By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 22 October 2013 at 12:00 am
George Brown committed crimes with his children in truck
ALBION – A Medina resident was sentenced to 2 1/3 to 7 years in state prison on Monday after he stole a truck, threatened a gas station clerk and led police on a multi-county chase.
George Brown, 36, committed the crimes last December while his children were with him.
Orleans County Court Judge James Punch said Brown’s actions in front of his children likely traumatized them. The judge said the crimes were abusive to the children.
“I’m just really sorry for what I’ve done,” Brown said in court during his sentencing.
He broke into the Orleans Ford dealership on Dec. 15, stealing a truck and then threatening a clerk at a gas station. Brown then led Medina Police and state troopers on a multi-county pursuit with his two children. He was stopped after driving over spikes deployed by the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office.
He pleaded guilty in August to third-degree burglary and third-degree attempted robbery. He received 2 1/3 to 7 years for the burglary and 1 1/3 to 4 years for the attempted robbery. The sentences will run concurrently or at the same time.
The judge said Brown had been “snorting bath salts,” but that didn’t excuse his conduct.
“This is a crime that cries out for punishment,” Punch said.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 22 October 2013 at 12:00 am
Photo by Tom Rivers
ALBION – The 9th annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk at Watt Farms raised about $47,000 with more donations expected to be tabulated.
About 800 participants walked through the orchards at Watt Farms on Sunday. The event has now raised about $275,000 over nine years for the American Cancer Society in Western New York.
ALBION – The Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority and Orleans Transportation Service celebrated the installation of a new bus shelter on Monday at the corner of South Main Street and West Avenue in the village of Albion.
RGRTA CEO Bill Carpenter was joined by RGRTA Commissioner Henry Smith, Jr., Orleans County Legislature Chairman David Callard, OTS Manager Mike Patterson and Jake Olles, the Albion deputy town supervisor.
Other RGRTA executives include Director of Regional Operations Ray LeChase and Chief Operating Officer Daniele Coll-Gonzalez also attended the ribbon-cutting. RGRTA installed its first bus shelter for the county in August by the County Administration Building.
“OTS provides quality, convenient and affordable transportation to over 35,500 customers annually,” said Carpenter, the RGRTA leader. “By adding this new shelter and the one installed in August, we are reinforcing our commitment to modernize our infrastructure to ensure our customers will no longer have to wait for the bus in the rain and snow.”
The OTS bus stop serves the shelter on a fixed route 11 times per day.
Funding for the bus shelter in Orleans County totaled $15,000, and was provided by the Federal Transit Administration.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 22 October 2013 at 12:00 am
Albion native Stacey Kirby created the artwork
Photo courtesy of Stacey Kirby – The Brockport community on Saturday celebrated the installation and unveiling of a new 20- by 8-foot mural highlighting the Brockport community in 1914-1916 when the canal was widened. The mural is on the DPW Building at 38 East Ave.
BROCKPORT – A former nondescript building on East Avenue, the village of Brockport’s DPW garage, now displays a striking painting that highlights one of Brockport’s most ambitious public works projects: the widening the Erie Canal in 1914-1916.
Albion native Stacey Kirby created the mural that is 20 feet wide and 8 feet high. On Saturday, the artwork was dedicated.
Kirby referenced historic photos from the massive project in creating the mural. She incorporated the old technology of moving freight along the canal with mule-drawn boats with the new technology of the day, steam engines that powered the steam shovel in the painting.
She has a worker in the foreground holding a shovel. (Kirby took a photo of a barista at a coffee shop in Rochester as a model for the worker. She usually picks family and friends as her models in the murals.)
Kirby has two murals in Albion inside the Lyceum for the Catholic Church on Main Street.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 22 October 2013 at 12:00 am
ALBION – An Albion man who broke into a church last January was sentenced to 1 to 3 years in state prison for attempted robbery in the third degree.
Michael G. Andre, 23, of West Park Street broke into the Presbyterian Church in Albion on Jan. 14. He broke a window in a locked church office and stole a laptop.
Andre was ordered to pay restitution over the next 18 months. He has several prior criminal offenses, District Attorney Joe Cardone said during the sentencing on Monday.
“Drugs have ruined your life,” County Court Judge James Punch told Andre. “You’re leaving a trail of victims.”
In another case in Albion, Judge Punch sentenced a woman who violated probation by using cocaine to a year in county jail.
Dawn M. Stachewicz, 41, of Albion pleaded guilty to the crime in August, when she also confessed to possessing drug paraphernalia, which also violated her probation.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 21 October 2013 at 12:00 am
Punch wants psychiatric evaluation for Rothmund
Rothmund in his July mugshot
ALBION – A Rochester man confessed in court today that he robbed the Bank of America in Albion on July 2, showing up at the bank wearing a mask and threatening a clerk with a bomb that later was discovered to be fake.
Jeremy Rothmund, 30, admitted the crime as part of a plea deal that would reduce his sentence from a maximum of 20 years in state prison to no more than 15 years.
