Councilman is facing abuse lawsuits
Lawyer says suits against Kosiur are way to seek money
A Schenectady City Council member is being sued in state Supreme Court in Buffalo on accusations that he sexually abused two children under his care in the early 1970s.
Ed Kosiur, a councilman since at least 2014, is accused of abusing the children in lawsuits filed in August under the state’s Child Victims Act, a law passed in 2019 which allows lawsuits that were once time-barred to be filed by 2021.
Kosiur’s lawyer says they ’ll fight the claims, which she called a “money grab.”
Kosiur, 64, a Democrat, who lives in the city ’s Woodlawn section, is a one-time minor league umpire who became a youth worker with the Schenectady Girls and Boys Club and later, an elected official at the county and city level in Schenectady. He was a vice chairman of the Schenectady County Legislature and member of the Board of Education.
The plaintiffs, both born in 1962, alleged in their suits that Kosiur was “an adult male who was looked up to by ” the young children in 1973 and 1974.
Kosiur, who is married, would have been a teenager at the time of the incidents.
The lawsuits alleged that Kosiur abused children at two addresses in Buffalo, including the basement and garage of a home, as well as at the side of railroad tracks. The suits alleged sexual assault and battery, negligence and infliction of emotional distress.
The suits were filed in state Supreme Court in Erie County by John Lloyd Egan Jr. The story was reported earlier Friday by The Buffalo News.
Kosiur is being represented by Cheryl Meyers Buth in Buffalo and in the Capital Region, for now, by Paul Derohannesian.
“These claims should be thrown out. My client was a teenager in the 1970s when they say this happened,” she said late Friday in an email. “He start
ed his own successful plumbing business after high school and eventually became an elected official. He has a stellar record of dedicated public service. People will see this for what it is — nothing more than a money grab. We’ll do whatever it takes to defend him.”
When Kosiur ran for City
Council in 2014, his campaign literature stated: “As I have told folks on many occasions, ‘You can pave every street, replace every sidewalk and curb, however, if we do not support the Schenectady City School District, we will be in dire straits.’ Our youth and school district must be a top priority for our City if we expect to attract young families to invest and most important, live in our City.”