Challenger for Centre Island mayor urges court to act as Election Day nears
Andrew Woodstock, of Centre Island, left, is challenging Mayor Lawrence Schmidlapp. Credit: Rick Kopstein; Elliot Conway
The attorney for a Centre Island businessman disqualified from running for mayor in next week's election is urging a state Supreme Court justice to reverse that decision, while the village's lawyers say he missed the window to challenge.
Andrew Woodstock filed a lawsuit on June 2, arguing that Centre Island Village officials engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent him from running in the June 17 contest. Woodstock seeks to challenge Mayor Lawrence Schmidlapp, who has run the village of about 400 residents since 2009.
The lawsuit names as defendants the village; Schmidlapp; his wife, Carol Schmidlapp, the village's clerk; Donna Harris, the village's chief election officer; and the Nassau County Board of Elections.
Steven Leventhal, Woodstock's attorney, said in a court filing: “Each day’s delay results in a widening disadvantage” to Woodstock.
The sides convened for 45 minutes in a closed-door status conference in Mineola on Monday before state Supreme Court Justice Randy Sue Marber.
Leventhal's filing called for the court to not only add Woodstock to the ballot but also delay the election and name a "court's referee" to oversee it. Leventhal also called for ballots without Woodstock's name on them to be discarded.
Peter MacKinnon, an attorney representing the village, said Woodstock asked the court to intervene too many days after the village's election officer invalidated his petition.
“We’re having all types of misstatements concerning the actions of the village, and it seems that this is done to obfuscate the real issue as to whether the action was timely commenced,” MacKinnon said.
Attorneys for the village on Tuesday filed a motion to dismiss the case. Because Harris invalidated Woodstock's petition on May 27, his lawyers had until May 30 to file a challenge, the attorneys wrote.
'None of that's true'
Last month, Lawrence Schmidlapp filed a "formal objection" to Woodstock's candidacy. In a letter to Harris, Schmidlapp said Woodstock lives mostly outside of Centre Island and cited his "criminal record involving moral turpitude." Woodstock told Newsday last week that while he owns property in Florida, Centre Island is his primary residence.
The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in 2020 criminally charged Woodstock and his company with cheating workers out of wages and benefits, Newsday previously reported. Woodstock's company pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, while Woodstock pleaded guilty to a "noncriminal violation," according to a 2023 Nassau state Supreme Court decision in an unrelated lawsuit.
Leventhal also alleged that Carol Schmidlapp — the mayor’s wife — “has actively engaged in a program of ‘ballot harvesting’ to gather ballots for her husband.” Ballot harvesting occurs when a third party collects ballots and drops them off at a designated location. Leventhal did not offer any evidence to back up the allegation.
Asked about the ballot harvesting claim, Carol Schmidlapp said in an interview: "None of that's true."
"We haven't even printed the ballots," she told Newsday.
Lawrence Schmidlapp said he thinks "the court should do what it has to do."
"If he's illegal, then he's illegal," the mayor said in an interview. "If he's legal, he's legal."
'Very compressed schedule'
After the hearing on Monday, Woodstock told Newsday he felt he was being targeted because he was looking to "make it a little bit more friendly to live on the island, as opposed to having a power base that runs it."
Leventhal also filed a motion seeking to disqualify Keith Corbett, an attorney representing the village and its officials, from the case.
Leventhal's filing noted that Corbett also serves as counsel to the Nassau County Board of Elections, which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Corbett did not respond to requests for comment.
Marber said Monday she would review the arguments as quickly as possible. She scheduled another hearing on Thursday. "Obviously this is an election case and everything is on a very compressed schedule," she said after the conference.
Officials from the board of elections have said it does not have jurisdiction over the election and that a court would have to resolve the dispute.
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