However, County Court Judge James Punch, after listening to Rothmund, said he couldn’t accept the plea without a psychiatric evaluation for Rothmund, who also confessed in court to robbing two banks in the town of Greece.
Rothmund is being held in a psychiatric facility after attempting suicide in the Orleans County Jail earlier this month. Rothmund on Oct. 16 also injured a corrections officer in the county jail. He hasn’t been charged yet with that crime.
Punch told Rothmund a plea deal for the bank robbery wouldn’t include all of Rothmund’s other crimes.
“You’re not getting a blank check for everything you ever did,” Punch told him.
Rothmund hasn’t been diagnosed with mental health issues, nor is he taking any medications, he told Judge Punch in court today. But Rothmund said he feels stress from the “proceedings” – being in jail and facing a lengthy prison sentence.
In court, he said his girlfriend, Elyse A. Hoffer, didn’t know he was robbing banks. Rothmund said he told her to park behind the Freeze-Dry building on Route 31 near the railroad tracks while he went to buy drugs.
Rothmund returned with a bag full of $18,000. He said he told Huffer to drive fast out of town. (The two were later stopped and arrested in Holley after a resident identified them in Albion and called the police.)
Punch questioned Rothmund about the claim that Huffer didn’t know she was driving the getaway car from a robbery. Rothmund told the judge she didn’t know beforehand if he was robbing a bank, but she later realized it.
Punch said the plea offer was made with the premise that Rothmund was unaided in the robberies. But the judge said Huffer clearly assisted Rothmund, even if she was “tricked.”
Punch ordered the psychiatric evaluation for Rothmund, who is due back in court at 2 p.m. on Nov. 18.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 21 October 2013 at 12:00 am
Hawley leads SAFE Act forum attended by 200 in Albion
Photos by Tom Rivers – Orleans County District Attorney Joe Cardone, second from left, answers a question about the SAFE Act during a forum in Albion on Monday. He is joined by Chief Deputy Tom Drennan, left, and State Assemblyman Steve Hawley, and Steve Aldstadt, state president of the Shooters Committee on Political Education or SCOPE.
ALBION – If someone in Orleans County is violating New York’s new gun law, the SAFE Act, law enforcement officials told them not to worry unless they are using the gun to commit a crime.
If law-abiding citizens and sportsmen have guns that cosmetically could soon be considered illegal or if they have a gun with 10 bullets instead of the limit of seven, they don’t need to worry that their guns will be seized or that they will be arrested or fined.
That was the message from District Attorney Joe Cardone and Tom Drennan, chief deputy of the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department.
“We won’t be there knocking on your door, I can tell you that,” Drennan told 200 people during a SAFE Act forum Monday night in Albion at the middle school.
Cardone said Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the majority of the State Legislature, in a “knee-jerk reaction,” approved the SAFE Act without thinking through its ramifications, particularly on law-abiding gun owners.
As DA, he is sworn to uphold New York laws, but he is also bound to support the Constitution. Many gun owners believe the SAFE Act violates their Second Amendment rights.
“We’re put in a very difficult position,” Cardone said tonight during a forum.
Mattie Zarpentine, Western NY regional coordinator for New York Revolution, urges gun owners to be more active politically by registering to vote and casting their ballots on election day.
State Assemblyman Steve Hawley coordinated the forum. Hawley opposed the SAFE Act and he has introduced legislation to repeal it. New York should start over in looking for solutions to curb violence in communities by using a legislative process that is open to the public and welcomes input from sportsmen, law enforcement agencies, veterans, businesses and gun owners, Hawley said.
Cuomo pushed through the SAFE Act in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut. The law, which restricts access to guns and ammunition, was passed without a public hearing.
“I say shame on the governor for using people’s emotions to pass his own agenda,” Hawley said.
Steve Aldstadt, state president of the Shooters Committee on Political Education or SCOPE, said at least five lawsuits are trying to block the SAFE Act. Those judicial battles could wage for years.
The best way to combat the SAFE Act is to vote Cuomo out of office during the November 2014 election, said several speakers, including Steve Aldstadt, state president of SCOPE. State Assemblyman Steve Hawley said he is working for a repeal of the SAFE Act. Hawley also said the election next November is likely gun owners’ best hope for changing the law.
Mattie Zarpentine of Holley, the Western NY regional director for New York Revolution, urged all gun owners to register to vote and then cast a ballot in the state-wide elections. NY Revolution formed after the SAFE Act’s passage. It worked to secure formal resolutions from the county, and 10 town and four village government boards in Orleans County, the only county in the state where all levels of local government opposed the SAFE Act.
Zarpentine said gun owners, if they turned out in force in the state-wide election, could oust Cuomo from office.
Hawley organized the forum so gun owners could have information about the SAFE Act and its impact on them. But the assemblyman said the law is often vague, creating anxiety and uncertainty for gun owners as well as law enforcement.
“Bad process leads to bad policy and that’s what we have here,” he said.
