Grand jury: No criminality in Smithtown case

Under pressure from a ranking Smithtown official, a town employee persuaded a developer to ignore town codes and demolish asbestos-laden buildings, without proper permits -- endangering residents, a Suffolk County grand jury found.

In a report the Suffolk district attorney's office released Tuesday, the grand jury does not recommend charges against anyone in the case; the district attorney's office said no one will be charged.

Supervisor Patrick Vecchio and Councilman Edward Wehrheim, who were among several town officials to receive the report Tuesday, declined to comment because they had not read the document.

Councilman Robert Creighton said the report, which followed an earlier investigation by the district attorney's office in 2009, showed town officials committed no wrongdoing.

"I'm just gratified that, after a very lengthy investigation by the district attorney's office, that there is no finding of criminal activity," said Creighton, a former Suffolk police commissioner.

He said worries over the probe last year and an earlier one -- both saw periodic raids of town files by Suffolk investigators -- "tied the town up in knots."

The grand jury investigation, which ended in June, included 21 witnesses and 67 exhibits, including more than 1,000 pages of documents. Until Tuesday, authorities had not revealed the nature of the probe.

The 42-page report does not name public officials or the developer in the incident, nor does it identify the site of the demolition. The report said Smithtown officials showed no regard for neighbors of the site.

"The grand jury finds that the unlawful demolition . . . occurred in a dangerous and unacceptable manner," the report concludes. "This demolition constituted an utter disregard for the well-being of local citizens [who] had to live with legitimate concerns about the safety of their property until the site was effectively cleaned up . . ."

The report said Smithtown officials must increase fines for illegal demolitions, implement stronger oversight of municipal agencies, train building department staff on asbestos abatement and strengthen the town ethics code. The grand jury found the ethics code does not allow the town to dismiss officials who deliberately violate the town code. The panel also called for creation of an independent site-plan review board.

While no names were provided in the report, Creighton said it focused on a former lumber yard at 102 Main St., a property owned by Salvatore DiCarlo, across from Town Hall. In 2009, six structures on the site were illegally demolished. After the demolition, Smithtown officials lowered DiCarlo's taxes on the parcel because the demolition reduced its value, Newsday reported at the time. Also that year, the state Department of Labor fined DiCarlo $30,000 for hiring for the demolition a Queens company that was not licensed to perform an asbestos survey.

The grand jury report said the unnamed developer paid the town $3,500 in fines for the illegal demolition. It said that after the work, the town reduced taxes on the property by $4,000 -- far less than the $40,000 tax abatement estimated earlier by an unidentified town official.