Syosset Mobile Home Park ex-residents sue Nassau over eviction

Inside the last trailer park in Nassau County, a tight-knit community has dispersed after a spirited 9-year legal battle that the residents were never equipped to fight. Many of the 80 families lost hope and moved away long ago. Newsday followed the last remaining family as it struggled against a deadline to find an alternative to becoming homeless. Credit: Newsday / Raychel Brightman

By Ted Phillipsted.phillips@newsday.comOctober 10, 2017

Two former residents of the Syosset Mobile Home Park are seeking $14 million in damages from Nassau County, the county sheriff’s department and Nassau police for alleged wrongful eviction and deprivation of civil rights, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.

The civil suit, filed on Friday in the U.S. Eastern District Court in Central Islip, alleges that the sheriff’s office did not follow proper procedure when it evicted Barbara Pedote and Nelson Hess from their mobile homes in 2014. The lawsuit alleges they were deprived of their constitutional right to due process and free speech.

A nearly decadelong dispute between residents who lived in the more than 80 mobile homes on the 5-acre parcel on Jericho Turnpike and the then-owners, STP Associates LLC, ended with the balance of the residents leaving in 2016.

STP Associates, a company in which former Town Attorney Leonard Genova had been a partner and his father Jerome Genova remained a principal, sold the property several months later to a company controlled by Woodbury developer A. Paul Laruccia Construction Corp. for $10.1 million, records said. The company’s principal, Angelo Laruccia, on Tuesday said he plans to develop the property into senior housing.

The lawsuit alleges that the sheriff’s eviction warrants had expired over the course of a lengthy legal battle when Pedote and Hess were forced out of their homes in December 2014. They were not given further access to their homes, which were then put into storage and sold without their consent for less than their fair value, the lawsuit alleges.

The suit also alleges that after their eviction, the plaintiffs were removed from the park by Nassau County police, who were also named in the suit, under threat of arrest when they went to meet with other members of the mobile home association.

“Nassau County doesn’t comment on pending litigation,” a county spokeswoman said Tuesday.