Sheriff’s Office can’t find Aaron, execute warrant
The developer might have left the state, and authorities are ‘keeping an eye on his normal haunts.’
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> The Ulster County Sheriff’s Office has been unable to execute a civil arrest warrant for local developer Steve Aaron because he might have left the state, a spokesman said Friday.
The Sheriff’s Office is “keeping an eye on [Aaron’s] normal haunts” in hopes of tracking him down, Detective Lt. Abram Markiewicz said.
State Supreme Court Justice Norman W. Seiter Jr., in Oswego County, issued a civil arrest warrant for Aaron on Oct. 29, the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office has said. Aaron lives in Kingston.
According to the Albany Times Union, Aaron “failed to comply with subpoenas or reply to questions issued” by The Steele Law Firm, which is based in Oswego. He also failed to appear for a deposition and owes the law firm $300,000 in attorney’s fees, the newspaper reported.
The Ulster County Sheriff’s Office has “been told [Aaron] has been hiding out in a hotel out of state, where the arrest warrant wouldn’t be valid on its face,” Markiewicz wrote in an email to the Freeman. He said Aaron might be in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, “but that is only unconfirmed rumor.”
Aaron has not returned a reporter’s calls, and Kimberly Steele, of The Steele Law Firm, has declined to comment.
On Friday, a man who answered Aaron’s cell phone number but refused to identify himself told the Freeman he had “heard rumors ... that the warrant — which should never have been issued — is going away.”
Markiewicz said Aaron is “not going to stay away forever,” but he speculated Aaron “will get his attorney to vacate the warrant.”
Aaron is the founder and managing partner of Birchez Associates, as well as the owner and manager of Rondout Properties Management.
Rondout Properties Management manages the buildings that Birchez Associates builds and owns, including Birchwood Village in the city of Kingston, the Birches at Saugerties, the Birches at Chambers in the town of Ulster, and the Birches at Esopus.
This is Aaron’s second recent legal entanglement.
In July, the local development and property management companies he founded and manages were sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Opportunity Commission for allegedly violating federal law by subjecting female employees to a sexually hostile work environment.
The suit, filed July 9 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, names Birchez Associates and Rondout Properties Management of Kingston as defendants. It alleges Aaron “frequently directed unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature at female employees.”
All three women resigned because the harassment was intolerable, the lawsuit states.