Great Neck Park District's legal tab nearly $100,000 in election lawsuit fights, records show

The Great Neck Park District spent nearly $100,000 in legal fees defending itself against a pair of lawsuits challenging its electoral processes, records show.

The lawsuits were filed by Gordon Charlop, a candidate for commissioner who lost two separate elections in the span of about a year.

After incumbent Commissioner Tina Stellato defeated Charlop, a partner at a Wall Street securities firm, in December 2023, he sued the park district over the results, filing the petition in state Supreme Court. Charlop claimed the election was “unfair” and used “illegal” absentee ballots. Stellato won by a margin of 1,580 to 710, according to the district.

The district hired Garden City-based law firm McLaughlin & Stern to defend the case. The district argued that a state Supreme Court judge has no standing to rule on election results, according to court papers.

Charlop’s attorney, Jonathan Silver, acknowledged in court papers that only the state attorney general could take such action and instead asked for access to the absentee ballots from the election. The request was granted by Justice Eileen C. Daly-Sapraicone on Sept. 30. 

The park district paid the firm $76,950 in legal fees, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The firm's rate was $338 per hour, according to records.

Charlop hired a private forensic investigator to examine the ballots. The investigator, Richard Picciochi, found inconsistencies in 114 pairs of absentee voter applications and their corresponding ballots, according to a Nov. 30 report produced by him.

Charlop also ran in an election last month against incumbent Vanessa Tamari. A month earlier, in November, he sued again, requesting an injunction to stop the use of the absentee ballot in his challenge to Tamari.

The form did not “comply with the law,” Charlop wrote in his petition.

Acting state Supreme Court Justice Robert Bogle denied the petition, writing in his decision that the absentee ballot application “satisfied the Town Law, State Election Law and New York State Constitution.”

The park district paid the same firm $16,557 in legal fees in that case, according to records.

Tamari, 47, defeated Charlop, 1,681 to 615. Tamari received 771 votes by absentee ballot, compared to Charlop’s 78, according to the district.

The district attributed a delay in results at four voting locations to “poll watchers” supporting Charlop. The supporters submitted challenge forms for the absentee ballots to election officials, but the forms had been “tampered with,” according to a district news release.

The election workers then provided Charlop’s supporters with official challenge forms. Charlop’s supporters submitted forms to challenge all of the absentee ballots. 

“We stood ready at each location to challenge the absentee ballots but were told that our forms were technically improper even though we fashioned our challenges on the official form as presented to us by the park district,” Charlop said in a statement. “The ruling by the Park District's attorney on the night of the election was to nullify each and every one of our challenges.”

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.