May 26, 2011 The opening of the Journal News editorial is hardly ambiguous. "Aron Rottenberg of New Square has long complained to Ramapo Police that he has suffered for his decision to pray outside his community's synagogue. Now he is in critical condition with burns over half his body, and an 18-year-old New Square resident is charged with attempted murder, arson, and assault. Federal authorities, better positioned to inquire where local officials will not, should vigorously investigate the attack, and the systematic harassment that preceded it, as a civil rights violation and hate crime."

The Ramapo Whitewash
On Sunday, May 22, at around four o'clock in the morning, Shaul Spitzer brought incendiary materials to the home of Aron Rottenberg. The family was awakened and when Rottenberg confronted Spitzer the father of three was struck with the fiery accelerant resulting in life-threatening third-degree burns over 50% of his body. Aron Rottenberg was sitting on his front stoop, his body still smoking when the emergency services arrived to take him to the burn unit at Westchester Medical Center. Spitzer was arrested later and sent to Cornell Medical Center's burn unit where he was treated for burns on his hands and arms.

On Monday, at a Ramapo press conference, Police Chief Peter Brower "said his detectives had not found evidence linking the attacks on Rottenberg's house to the previous protests in the community." Brower could have looked at a YouTube video of a night-time protest in front of Rottenberg's house last fall with men shouting "Get Out!" It was not the only gathering of its kind. He could have reviewed the complaints and requests for help from the Rottenbergs going back six months. He could have read the directive from the Grand Rabbi David Twersky addressing Rottenberg's choice of another house of worship and the consequences outlined by the Rabbi. He could have reviewed police reports of ongoing harassment, "smashed car windows; rapping on a bedroom window in the wee hours; broken windows at [Rottenberg's] home; a phone call threatening torment of his daughter in school--her school desk and other belongings then turned up on the front porch; and crowds of men--as many as 300--massed outside the property (Journal News)."

Certainly the Chief knew of these events, and for him to get up and dismiss the attack as unconnected to this criminal history is both disingenuous and suspicious. This was not a public demonstration he was minimizing at the press conference. Had Shaul Spitzer been successful Sunday night, he could have killed a father a mother and three children.

Not only do the police chief's comments and actions merit a closer look from an investigative arm outside of Ramapo, the failure of the Ramapo Police to protect this family from these threats and ultimate lethal attack need to be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and, due to the civil rights violations, by the Department of Justice.

Worse than Brewer's comments was the public response of Supervisor St. Lawrence. Some might have expected a public official in this situation to have gone to the victim's family when he learned of the attack. Instead, the Supervisor hurried over to confer with the Deputy Mayor of New Square, Israel Spitzer. He then scuttled back to the press conference to report to the press and public that "he was assured by New Square's Deputy Mayor that Sunday's attack was an isolated incident, the result of a private dispute and not part of a campaign of retribution. There was no intimidation campaign against the family (Journal News)."

Christopher St. Lawrence is the Police Commissioner in Ramapo with access to the same information as his police chief. Of his attempt to dismiss the attack as an argument between two neighbors, The Journal News wrote: "[A] federal probe is warranted because of the pattern of wrongful conduct alleged and the local officials' seemingly willful blindness to it. Village leaders and Ramapo Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence summarily dismissed the notion that Rottenberg was the victim of a campaign of intimidation, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. St. Lawrence, who heads the town's Police Commission, on Monday merely parroted representations from New Square officials that the violence was an isolated incident between Rottenberg and his accused attacker, Shaul Spitzer."

Phrases like "whitewash" and "willful blindness" don't sufficiently describe the response of the Ramapo police and political officials here. To cover up the circumstances around an attempt to kill a family as they slept, defenseless in their own home, is nothing short of dereliction and merits an investigation by federal law enforcement.

For the record, Aron Rottenberg's attorney, Michael Sussman, told the press on Tuesday, "Rottenberg had no personal issues with Shaul Spitzer, contradicting what Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence said on Monday that he'd been told by Israel Spitzer."

