Southern Ulster Times Aug. 16 2017

T IMES SOUTHERN ULSTER Vol. 14, No 33 3 AUGUST 16 - 22, 2017 3 ONE DOLLAR Ribfest lineup Viewing the eclipse Page 2 Page 5 SERVING HIGHLAND, MARLBOROUGH AND PLATTEKILL Library is overdue Criminal contempt Plattekill still out deposit money for a deal that fell through case in court ADA describes path of false kidnapping and rape case By MARK REYNOLDS [email protected] On Tuesday August 8, Amber Malagoli, 22, of New Windsor, was back in Marlborough Town Court before Judge Daniel Jackson to answer to the charges of Criminal Contempt in the 1st Degree and Perjury in the 2nd Degree stemming from an August 1 incident when she falsely reported that she had been kidnapped and raped after being found on the side of Quaker Hill Road in Milton just past dawn. ADA Daniel Martuscello said the August 8 court date was for a preliminary hearing on the Malagoli matter. He said her attorney, David Castagna, waived the time to hold the hearing. “When someone is charged with a felony, a preliminary hearing is supposed to be held within so many hours of the arraignment, but the defendant can waive that,” Martuscello said. “So she was remanded and is back up at the [Ulster County] jail. Her attorney waived that time period and he is possibly looking to get the defendant into a mental health facility for treatment.” Martuscello said Castagna “can make a proposal to the court and to myself as to what he has lined up. The court will make Continued on page 4 The library board paid a deposit of $9,250 on a parcel that it was considering purchasing in 2014. By MARK REYNOLDS [email protected] At last week’s meeting of the Plattekill Library Board of Trustees, President Lynn Ridgeway said the board has still not received a check for $9,250 that they requested from Victor Nemeth, the owner of the Cider Mill property on Route 32. The library had paid him this amount as a deposit when they were considering purchasing his parcel for a new library. She indicated that this would continue to be discussed with their own attorney, however the board has been advised by counsel that they would end up spending far more trying to recover their money through the courts. In early 2014 the board sent Nemeth the deposit check, which he cashed. However, by November 2014 Nemeth had changed his mind and sent a check of his own back to the library for the stated amount, indicating that the deal was off. Email records show that the check was WWW.SOUTHERNULSTERTIMES.COM placed in a folder but Ridgeway insists no one gave instructions to do this. “I didn’t tell anybody to do that and this board did not tell me to do that,” she insisted. The record shows that the attorney for the library board, in response to a query from a board member, said the board told him to place the check in a folder. There is no mention of this in the library board minutes. Continued on page 3