of the Clarkstown Town Board:

Thank you for your recent letter concerning the conversation you had with my party's leadership about the record of my inferior accomplishments.   After careful consideration I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me employment with your ‘Snow and Blow’ department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of patronage employment opportunities in the county of Rockland, and in the town of Clarkstown in particular, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Therefore, despite Clarkstown's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting patronage applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time or the needs of my party's chairman.  I am highly unsuited for this position compared with the several hundred other applicants you considered and therefore meet the highest standard for a patronage appointment.

However, if it will make things more difficult for you I would be willing to accept a higher salary than the other applicants and I will agree not to work full time; indeed I won't work at all if that is necessary.  Knowing that you will therefore accept this refusal of all of your non-employment conditions, I will begin work in your Invisible Employee 'Snow and Blow' department next week.

I look forward to seeing you on Monday for a few minutes, weather permitting, to set up my recording studio and will be pleased then to disappear permanently thereafter. 

Sincerely,

Bubble Head

Michael N. Hull is a retired senior citizen who writes opinion pieces on local political issues. He is presently a Director of Clarkstown Residents Opposing Patronage (CROP) with Tom Nimick and Ralph Sabatini and is President of the Residents Association of Bardonia. 

Hull is assisting in setting up the 'Preserve Rockland' election line so that the electorate may be offered an alternative slate of candidates for the 2013 local elections. The Clarkstown Preservation Society, a grassroots citizens group, began collecting signatures on petitions in late July, seeking to run an independent line in the November election to challenge incumbents from established parties. CPS has a slate of candidates with principles and integrity who will govern with equal treatment for everyone and special treatment for none. That’s the bedrock principle. Party chiefs cross-endorse incumbents in return for patronage jobs, leaving residents without anyone to represent their interests.  CPS plans to run candidates for Clarkstown Town Supervisor, Town Board and Highway Superintendent, and for the County Executive’s race on the 'Preserve Rockland' line.  Ed Day will run for County Executive.  Brian T. Moran, a New City resident and a business owner in Nyack, will run against Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack. John Noto will run against Hausner and Dennis Malone will challenge Wayne Ballard for Highway Superintendent. 

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