When taxpayer-funded lawyers pursue personal vendettas, private individuals receive municipal insurance coverage, and the public gets the bill
Delaware County, New York, is a place where ordinary residents struggle with rising property taxes, deteriorating housing, and the cost of maintaining their homes. Yet the County and its municipal partners appear to have found an extraordinary use for public resources: financing litigation against people who have criticized local officials, defending private conduct through municipal insurance, and pursuing sanctions against those who dare to sue.
I know this because I have spent years litigating against these officials. And on October 2, 2026, I took the fight to Nassau County, where I sued the New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal (NYMIR), Hancock Estabrook LLP, and attorneys Frank W. Miller and Ryan M. Poplawski.
The lawsuit is Neroni v. New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal, Nassau County Supreme Court, Index No. 621856/2026.
I chose Nassau County for the lawsuit because that is where NYMIR's main office is, so it is a required venue.
The lawsuit raises a simple question: Who authorized taxpayer-supported insurance money to finance the legal defense of a private individual who admitted under oath that he was not entitled to municipal representation?
Who was that individual?
WAYNE MARSHFIELD, Delaware County and Town of Hamden supervisor, who I sued in his capacity as representative of headquarters of Watershed corporation in the Town of Hamden, as shown in the Beacon record filed by me with the court and served upon Marshfield.
Who authorized this expense? Marshfield, his lawyers, the County and the Town of Hamden stall the answer.
In fact, Marshfield first put in a sworn statement to the court that he is not entitled to legal defense at public expense, and was turned down when he asked Town of Hamden attorneys Young Sommer - that was in March of 2026, but in August 2026 a NYMIR invoice miraculously appeared in the court file, filed by Marshfield' PRIVATE attorney Frank Miller/Hancock Estabrook LLP showing that Miller was not a private attorney, but an attorney assigned at public expense - to a person sued as a private actor - by an UNKNOWN local municipality.
Miller refused - rudely - to disclose which municipality was behind this waste of public money.
Miller is now resisting several lawsuits based on participation in this waste.
I turned in Miller and Marshfield to the Fraud Unit of New York State Department of Insurance - because I, as a criminal defense attorney, represented clients for things like that, such conduct is qualifiable as insurance fraud, under Penal Law Article 176, and the amount so far expended of public funds is over 8,000 dollars - fitting the level of a D felony that carries punishment of up to 7 years in state prison.
While Miller, Marshfield, County and Town of Hamden resist discovery and try to badmouth me and hurt me and my husband and my daughter in every possible way, they may of course resist ME and MY inquiries.
But they may not resist YOU the voters and taxpayers who are on the receiving end of this ongoing waste - consider also the recent sale of a million dollar building for peanuts, I am suing DelCo Sheriff and County Attorney for that, too, for taxpayer waste, as I am a property owner and a taxpayer in Delaware County.
They MUST answer to YOU, the VOTERS - come November at the polls.
You the voters have a right to remove from office, by your vote, people responsible for this ongoing waste of public funds, raising taxes on you - just consider Marshfield's recent public lamentation that NYMIR premiums are going up. He knows why, but did not tell you.
And why has nobody identified the municipality whose insurance arrangement is paying for it?
The insurance invoice that opened a very expensive can of worms
In Neroni v. Watershed Agricultural Council, Delaware County Index No. EF2026-106, Wayne Marshfield was sued in his individual capacity.
On March 31, 2026, Marshfield submitted a sworn affidavit explaining that the Town of Hamden's attorneys, Young Sommer, had declined to represent him because the claims against him did not concern his official duties.
That should have resolved the question of municipal representation.
Yet a subsequently disclosed invoice from Hancock Estabrook LLP, involving attorneys Miller and Poplawski, identified NYMIR as the client and described the matter as assigned by the insurance company. The invoice sought approximately $8,192.70 for legal services involving Marshfield.
The billing records traced the insurance assignment to March 16, 2026 — before Marshfield's March 31 sworn acknowledgment that he was ineligible for a municipally funded defense.
Marshfield was removed from the action on April 3, 2026. Nevertheless, the litigation continued, including demands for sanctions, attorney fees, and anti-filing restrictions.
This raises questions that should concern every municipal taxpayer:
Which municipality authorized the insurance-funded representation?
