Judge to bar Nassau Correction Commissioner Michael Sposato from handling gun-permit reference letters for former and retiring correction officers

A Long Island federal judge said Tuesday he would bar Nassau Commissioner of Correction Michael Sposato from handling reference letters for gun permits written on behalf of former correction officers due to his history of discriminating against officers who retired on disability.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Brown also determined the county would have to report anytime it refused to issue a retiring or disabled correction officer a "good guy letter" and file a report on all denials and approvals of such reference letters after three years.

Anyone in Nassau County now tasked with reviewing applications or issuing letters would have to go through training on discrimination and/or understand the history of the civil case brought by six former correction officers against the county for discrimination.

Last September, Brown issued a blistering 32-page decision in the civil case against the county and Sposato, who was the sheriff at the time, brought by the retired officers who were injured in the county jail but were denied a reference letter necessary for them to obtain a personal gun permit.

"'In High Noon' (1952), Gary Cooper portrays a lawman who, though abandoned by his community, is driven by integrity to risk everything to battle lawlessness. In modern parlance, the idiom ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’ denotes the arrival of a leader who will enforce rules that have been neglected,’ " Brown wrote in his decision. "Particularly when set against this illustrious history, the testimony of and actions by the individual defendant in this case — Michael Sposato, former Sheriff of Nassau County — prove disgraceful."

Additionally, the judge granted the officers $283,000 in damages and scheduled the Tuesday hearing to determine how the county would handle these applications going forward.

Frederick K. Brewington, the attorney for the correction officers, requested a special master be appointed by the judge to oversee the process and guard against further abuse.

Nassau County Deputy Attorney John Carnevale responded that no action would be necessary because the issue had been resolved, since Sposato was no longer the sheriff and would not be involved in approving the letters.

"The revised form requires no review, approval, or signature by the Sheriff or the Corrections Commissioner, and disability retirement/status, standing alone, is not a basis for denial; any potential denial is limited to an individualized, present-tense safety determination," Carnevale said in a letter to the court.

In court, however, Brewington quoted from a transcript of Sposato’s testimony that indicated he still ran the county jail and would continue to sign-off on the letters.

"When was it decided that the commissioner would start signing off on these letters again?" Brown asked another county attorney, Steve Dalton. "I find it curious. We thought he was out of the loop, but he pulled himself right back into the loop."

Sposato’s qualifications for sheriff and now commissioner seemed to irk the judge.

He worked in a sewage treatment plant before becoming a jailhouse cook and then rose, after 10 years, to being in charge.

"Considering the history of and evidence in this case, the County’s appointment of Sposato as Sheriff and his subsequent appointment and reappointment as Commissioner of Corrections can be euphemistically described as surprising, though other adjectives spring to mind," the judge said in his September ruling.

On Tuesday, the judge questioned what would prevent Nassau  authorities from resuming the discriminatory behavior after the case is over.

Earlier in the hearing, the judge had excoriated Dalton for showing up hours late due to a misunderstanding of the time of the hearing.

"Do I need to buy you a watch, sir?" Brown asked. “[This case] has a terrible history on this sort of thing. The county didn’t show up for trial. Trial! Who does that? People have to be here. I can’t work like this."

The judge ordered Brewington and Dalton to confer over the wording of the injunction against the county and present an agreement in writing within 45 days.

"This has been a long haul for these plaintiffs and they’re still having an impact after their retirement," Brewington said.