Westchester County taxpayers paid more than $279,000 in legal fees last year to defend County Executive Rob Astorino and top county officials from a federal civil lawsuit that targeted the county Republican Party and Astorino’s political campaign.
Three law firms were paid to defend Astorino and dozens of other Republican county employees in a lawsuit that alleged that county GOP leaders tried to steal the Independence Party endorsement for Astorino in the 2013 primary, records reviewed by The Journal News show.
The suit was dismissed in September, but not before Astorino, his top aides, staffers and their families, as well as three county legislators, handed taxpayers a $279,391 legal bill by the end of last year.
The question is whether Astorino’s campaign — with $577,000 currently in its coffers — should have picked up the tab.
“It’s certainly a borderline call, at best,” said Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group, a prominent watchdog group. “It had little, if anything, to do with their public positions.
“The prudent thing to do, the smart thing to do, is to seek an independent advisory opinion,” he said. “If there’s a question, why leave even a puff of cloud over it?”
Astorino’s office maintained that the lawsuit was filed against the county executive and others in his administration in their capacities as public officials. The lawsuit alleged Hatch Act violations that prohibit public officials from using their positions for, among other things, “the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election or a nomination for office.”
“By law, county employees are entitled to a defense in an action where allegations are made against them in their official capacity,” Astorino spokesman Phil Oliva said in an email. “The allegations in the lawsuit against the county executive, which were found to be baseless, were made against him in his capacity as a public official and, as such, he is entitled to be defended by the county. What this case does point out is the cost of frivolous lawsuits.”
Peter Tilem, the attorney who represented the Westchester County Independence Party, declined to discuss details of the case.
“I think the lawsuit speaks for itself in terms of whether it was against individuals in their official capacity, or in terms of their personal capacity or their political capacity,” Tilem said. “The allegations that I made are there. I think they’re very clear.”
The records reviewed by The Journal News do not include payment vouchers for this year, so the final legal tab for the case could not be ascertained.
Astorino’s position on the legal bills is in stark contrast to the stance his office took earlier this year, when it refused to pay $109,000 in legal bills for Democrats on the county Board of Legislators. In that case, the legislators retained attorney Alexander Eisemann to represent them in two 2012 lawsuits against Astorino, one over procedures on the county Board of Acquisition and Contract and the other over child care subsidies.
The county refused to pay the bill and Eisemann sued for the money in June.
In a statement released then, Astorino spokesman Ned McCormack called the lawsuits “ill-advised,” and said that “the bills associated with the lawsuits are the financial responsibility of the small group of Democratic legislators who brought them — and not county taxpayers.”
There was a significant distinction between the two cases, said Oliva, the county spokesman.
“The cases are different,” he said. “One involves defending an employee who has been accused of wrongdoing in his official capacity and is entitled to defense by the county by statute. The other involves a county legislator retaining counsel on his own to sue the county.”
The Independence Party lawsuit, filed Oct. 31, 2013, names more than 120 defendants. It alleged that the Astorino campaign “raided” the Independence Party by having county employees, political supporters, friends and relatives sign up as party members. That would allow them to vote for Astorino in the Independence primary, with enough votes for him to win the party line in the November general election, the lawsuit alleged.
Astorino had gotten the party’s endorsement in 2009 when he defeated former County Executive Andy Spano. But, in 2013, the party backed New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson, a Democrat who challenged Astorino in the general election and lost.
