Probing claim of hushing cop ‘rape’
IT’S A FAMILY feud over sweet rides.
The mother, sister and daughters of the Brooklyn cherry baron who killed himself after authorities stumbled upon his secret pot-growing operation have gotten into a bitter squabble, filing lawsuits against one another over high-priced company cars and inflated salaries.
In March the sister of Arthur Mondella — the deceased owner of Dell’s Maraschino Cherries — accused his daughters of elbowing her out of the business.
The sister, Joanne Capece, 61, sued in Brooklyn Federal Court to have the Red Hook company dissolved, saying she was once the “second in command” but was pushed out, and since then her nieces have mismanaged the place.
Capece’s lawyer, Doron Leiby, said between January and February, his client was stripped of duties, demoted and saw her pay go from $150,000 to $50,000. Capece was ultimately fired, Leiby said.
Joanne lost “so much of her family in such a short time. It’s a tragic thing,” Leiby told the Daily News. But Dell’s has a different take. In papers responding to the lawsuit, the company said if anyone was running the company into the ground, it was Capece.
Sales slipped while Capece upgraded car leases so she and her 83-yearold mom, Antoinette Mondella, could each get “top-tier” Mercedes-Benz cars, the company says. The two white 2015 GLA class rides cost roughly $700 a month, the company said, noting the pair wanted reimbursements on Dell’s dime.
The company also filed its own suit, accusing Capece and her mom of not looking out for Dell’s best interests. Instead the mother-daughter duo gave themselves hefty salary bumps, Dell’s said.
The accusations led Antoinette to file another lawsuit, demanding Dell’s pay her the approximate $93,000 remainder of unpaid loans she once gave to the company. She also complained that she was on the hook for about $10,000 after Dell’s refused to pay for the car.
The litigation got stickier recently when Dell’s sued two insurance companies, claiming the insurers are not covering the company for Antoinette’s lawsuit on the loans and car lease.
The cherry business first hit a sour note on Feb. 24, 2015, when Arthur Mondella, 57, locked himself in a bathroom and shot himself in the head, as authorities were checking out suspected improper wastewater discharge. They discovered about 80 pounds of pot and hundreds of thousands in cash, sources told The News.
The family discord soon followed, pitting generations against each other.
Richard Luthmann, a lawyer for the company, said another attorney misplaced Mondella’s original will.
That mistake spurred a Surrogate’s Court fight on using a replacement will to carry out Mondella’s last wishes, Luthmann said.
The estate gave Capece a 20% share in the business. Mondella’s three daughters had the remaining shares split between them. Luthmann said it was Mondella’s wish to have his heirs run things.
Daughters Dana Bentz and Dominique Mondella now helm the company, Luthmann said. Bentz, 29, is the president and CEO. Dominique, 31, is a vice president.
“They were a family,” said Luthmann, who added that despite all the drama, the business with almost 100 employees is doing better than ever.
“It’s a shame that certain people allowed this to get between them. It was Joanne and Antoinette that fired the first shot.”
But Leiby said, “The suggestion Joanne was the aggressor is ludicrous.” THE NYPD opened an investigation Friday into whether cops tried to pressure an 18-year-old woman who claimed she was raped by two detectives in Brooklyn to withdraw her allegations.
The allegations came from the alleged victim’s lawyer Michael David, who said nine police officers from the 60th Precinct tried to intimidate her to back off when she and her mom went to Maimonides Medical Center about midnight on Sept. 16. She was there to get a rape kit.
“They were trying to get her to go back on her story and say they weren’t real cops,” said David, who represents the victim in her impending lawsuit against the city.
A high-ranking police source expressed heavy skepticism about the claim. “They were doing a field investigation and when they determined what it was, they moved forward with the investigation,” the official said. “This is about the lawsuit.”
The woman, who uses the moniker Anna Chambers on social media, has alleged that then-narcotics Detectives Eddie Martins and Richard Hall encountered her and two friends at Calvert Vaux Park in Gravesend around 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 15. They allegedly handcuffed and raped her in a police van.
In October, a Brooklyn grand jury indicted Martins and Hall on rape, kidnapping and official misconduct charges. Martins and Hall were demoted and then quit the NYPD on Nov. 6 ahead of a trial on departmental charges. They have claimed the encounter was consensual and denied handcuffing her.
David said he first learned of the alleged intimidation about 10 days ago when the accuser’s mother blurted it out. He said he is adding the intimidation allegation on Monday to the notice of claim he filed with the city.
Martins’ lawyer Mark Bederow tried throwing cold water on the charge, noting that Chambers was interviewed the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau on Sept. 16, and if she made the allegation then presumably it would have been part of the prosecutor’s case.
“If she told this to IAB on Sept. 16, why didn’t he cite his outrage when he slammed the DA for moving slowly because of his concern they were protecting the detectives?” he said.
David said IAB was focused on the rape, and investigators didn’t speak to Chambers for long.