‘UNCIVIL’ CIVICS
Pol: Don’t stalk my staffer!
A Queens pol claims her top staffer is being threatened and stalked by an unhinged civic leader — so she showed up on his home turf to warn everyone it won’t be tolerated.
Republican City Councilwoman Joann Ariola and her chief of staff Phyllis Inserillo crashed an Ozone Park Residents Block Association meeting flanked by Council security last week to describe alleged “harassment” by the group’s embattled president, disgraced exNYPD cop Saverio “Sam” Esposito.
“The lies have got to be exposed, and they have to be stopped!” fumed Ariola at the March 14 meeting, continuing to speak even after board member Darma Diaz cut off her microphone. “You all deserve better.”
Diaz, a Democrat, is an associate commissioner for the city’s Department of Homeless Services and a former Brooklyn councilwoman.
Ariola and her aide also brought muscle — two sergeant-at-arms usually responsible for maintaining order at City Council meetings.
Using the Council’s security outside regular business hours is rare, but Ariola deemed it necessary because she and Inserillo “fear for their safety.”
Inserillo filed two police reports in the past four months accusing Esposito of “following” her, making threats and other harassment, records show.
During the meeting, Ariola expanded on the complaints, alleging Esposito tried intimidating Inserillo by tailing her in a van.
She also read a laundry list of disputes she claimed Esposito allegedly started with other community leaders, fueled, she said, by him spreading “false” information in public and on social media about migrants, holiday lighting and other topics.
A November letter from Esposito to Ariola obtained by The Post threatened to expose her office as “homophobic” if she didn’t punish Inserillo for allegedly making earlier false remarks about him.
Inserillo denied ever trying to smear Esposito’s reputation.