LETTER: Nominating Chair of Rye Dems Speaks Against Tagger-Epstein Campaign

Correction: On Wednesday, Cheryl Geller submitted the following correction: “The original nominating committee vote was 4 yes and with one abstention. A day or so later, that abstention became the single vote for Tagger Epstein.”

In a letter to MyRye.com, Cheryl Geller, the Nominating Committee Chair of the Rye Democratic Committee, takes issue with the letter submitted by Marion Anderson and five other supporters, all District Leaders from the Rye Democratic Committee.

The letter:

Marion Anderson’s statement is wrong. As Chair of the Nominating Committee, I can vouch that all five of us were very much concerned over the gun issue. All five voted to recommend Josh rather than Danielle for mayor. Two days later, one committee member changed their vote to abstain. The statement, “This issue of supposed misconduct was brought to us, looked into and found to be not as presented” is completely false. The committee was extremely concerned with the issue.

After all, in 2017 Danielle’s friend had been arrested on Milton Road, in a school zone, with a carful of illegal assault weapons. He had semi-automatic pistols, loaded and ready to fire; high-capacity ammunition feeding magazines; knives made to evade metal detectors; bladed throwing stars; brass knuckles and QuikClot, which stops bleeding from gunshot wounds. Charged with nine weapons felonies, he faced years in prison. As an elected official at the time, Danielle was not allowed to use her office to seek special treatment for friends. Yet she went to work to get her friend off – even though she knew he’d been caught in a school zone with the means to do real harm to our community.

The Nominating Committee offered Danielle the opportunity to say she had made a mistake and learned from it. She became defensive and showed us a letter from her lawyers that tried to justify her actions. It claimed she had acted out of concern for the defendant’s rights. False! Her letter to D.A. Scarpino says nothing about “rights” or mistreatment of any kind. It asks for special consideration for someone who is obviously a close family friend. She called him “warm,” “compassionate” and “loving,” and wrote that when he visits, “he will always show up with a brisket in hand.” Danielle signed the letter and directly under her signature she wrote Rye City Council.

In 2018, at the suppression hearing, no one disputed the defendant’s guilt, but the evidence was thrown out on a technicality and the case was dismissed. A guilty man went scot-free. Marion says this justifies Danielle’s interference. Is this logical? Or does it actually make it worse?

Danielle’s latest campaign filings show a payment of $5,000 to Kimball Hughes Public Relations and Crisis Management Agency. It will be interesting to see if they can make up for her refusal to admit her mistake when the Nominating Committee gave her the opportunity.

Cheryl Geller