Nicosia files lawsuit over racist party claims
Event host fights back against allegations
Nicholas Nicosia, the East Avenue resident who was alleged to have cohosted a racist party last summer with on-duty Rochester firefighters as guests, has filed a defamation lawsuit against the lawyer for the Black firefighter who brought those claims as well as one of the firefighter’s prominent local defenders.
The lawsuit accuses Nate McMurray, the attorney, and Rachel Barnhart, a Monroe County legislator, of defaming Nicosia by helping label him publicly as a racist.
Since being named as hosts of the party in Jerrod Jones’ lawsuit against the city of Rochester, Nicosia claims to have lost about a third of his dental business, to have been targeted with hate mail and death threats and to have been unfairly been labeled as a racist.
He accused McMurray and Barnhart of seeking to “promote their careers by ginning up hate crime hoaxes, regardless of the damage done, not only, in this case, to Nicosia but to race relations in municipalities such as Rochester.”
“Basically,” according to the complaint, “Defendants are the boys and girls who cry, ‘Wolf !’”
The lawsuit, filed this week in state Supreme Court, makes good on a promise from Nicosia’s former attorney, Corey Hogan, who stood beside him and his wife, Mary Znidarsic, at a bumpy press conference last August.
Hogan has since had his New York law license suspended. Nicosia is now represented by Mike Allen, a Connecticut attorney who specializes in the representation of ‘cancel culture’ victims.
The lawsuit will face an immediate challenge in overcoming New York’s newly strengthened anti-SLAPP law, meant to discourage lawsuits seeking to chill protected speech.
Barnhart declined to comment and McMurray did not respond to a request for comment.
Racist or ‘liberal smashing’?
This much is not in dispute: on July 7, 2022, Nicosia and Znidarsic hosted a party at their 9,800 square-foot East Avenue home, at least partly for the purpose of “liberal smashing,” as Hogan put it last summer. At some point in the evening, RFD Capt. Jeffrey Krywy arrived with three more junior firefighters, including Jones.
Jones’ original lawsuit targeted Krywy, the fire department and the city. But it was Nicosia and Znidarsic who emerged as the public faces of the scandal, in particular after their press conference where Znidarsic tearfully denied charges of racism while also conceding that she operated a highly racist anonymous Twitter account.
In the new lawsuit, Nicosia denies or explains away many of the elements of the party in question. According to the complaint:
● The Juneteenth decorations were not mocking the holiday but rather a small part of the décor, tucked behind a potted oregano plant.
● The fried chicken on offer was not a racist trope but rather the hosts’ contribution to a potluck meal.
● A woman dressed as Barnhart was not a stripper or burlesque performer.
● A picture of Barnhart displayed on the yard had no sexual overtones but rather was simply “a backstop to a ‘corn hole’ game.”
● A gift bag of cognac that Jones received came from another guest, not Nicosia and Znidarsic.
The party by definition could not be construed as mocking Juneteenth, Nicosia argues, because it took place in the month of July. And he holds Barnhart and McMurray responsible for “torpedo (ing) the career of La’Ron Singletary,” the Black former Rochester police chief who that fall ran for Congress as a Republican and lost.
“Nicosia and his wife offered Mr. Jones food and thanked him for his service to the city of Rochester along with the other four firemen,” the complaint reads (there were in fact only three other firefighters present). “Jerrod Jones was observed at the party relaxing with his legs outstretched petting the family’s Labrador.”
The lawsuit contains several photographs of the yard decorations in question. But Allen, the Nicosia’s attorney, communicating through a representative of the crisis communications firm Sitrick and Co., said they were “provided after the fact” -- the same staged reenactment that Hogan displayed at last summer’s press conference.
“If the firefighter, Mr. Jones, had been so upset, or if there had been a real ‘racist’ tirade, we would have Expected Him or others to have actually recorded things in real time,” Allen wrote in an email.
Besides the loss of business, Nicosia and his wife also lost several volunteer positions they held in the community. The lawsuit includes a copy of a handwritten note suggesting Nicosia commit suicide.
In an interview with Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper this week, Nicosia said he is “in it for the long haul,” even though he realizes it won’t rehabilitate his image.
“Cancel culture is about them doing anything to keep the facts and the truth out of the picture,” he said. “Well, it’s time for the truth to come out.”
If Nicosia does not prevail in his lawsuit, a judge could require him to pay the defendants’ legal fees. New York recently expanded its anti-harassment law, known as an anti-SLAPP law, meant to discourage frivolous lawsuits seeking to shut off protected First Amendment speech.
“We are not concerned about the standards of the New York anti-SLAPP statute,” Allen wrote in an email. “The evidence is overwhelming of the lies told about my client, for which you can refer to the Complaint.”
From 2021: Geneva citizen journalist awarded damages for frivolous defamation lawsuit
McMurray also faces a lawsuit related to the party from Irondequoit Police Chief Scott Peters.
After Peters’ name was put forth to become police chief, McMurray emailed the town attorney saying that Peters helped organize and attended the party; Peters said he has never met Nicosia and wasn’t at the party.
McMurray, who then was representing Irondequoit town board member Patrina Freeman in a lawsuit against the town, responded that Peters’ lawsuit is an unlawful attempt to silence him.