State wants to shut down LI vehicle transport broker

The state's top prosecutor is asking a court to shut down a Nassau County vehicle transport broker that the state claims has violated a court-supervised agreement to stop misleading and cheating its customers. But principals of A-Blue Knight Auto Carrier Inc. deny wrongdoing and say they will fight the allegations in court.

In court papers dated Friday, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said "overwhelming evidence leaves no doubt that defendants continue, willfully and persistently, to engage in the same deceptive, fraudulent and illegal acts and practices" in violation of the Nov. 30 agreement.

Cuomo's office is asking State Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cozzens in Mineola to order the company, which has operated for the past 21 years under several other names in Bayville and Syosset, to shut down within 30 days of the order's issuance.

Cuomo said his office has gotten about 18 more consumer complaints about A-Blue Knight since November.

Company principals Gregory and Marguerite Cermola Sclafani say the complaints are baseless and that, in any case, represent a fraction of the 1,500 car shipments they have arranged since November.

The Sclafanis, who are married, deny the new and old allegations. "We never ever ever defrauded one person, not even one," Marguerite said Tuesday.

Gregory accused Cuomo of victimizing him to advance his political ambitions. "He's picking on somebody like us to put a feather in his cap," Gregory said. A Cuomo spokesman said Tuesday, "The court documents speak for themselves."

The two sides are scheduled to appear before Cozzens on June 4. The Sclafanis said they have documentation and tape recordings of telephone conversations with customers that prove their innocence. The Sclafanis also contend that the complaints against them -- as many as 400, according to Cuomo's office -- are few considering the more than 5,000 vehicle shipments a year they said they process. The Sclafanis insist most of the complaints are not valid.

Most complaints relate to "late" deliveries of vehicles, but the Sclafanis said that as brokers, not truckers, they only estimate delivery dates - four or five days to Florida, for example, but never promise them and state clearly in their contracts that factors beyond their control like bad weather and breakdowns can delay shipments.

Some of the 18 "new" victims had contracted with the Sclafanis after the Nov. 30 agreement but were included in a Newsday article in February when Cuomo's office confirmed that there had been a settlement with A-Blue Knight.

One, Arnold Ruderman of Merrick and West Palm Beach, Fla., claims it took from Jan. 4 until Jan. 24 to get his car shipped from New York to Florida - after he complained to Cuomo. It cost $600. But the Sclafanis said that three snowstorms in a two-week period delayed the trucks and that they offered Ruderman a full refund, which Ruderman declined. Each side claims the other was rude and abusive.