As to why the Supervisor and the Chief of Police are lugging buckets of whitewash for the leaders in New Square you need to look no further than the political connections between the three. St. Lawrence remains in office because of the bloc vote. Last election, the leaders of New Square delivered virtually 100% of their 2,000+ votes to St. Lawrence. Apparently, in New Square you do not have the Constitutional right to freely practice your religion, nor do you have the right to personal suffrage. You vote as you are directed, and you worship where you are told. And it’s the denial of these two fundamental rights that requires a federal investigation of Civil Rights in the village and possibly of RICO violations by the leadership.

St. Lawrence and the Ramapo Police Department, now that they have failed so badly, need to step aside. They are compromised and have lost any credibility they might have had in this criminal investigation.

DA's Office
And there is one other recusal that is necessary in this case. Like St. Lawrence , District Attorney Thomas Zugibe was elected to his position as a direct result of the New Square bloc vote. In his case there's no analysis needed to establish the connection. Governor Eliot Spitzer visited New Square right before the election and lo and behold, a vote that had been loyal to incumbent DA Michael Bongiorno for years flipped 100% overnight and Zugibe rode in on the strength of this total reversal. The Albany Spitzer left office not too long thereafter disgraced by some other personal behavior of his, but Zugibe will likely remain in office if his New Square support remains unchanged.

Certainly, you would expect that any kind of quid pro quo between voting blocs and elected officials has no place in a democracy. But it’s a simple truth that water does flow downhill, and we, at Preserve Ramapo, would soon see an example of this kind of political gravity.

In the 2005 election, our poll watchers observed and collected evidence of voter tampering involving "gift privilege cards" that were given out to voters at a New Square polling location. When we sent the narrative and evidence to the New York Board of Elections, their attorneys wrote back that the cards constituted a felony violation of Section 17-142 of the State Election Law. On June 3, 2009 we filed a complaint with the DA's office and met with officials there to present evidence from the 2005 and 2006 elections. Three months later, we received notice that the investigation had been closed and one of the main reasons was that the DA’s Office had trouble finding witnesses. Actually they had not even bothered to call our chief witness who had picked up some of the cards, and when we FOILed the investigation report, we found they had not made a single phone call to any witnesses.

We believed that they hadn't found the witnesses because the boss had already found the kind of political support that they weren't going to tamper with. In the 2007 election for DA, Thomas Zugiibe won against Michael Bongiorno by 1,509 votes-- 33,152 to 31,643. Curiously, the vote in the two New Square polling places was Zugibe 1,987 Bongiorno 22. It was the margin of victory, and it was in the same districts that Bongiorno had won 1,630 to 9 in the previous election in 2003. That was before the Eliot Spitzer soiree in Nov 2007. We filed a complaint with the NYS Attorney General's Office but they just kind of filed that away with no satisfactory explanation.

Zugibe's office should not be prosecuting this case, nor should it be investigating possible criminal activity of the leaders in New Square relating to the Civil and Religious rights of the residents there.

Our indentured political figures, St. Lawrence, Brower, and Zugibe have to step aside for two reasons. First, we completely agree with The Journal News. This case clearly involves violations of federal law. In their editorial, the paper explains: "According to the Department of Justice's Criminal Section 'making violent conduct against religious property and those exercising their religious beliefs [is] a federal crime.' That protection certainly applies to choosing where one prays. It is time for a bigger inquiry into what happened in New Square."

Second, how this happened involves procedures and actions taken or not taken by the Ramapo Police Department. They have to be a focus of this investigation, and it does not help having the Supervisor and Chief of Police standing ready, each with a five- gallon bucket of whitewash at their sides.

Mr. Rottenberg's life and the life of his family will never be the same. In fact, at this time his survival is still in question. He did nothing to deserve what happened to him, and there is no place for this kind of sectarian terrorism in the town of Ramapo. And the last thing we need now is any more of St. Lawrence's attempts to blame the victim.