Living in a Glass House

BY ARDSLEY POMONA

Suffern Mayor Dagan Lacorte has dealt with his fair share of strife during the 2013 campaign season for county executive. From revelations of his history of verbal and physical confrontations with rivals and critics, to media coverage of controversial former Assemblyman Ryan Karben’s donations to his campaign, to, most memorably, the infamous Text-gate incident wherein he texted his plans to spy on opponent David Fried directly to Fried, Lacorte cannot claim to have waged a campaign free from adversity.

As such, it took many by surprise when Lacorte’s campaign chose to throw stones at David Fried this week over contributions he received in 2006 from then future felons.

On Monday, as a major fundraiser for candidate Fried approached, Lacorte’s campaign posted to Twitter a phony menu mocking Fried for the legal troubles of those past donors. Menu entrees included “Thieves Salad with Brie,” a mock-up of former Fried-donor Gregg Brie who was convicted of stealing $2 million, “Lipsky Chicken with Sweetener,” a pun against former Fried-donor Richard Lipsky, convicted of bribing NYS Senator Carl Kruger, and “Fish with Stern Sauce,” a ridicule of Fried’s former association with Monsey-based crook Moses Stern, the informant in the FBI investigation against Spring Valley Mayor Noramie Jasmin, Town of Clarkstown tax attorney/GOP Bronx Chairman Jay Savino, and several others.

Fried’s campaign manager Stephen Papas said, “Dagan’s piece was meant to smear David, but actually invigorated a lot of our supporters to work harder for us and brought us some new volunteers. People are really turned off by his attacks and…they then turn to us.”

Republican candidate Ed Day’s son and campaign manager Chris Day observed of Lacorte’s tactics, “Their idea of aggressive campaigning apparently involves just personally insulting everyone they encounter.”

To cap off Lacorte’s dubious foray into Twitterdom, he briefly ‘favorited’ a post by candidate Day, which showed that Legislator Day had the most Facebook fans of any of the four leading candidates for the office.

Chris Day noted, “[it appears to be] another instance of Dagan having trouble with his typing fingers: [he] favorited a tweet that showed him as being blown out by my dad in Facebook likes. [He] promptly unfavorited…The email record does not lie however.”

  fried, Karben, lacorte, Suffern Mayor