Riverhead Town Board candidate Bill Bianchi is threatening to sue Councilman John Dunleavy and an employee of Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment for comments they made that he says injured his reputation.
Bianchi has retained Bellport attorney Regina Seltzer to sue Dunleavy and Maureen Dolan Murphy, CCE’s executive program manager for $1 million unless they issue a retraction of statements they made which he says injured his reputation, according to a press release provided by Bianchi to RiverheadLOCAL Sunday morning.
Bianchi was as identified by the state Department of Environmental Conservation as a “potentially responsible party” who may be held legally liable for a $7.89 million remediation for soil and groundwater pollution at the former Bianchi family greenhouses in East Patchogue. See prior story.
The former assemblyman denies responsibility for chlordane and lead soil contamination at the site and chlordane contamination of groundwater there. According to a January 2012 DEC decision, he declined to participate in the remediation sought by the DEC. Click here to read DEC decision. (Opens in new window.)
“I’m proud of my political record in the New York State Assembly and I won’t have it besmirched by anyone, even in the heat of a political campaign. I don’t have one iota of responsibility for the contamination of the property in question or any other,” Bianchi said in the undated press release. “I’m entitled to a retraction, an apology or compensation for damage to my reputation and my business, and if I don’t get it, I’ll ask the court to decide the matter,” he said in the press release.
Bianchi also provided RiverheadLOCAL with a copy of a letter written by Seltzer, addressed “to whom it may concern” and dated Nov. 1, demanding a retraction from Dunleavy and Murphy by midnight Sunday or face a $1 million lawsuit. (See letter, below.)
On Sunday evening, Dunleavy said he had not received the letter and knew nothing about it.
“I’m not the one saying he is responsible. That’s the DEC,” Dunleavy said in a phone interview.
“I said that the DEC says it should be cleaned up and he should step forward with the other two people and clean it up,” Dunleavy said, referring to subsequent owners of the Bianchi family farm, Kurt Weiss Greenhouses, which bought the property in 1990 and Henron Development Corporation, which subsequently bought the property from Weiss, according to the state DEC decision.
Murphy could not immediately be reached for comment, but her boss, CCE executive director Adrienne Esposito said Sunday night the letter had not been received by anyone in her organization.
She said she had not heard of Seltzer’s letter until informed of it by RiverheadLOCAL. After hearing its contents, she said it was “a feeble attempt at intimidation and bullying and it’s not going to work.”
Seltzer said Sunday night that the letter was mailed to Dunleavy and Murphy by certified mail on Saturday.
“They probably haven’t received it yet,” she acknowledged.
“Is she kidding?” Esposito asked. “She mailed a letter on Saturday giving us until midnight Sunday to act? How did she think we’d get it? Magic?”
Like Dunleavy, Esposito said Bianchi was found by the DEC to be a “potentially responsible party” for the contamination; the determination was not made by anyone in her organization.
“If he was not an owner and was not responsible, why didn’t he dispute it during the DEC hearings?” she asked.
“We retract nothing,” Esposito said.
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