IT’S ONE FOR THE BOOKS
Library pays foe
The Queens Public Library has to foot the bill for the legal defense of its exchief — even though he is accused of turning library coffers into his personal piggy bank, a Brooklyn federal judge ruled Thursday.
Former President and CEO Thomas Galante — who sued the library last year after he was canned over his questionable expenses — is entitled under state law to funds for his defense against the library’s countersuit against him.
Galante (inset) will receive an advancement of “reasonable litigation expenses,” as well as reimbursements for legal costs incurred to date, Judge Allyne Ross said in her 12-page order.
The library hit back against Galante in its own suit, claiming it paid for more than $200,000 in personal expenses, including booze, concert tickets, parking tickets, books for his Kindle and a new roof deck, court papers say.
It also wants Galante to repay more than $260,000 in separate legal fees related to a prior probe by the US Attorney’s Office.
The library argued, in part, that it wasn’t responsible to front Galante’s defense because he wasn’t a true “officer” of the library.
But Ross ruled that Galante has raised “genuine issues of fact or law” when it comes to the library’s counter claims and that he is entitled to the legal funds under New York’s Not-ForProfit Law, which allows “a director or officer of a notfor-profit corporation to seek advancement of legal fees when a lawsuit is filed against him for which he may ultimately be entitled to indemnification,” court papers say. The judge also noted “all fees must be repaid if [Galante] is ultimately found not to be entitled to indemnification.”
Lawyers for the library didn’t respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
Galante, who was fired “for cause” in 2014 after 27 years of employment, has maintained the expenses were to benefit the library.
In previous court papers, he says $89,000 of the $200,000 the library wants repaid were for “meals and beverages ordered by [library] trustees and other officers at dinners following meetings.”