The law forbids certain features on guns, forces doctors or counselors to report mentally ill patients who own guns, and creates a $500 incentive for people to report SAFE Act law-breakers. Gun owners can also have their names and addresses obtained through public records unless they chose to opt out. Some newspapers have published lists of gun owners and their addresses.
Jim Moore of Clarendon said he opposes the SAFE Act but thinks something needs to be done to reduce gun violence.
Gun owners will have to re-register every five years. It will be harder to pass down guns through the family, and it will be much more difficult to buy ammunition.
“It’s hard to believe they passed this,” said Aldstadt, the SCOPE leader. “There are so many onerous provisions out there that will effect law-abiding citizens.”
Drennan, the chief deputy, said the SAFE Act unfortunately targets sportsmen and citizens who follow the law.
“A lot of this is ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense,” he said about the SAFE Act.
Cardone said some of the SAFE Act provisions stiffen the penalties for criminals who break the law while using a gun. In those cases the law will help put criminals in jail or prison. In those cases, Cardone said, he would use the SAFE Act to prosecute criminals.
But he won’t use it for standalone crimes that involve only the SAFE Act. So far no one in Orleans County has been arrested under the SAFE Act.
“If someone faces other charges they could be charged with the SAFE Act,” Cardone said. “But John Q Public, I’m not going out of my way to make a problem for them.”
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 21 October 2013 at 12:00 am
ALBION – The Orleans County Health Facilities Corporation, the organization that is working with county officials to find a buyer for the nursing home, said bidders have submitted proposals that would pay off the county debt on the Route 31 site.
That’s all the details the local development corporation will release after meeting Friday to review the offers for The Villages of Orleans, the 120-bed nursing home.
The LDC and county attorneys said specific details of the proposals will not be made public right now because doing so could impact negotiations as well as the purchase price.
“We can say that we have some very strong proposals from highly qualified nursing home operators with successful track records in the long-term care industry and with the New York State Department of Health,” said Russell Martino, chairman of the LDC board. “All proposals submitted satisfy the financial needs of the county relative to the outstanding debt. Based on what we’re seeing, we have some really positive choices to make.”
The county still owes $8 million on a 2006 renovation and expansion project that cost $10 million. Orleans also owes $300,000 from a renovation in 1994. The county is scheduled to be paying on the $8 million in debt until 2026.
The LDC board will interview the potential operators and visit homes they are currently own and operate. The LDC will also study data about the operators provided by state and federal agencies.
The LDC won’t necessarily take the highest bid for the nursing home. Martino has said other factors will be part of the decision, incuding maintaining a partnership with Albion Central School to continue a classroom for high school students at the site.
Completion of the transaction will allow the new provider to begin the process of obtaining a certificate of need from the state Department of Health, a process that can take 12 to 18 months. The county could own The Villages until at least 2015.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 21 October 2013 at 12:00 am
MEDINA – The plan for a new Dunkin’ Donuts in Medina will go before the Orleans County Planning Board on Thursday.
The board will review the site plan at 7 p.m. in the County Administration Building, and planners will make a recommendation whether Shelby town officials should approve a special use permit and variance for the project at 11378 Maple Ridge Rd.
The review by the county is needed before the Shelby Town Planning Board and also the Zoning Board of Appeals can give a final vote on the project.
JFJ Holdings of North Andover, Mass., is the developer for the project. The company is also working to build a Dunkin’ Donuts in Albion, right next to the Tim Hortons on Main Street.
County planners will look at two other projects on Thursday: an amendment to the Ridgeway zoning map to reclassify 11 Parcels on Ridge Road near Oregon Road from the Rural Residential District to Hamlet District, and an area variance, site plan review and special use permit for kennel in Kendall at 15705 Carr Rd.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 21 October 2013 at 12:00 am
ALBION – Robert W. Tetrault received a maximum sentence to 2 to 4 years in state prison today. He didn’t like the punishment.
He turned his back on Orleans County Court Judge James Punch when the sentencing was announced. Then when Tetrault was led out of court he kicked a door open, cracking the glass in a small window in the door. He will likely face criminal mischief charges for that, Punch said.
Tetrault, 32, of Albion was sentenced for attempted second-degree assault and third-degree attempted criminal possession of a weapon. He pleaded guilty to the crime on Aug. 19, and faced the possibility of a minimum sentence of 1 ½ to 3 years in state prison.
But Punch opted for the maximum sentence, citing “a random act of violence that makes no sense.”
Tetrault had a knife when he was fighting with his brother Chris Tetrault on May 23. Chris’s wife Wendy attempted to intervene in the fight and suffered “a severe laceration across her hand” from the knife, District Attorney Joe Cardone said in August when Tetrault pleaded guilty.
Tetrault’s attorney Nathan Pace said his client has worked through drug and alcohol counseling and had not been in trouble with the law since 2005.
Punch said the recklessness of the assault and Tetrault’s criminal history prompted the maximum sentence.
“You’re living by the craze year after year,” Punch said during the sentencing.
