Nominating this guy was initial error
EVERYTHING IS not peaches and cream for a co-founder of Edible Arrangements who said Tuesday that a chichi Connecticut country club rejected him for membership because he’s Muslim.
Businessman Kamran Farid was a temporary member of Pine Orchard Yacht and Country Club in Branford for two years before being turned away when he wanted to become permanent last year.
The 38-year-old entrepreneur, who was born in Pakistan but moved to the U.S. as a toddler, said some members sent racist letters opposing his candidacy at the club, which has a $30,000 initiation fee and annual dues of roughly $8,000.
“I can’t tell you how much that bothers me,” Farid told the Daily News on Tuesday.
The high-end fruit basket tycoon said he started attending the ritzy, 500-member, waterside boat club because it is near his house and his kids like to use the pool.
A lawsuit filed last month claims members fighting his acceptance said Farid and his family “supported terrorism” and insulted him based on his race, religion, color and national origin.
Others complained in the letters to the membership board that Farid’s wife, Kara, and their three daughters would wear hijabs at the club and, if accepted, try to bring in more Muslim members.
William Murray, the club’s lawyer, told The News that the allegations are false and that the court process will reveal the true reasons Farid was rejected.
Murray said Pine Orchard does not cherry-pick, nor consider race or religion, when choosing new members, but added the response from current members regarding Farid’s family was “unprecedented and overwhelming.”
“I would never have filed a lawsuit if I thought they had a leg to stand on,” Farid responded, adding he and his family never received notice of any misbehavior.
The fruit bouquet pioneer claims a core group of members, forming an “old boys club,” solicited the letters against him from members who didn’t even know him.
Both Farid and his attorney Chris Nelson noted the exclusive establishment doesn’t have any minority members.
Farid said he is pursuing the lawsuit so that the same thing doesn’t happen to others, and that those who opposed him had “messed with someone who can afford to finally fight them.”
Members supporting the businessman started a petition for him and his family to be permanent members. The petition had 66 signatures as of Tuesday night. A BROOKLYN man who shares the same name as a well-known lawyer says he’s “annoyed” to find out he was put on the ballot for a major judgeship without his knowledge.
John A. Meringolo is the Reform Party candidate for a countywide Brooklyn Civil Court judge seat, city Board of Elections records show.
According to board documents, talk radio host Frank Morano filed the petition for Meringolo to be on the ballot — and Guardian Angels head Curtis Sliwa signed the nominating form as a witness.
Meringolo — who can’t legally be a judge because he’s not a lawyer — said a political organization sent him a letter and said it was nominating him for the position.
Meringolo, 43, told the Daily News he doesn’t recall which political group reached out, but was pretty sure he asked the group not to float his name. The financier said he never wanted to be on the ballot and does not want to be a judge.
When contacted by The News, both Morano and Sliwa insisted they meant to nominate wellknown mob lawyer John C. Meringolo, 42 — and got his address confused with the nonlawyer’s. John C. Meringolo said he wouldn’t have wanted the gig even if the nomination weren’t botched.
“I’m content with being a lawyer and a law professor,” the Pace University teacher said. “And I have no interest in being a judge.”