A flier on a Southampton storefront prompted New York State Democratic Committee chairman Jay Jacobs to file a $45 million libel suit against the residents who posted it — a local teacher and a retiree.
The suit is the latest chapter in what started as a battle of words in sleepy Little Fresh Pond, and escalated into a multimillion-dollar legal tussle over a planned Southampton summer camp on a site Jacobs owns.
And, in what sounds a bit like an offer from one day-camper to another, the Dem says he’ll drop the suit if the two locals take out an ad in the Southampton Press apologizing. Jacobs took out his own ad in the paper, offering to drop the case for the printed apology.
Jacobs’ suit alleges “libel and injurious falsehood” against John Barona and John Gorman, a special-education teacher and retiree who head the Little Fresh Pond Association, which is trying to block a 17-acre site near their homes from becoming a day camp for up to 400 kids.
“This area is not the estate section,” said one resident, pointing out that “Southampton” doesn’t just mean millionaires. “It’s local tradesmen, business people, retired policemen.”
Gorman and Barona were sued because their names were on the flier as contacts for the group. The notice read, “Should a megadevelopment be allowed despite spewing sewage into Little Fresh Pond . . . Local zoning does not allow non-residential use. Developer does not care, hiding these harms and lying his way to get exemption. We must stop him! Please come to hearings.”
Jacobs says the wording accuses him of a criminal act and lying. “I cannot permit people to maliciously defame me and malign me personally,” he told us. “This could be easily settled out of court. Apologizing publicly would undo the damage that they did.”
A lawyer for Gorman and Barona said in an e-mail that he “will file shortly and answer counterclaims.”