Cuomo vows fight against bias crimes
Governor, state police boss come to town to announce arrest in Mother Earth’s case
TOWNOF ULSTER, N.Y. » An arrest Friday, 11 days after an alleged anti- Semitic incident at Mother Earth’s Storehouse, brought Gov. Andrew Cuomo to town with a pledge to prosecute hate and bias crimes in New York state “to the fullest extent of the law.”
The governor was at the state police barracks on U.S. Route 209 in Ulster for a press conference called to announce the arrest of William Sullivan, 21, of Saugerties, at his home on Friday. Sullivan was charged with aggravated harassment, a misdemeanor, for allegedly making anti- Semitic remarks to a fellow employee of the town of Ulster store.
He was released with a ticket to appear in Ulster Town Court on Tuesday, March 26. If convicted, Sullivan faces up to one year in jail.
“Bias-related crime, hate crimes, are not just wrong, they’re not just unethical, they are illegal,” Cuomo said. “And we will prosecute every case to the fullest extent of the law. And that is my promise as governor of the state of New York: zero tolerance for racism, discrimination, hate crimes in the state of New York.”
The arrest, announced by Cuomo and state police acting Superintendent Keith Corlett, followed an investigation into an incident alleged to have occurred March 11 at Mother Earth’s Storehouse in Kings Mall in the town of Ulster.
Authorities said Sullivan has no prior criminal record.
At the press conference, Corlett said a female employee, who is Jewish, reported she was in a cooler at the store with a coworker when Sullivan came to the doorway and shut off the lights.
In prepared remarks at the press conference, Corlett said, “I warn you, this is a little difficult to say, and [Sullivan] said: ‘ You’re in the gas chamber now,’ and then said, ‘ You ef’in Jew,’ an obviously offensive anti-Semitic statement. The victim said she was crying.”
The incident was reported by the Daily Free- man on March 18 after Jackie Winder Shabanowitz of Kerhonkson posted on Facebook that it was her daughter, Sarah, who was the employee in the cooler.
Corlett said the incident was reported to store management and then to the state police and that one witness was interviewed prior to Sullivan’s arrest.
“Over the past few years, we have witnessed a disturbing trend with the number of reported hate crimes significantly increasing,” the police official said. “Bias-related crimes are not welcome in this state.”
Cuomo and Corlett were joined at Friday’s press conference by state police Troop F Commander Maj. Pierce Gallagher and Kings- ton Mayor Steve Noble. While it’s unusual for the governor to participate in news conferences announcing a misdemeanor arrest, Cuomo’s office told The Associated Press he made the trip to Ulster to bring attention to the rise in anti- Semitic episodes in the state this year. Pointing to a rise in hate crimes nationwide and across the state, Cuomo said the situation is “only getting worse, and it’s a virus and it’s a cancer and it’s spreading.” “Between 2016 and 2017, we had a 60 percent increase nationwide in the number of anti- Semitic attacks,” he said at the press conference. “In New York state, the number is actu- ally worse. From 2016 to 2017, we’ve had a 90 percent increase in anti-Semitic attacks. This year, 2019, we have started off in just the first few months of this year with an ever-increasing pattern of anti-Semitic incidents.”
The governor said hate is “spreading across the country and across the globe,” targeting Muslims; members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community; and Latinos.
He cited specifically the March 15 mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 50 people were killed.
Mother Earth’s Storehouse co- owner Kevin Schneider said on Monday that the employee accused of making the anti-Semitic remarks, whose name he did not provide, was fired. He said Sarah Shabanowitz quit in the wake of the incident.
A statement released Thursday by Ilann M. Maazel, Sarah Shabanowitz’s lawyer, said the store’s response “was a perfect example of how not to respond to a complaint of workplace harassment. They did nothing to keep Sarah safe. They belittled anti- Semitism in the workplace and told Sarah to keep quiet.”
Maazel said the problem at Mother Earth’s is “not just the employee; it is management,” and he pledged to “pursue every available remedy in response to Mother Earth’s appalling conduct.”
In her first public state- ment since the incident, Sarah Shabanowitz, said she is an 18-year- old college student who began working in the store’s produce department in March 2018. She confirmed that she quit after the incident but said she did so because she was not allowed to leave early after becoming upset by what she felt was insensitive treatment by store managers.
She recounted the cooler incident and said she was “horrified” by what Sullivan allegedly said. She said management asked Sullivan for an apology, which she described as “insincere.”
“The next day, March 12, I told the co- owner of Mother Earth, Chris Schneider, what Will had said, and management’s failure to respond or do anything to make me feel safe,” Shabanowitz said in a written statement. “Chris told me, ‘My friends have called me worse.’ The next day, March 13, [another management employee] told me: ‘ You can’t work together. I’m going to move you to another department.’ [She] also told me to tell nobody what Will had done.
“The way Mother Earth treated me was wrong,” Shabanowitz added. “Not just Will, but management and the ownership. No one did anything to make me safe. No one took this seriously. Instead, management ordered me to keep quiet. I will not be quiet. No one should be subjected to antiSemitism or racism or sex-
ogized to me for what happened.”
In a statement issued Thursday, the Jewish Federation of Ulster County said it had reached out to Shabanowitz and her family to offer support, help and guidance and to Nina Dawson, of the Ulster County Human Rights Commission, for assistance in filing a complaint about the incident.
“The public statements from Mother Earth corroborate that in fact an antiSemitic incident did take place,” the Jewish Federation statement said.
Referring to “unresolved questions with regard to the circumstances surrounding this incident, including how Mother Earth’s owners, management and employees handled the matter,” the federation said it would be in touch with Mother Earth’s management to offer education and training resources.
Acting Ulster County Executive Adele Reiter said in an emailed statement Friday afternoon that she shares Cuomo’s “outrage” over the alleged incident.
“No one should be subjected to harassment or intimidation, and I express my support to Ms. Shabanowitz in the aftermath of this ordeal,” Reiter said. “Ulster County is a community full of caring individuals, and so I encourage our residents to rise to the challenge of anti-Semitism, racism, intimidation and hate in all its forms, with equal measure of conviction and compassion, so that we can say with sincerity that hate has no place here.”
Town of Ulster Supervisor James Quigley, who was noticeably absent from Friday’s press conference, said he had not been invited and had no knowledge of Sullivan’s arrest until Friday morning, “when my phone started lighting up with my people, from the town of Ulster, saying, ‘ Where are you?’”
Quigley said he was not invited to the event though Mother Earth’s Storehouse and the state police barracks are both in the town of Ulster.
Asked why, Quigley said: “I think it’s a matter of registration. [Cuomo’s] a registered Democrat. I’m a registered Republican. I think that’s clear.”
Noble, asked why he was at the press conference when the alleged offense didn’t happen in Kingston, said the incident was about “more than just the bounds of my city.” He said he is compelled to respond “when hate happens anywhere in my region.”
Noble, like Cuomo, is a Democrat.
Quigley said he “absolutely” would have attended the press conference had he been invited.
“You don’t get an invitation from the governor every day. You certainly don’t want to disrespect him by not showing up,” he said.
Quigley said his only knowledge of the incident was based on what he read in the Freeman, but speaking in general, he said, “anti-Semitic remarks have no place in our society, as well as all hate-filled speech.”