Union advises workers subpoenaed in cyber probe to consider using Suffolk County lawyers

Days after a special committee of the Suffolk Legislature voted to issue subpoenas to compel four employees in the county’s information technology department to testify in a cyberattack probe, a union representing them advised they could also contact the Bellone administration’s chief attorneys to arrange a defense.

The message from Daniel Levler, president of the Association for Municipal Employees, leaves open whether the employees choose a union attorney or one hired by the Bellone administration as part of its response to the special committee.  

The message contained in an AME update sent to employees May 8 also notes that Suffolk County law provides for the “defense and indemnification of employees,” and notes that the county has hired the Philadelphia firm Dechert LLP “to assist in this endeavor.”

It concludes with the email addresses of Suffolk County Attorney Dennis Brown, and “legal advisor” Dennis Cohen. Brown recently took over the role of county attorney after Cohen stepped down to take a post with the city of Long Beach. Cohen continues consulting to the county through year end.

Paul Sabatino, a former Suffolk chief deputy county executive and municipal lawyer, said it was a conflict of interest for the union to recommend that its members reach out to the county attorney for representation.

“The union should be asking for counsel of the individual’s choice that the county then would have to pay for," Sabatino said. "Otherwise, you have an inherent conflict of interest because you’ve got the county legislature investigating the cybersecurity attack, which involves the county executive's office." 

In response to Newsday's questions about whether the offer could present employees with a conflict, Levler in a statement said, "We have always shared resources and services available to our members, which are provided to them at no cost to them, and providing them with options available for legal counsel was consistent with that transparency." 

He added, "Regardless of which legal services the member selects, our union is always engaged throughout the process, ensuring that our members' employment rights are fully protected and that their interests are served in this process."

Suffolk spokeswoman Marykate Guilfoyle said if a conflict arises in providing counsel to employees, “the attorney is responsible to advise the employee of the conflict.” She said the county is affording employees the “opportunity to retain counsel to protect their interests.” 

Sabatino said the heart of the conflict is that the county attorney "is now picking the counsel for a witness who may be saying things that may be adverse to the interests of the County Executive’s office."

A person who has already testified to the committee under whistleblower status and the district attorney's office said the offer presents employees with a potential conflict of interest, depending on their testimony to the special committee's counsel. "I wouldn't go to either of them," said the employee, who requested anonymity, fearing reprisal.

As Newsday has reported, Dechert was hired by Suffolk earlier this year as the county was responding to voluminous document requests from special counsel Richard Donoghue, the former acting U.S. deputy attorney general who was hired by the committee to investigate the ransomware attack.

Donoghue said the county has already provided close to 20,000 documents, mostly emails, to the committee, with some smaller portion outstanding as of last week. He said the committee also has asked for a "number of interviews with people who are in the county executive's organization, and we will expect in the future to be talking to some of them. Some have agreed to voluntarily speak." 

But four unionized IT employees indicated directly or through counsel that they "did not want to submit to voluntary interviews," Donoghue said, and so were subpoenaed. 

Levler’s message on subpoenas was the second recent update from the union relating to the IT department unionized employees have received in recent months. In an April 21 message from Levler to “our dedicated IT professionals,” the union posted an apology by Suffolk IT commissioner Scott Mastellon in response to comments viewed as critical of employees during a tech conference last month.

He was responding to comments attributed to Mastellon in an April story in Government Computer News that characterized some employees as appearing to “suffer from Stockholm syndrome when it comes to legacy tech and processes," a union spokesman confirmed. 

“It’s the fear of the unknown, and that’s ridiculous,” GCN quoted him as saying. “It’s stupid. But it exists, and it is there, and you need to address it.”

Levler said Mastellon “shared that he is genuinely sorry for the impact of the out-of-context remarks,” and said Mastellon had committed to “working closely with our workforce and choosing his words more carefully going forward.”

Guilfoyle didn't immediately respond to questions about the Mastellon apology. 

Mastellon in the GCN story also criticized the county’s “controller” in the piece for previously resisting a migration of county systems to the cloud. Comptroller John Kennedy said he has been advocating for such a migration for his core financial management system to a dedicated cloud-based system from vendor CGI since July, and has met resistence. 

Kennedy on Tuesday called the commissioner’s comments “a flat-out falsehood amongst many falsehoods perpetrated by this administration.”

He said he’s made “repeated urgent requests to go into the cloud” with his financial management application “and I’ve been undermined and impeded in a migration that would be in furtherance of the financial stability of this county.”

Guilfoyle said Kennedy began requesting a cloud-based system in October, 2022. "As we work to harden our infrastructure and ensure the county is more resilient, any upgrades or implementation of new technology must be done in a cohesive and uniform fashion," she said.