Nassau pays to fight its own

 

Nassau Legis. Carrie Solages

Presented with no comment:

The county legislature's Rules Committee on Monday is being asked to approve the hiring of three different special counsels to fight claims and lawsuits filed by three current and former county employees, including two legislators.

The first contract for $75,000 is to hire the Garden City law firm Montfort, Healy McGuire & Salley LLP to defend the county police department against a claim by Legis. Carrie Solages (D-Elmont).

The contract back-up papers say only that the law firm is being hired to fight "a notice of claim filed as Carrie Solages v. Nassau County Police Department and County of Nassau, a matter involving police conduct."

The scuttlebutt is that Solages was not satisfied with police handling of a complaint he made alleging he had been harrassed at the polls by a police officer during the 2019 primary election for legislature.

Though there is apparently no connection to his notice of claim, Solages this spring voted against a police reform plan submitted to the state. He agreed with his fellow black legislators that the plan did not reflect community concerns about police accountability.

In a letter to the state attorney general, Solages and Legis. Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport) and Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury) said the Nassau's plan "lacks the structural reforms needed to eliminate historic racial inequities and disparities in policing that continue to harm and compromise communities of color,” the  Long Island Press reported.

The next contract also involves allegations of police misconduct.

Joe Scannell (from his 2011 Twitter account)

The Rules Committee is being asked to approve a $164,500 contract to  hire the Islandia law firm of  Lewis Johs Avallone Aviles, LLP ("Counsel") as special counsel to defend the county "in the matter of Joseph Scannell, An Incapacitated Person By His Guardian, James Scannell."

Joseph Scannell of Baldwin was a member of the new Democratic legislative majority elected in 1999 after the Republican-led county nearly went bankrupt and voters flipped control of the county legislature from Republican to Democrat. 

A former prosecutor in the Nassau District Attorney's office, Scannell was considered a rising Democratic star at the time.

But after surviving a near fatal car crash before he took office, Scannell was struck with the mentally and physically debilitating Huntington's disease and did not seek re-election after serving on the legislature for 14 years.

His brother James became his guardian in 2015.

James Scannell, through civil rights attorney Fred Brewington,  sued the county for $10 million on behalf of his brother, a conservative Democrat who had always been a staunch police supporter. The lawsuit alleged police battered and falsely arrested Joseph Scannell while he was having a mental health crisis.

Newsday reported that records show police arrested Scannell after a scuffle on June 27, 2019, that ensued between him and officers after they escorted an ambulance that brought him from a Great Neck nursing home to North Shore University Hospital. 

Police charged Scannell with attempted robbery, resisting arrest and harassment, alleging that he "became combative" and hit one officer in the chest while officers were trying to help him after arriving at the hospital, Newsday reported. A judge later dismissed the criminal charges.

(Okay, one comment: this is a very sad case for anyone who knew Scannell in his prime.)

The third proposed special counsel contract is to hire the Syracuse based law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC for $22,500 to "represent the County and all named County defendants in the New York State of Division of Human Rights and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints filed by Kenneth Heino, a Nassau County Department of Consumer Affairs employee, alleging a claim of employment discrimination and retaliation."

A lawyer for the law firm complained in January that Heino was directly contacting county legislators and their lawyers about his case.

"The practice of sending repeat emails to county officials, who have no direct involvement over the subject matter, is disruptive"  wrote attorney Howard Miller of Garden City under  Bond, Schoeneck & King letterhead. "Consequently as with any employee or community member, we respectfully request that Mr. Heino file FOIL requests using the appropriate procedure and addressed to the appropriate individual."