Under what policy provision was Marshfield covered for conduct outside his official duties?
Who authorized the legal expenses after he was removed from the lawsuit?
Why was an insurance-company invoice presented in litigation involving a claimed entitlement to attorney fees?
Who ultimately bears the cost of this representation?
I have sought answers. The identity of the municipality behind the insurance arrangement has remained undisclosed.
New York's Constitution is not an optional suggestion
Article VIII, § 1 of the New York State Constitution restricts municipalities from giving or lending their money or property, or extending their credit, in aid of private individuals and enterprises.
Municipal insurance exists to protect lawful municipal interests. It is not a blank check for defending private conduct simply because the individual happens to hold public office.
The distinction matters.
A town supervisor acting within the scope of official duties may qualify for publicly financed representation under applicable law and insurance arrangements. A person sued for independent private conduct has no automatic entitlement to have municipal taxpayers finance that defense.
My Nassau County lawsuit alleges that NYMIR and the attorneys involved arranged or used municipal insurance coverage to provide legal representation to Marshfield despite his own sworn acknowledgment that he was ineligible.
It asserts taxpayer-waste claims under General Municipal Law § 51, violations implicating Article VIII, § 1 of the New York Constitution, and conduct raising questions under Penal Law Article 176, which governs insurance fraud.
Insurance fraud is a serious allegation. The questions concern the representations made to obtain coverage, the identity and eligibility of the insured, the purpose for which coverage was used, and the financial responsibility for the resulting bills. Those matters require examination of the actual insurance records.
I have also asserted Judiciary Law § 487 claims against Hancock Estabrook, Miller, and Poplawski for alleged deceit and collusion in the resulting litigation.
The underlying sworn affidavit of Marshfield confirming that he was not entitled to legal representation of Miller/Hancock at taxpayer expense and the insurance invoice showing that at the time the affidavit was submitted, such a taxpayer funded representation was already ongoing for two weeks, and proceeded afterwards for many months - and still proceeds - were filed as NYSCEF Docs. 2 and 3 in the Nassau County action.
A lawyer who cannot distinguish a husband from his wife?
The insurance dispute is part of a much larger problem.
Frank W. Miller has repeatedly sought sanctions against my husband, Frederick J. Neroni, for litigation and other activities conducted independently by me.
In Watershed, Frederick J. Neroni was not even a party.
Miller nevertheless sought sanctions and an anti-filing injunction against him.
The commencement papers conclusively established that I alone filed and prosecuted the action.
When Frederick J. Neroni subsequently sued Miller for seeking and obtaining sanctions against him in that case, Miller claimed that Frederick J. Neroni had filed Watershed.
A lawyer should be able to identify who commenced a lawsuit. The answer is in the caption and commencement papers.
It does not require a law degree - only basic reading skills taught in kindergarten.
Apparently, Miller missed those valuable kindergarten classes.
He looked at the record - and a court decision - specifically saying - FREDERICK J. NERONI IS NOT A PARTY IN THIS PROCEEDING - and claimed the opposite in court papers, seeking dismissal of Frederick J. Neroni's GML 51 taxpayer action for waste of public funds against Miller and his illustrious law firm - whose managing partner, by the way, is brother to the Chief Administrative Judge of courts outside New York City - therefore all the breaks despite Miller's sheer incompetence, repeated lying to the court and open an brazen waste of public funds on private pursuits of people, including journalists, like I am.
In another proceeding, Miller expressly argued that Frederick J. Neroni's marriage to me, and our participation together in property-related litigation, justified seeking sanctions against him for my independent conduct. Neroni v. Delaware County, EF2025-447, NYSCEF Docs. 64 and 80.
Frederick J. Neroni moved for sanctions against Miller. Miller did not oppose the motion.
Justice Christopher P. Baker denied it without an explanation. Of course, we are suing him for multiple prejudgments - and he in return is denying us ADA accommodations and babying Miller, even when he - repeatedly - acts like he never saw the insides of a law school.
Miller has continued seeking sanctions against us.
Apparently, in Delaware County litigation, the marriage certificate can become a substitute for proof of individual misconduct.
The judge who had prosecuted the man at the center of our lawsuit
The situation became more extraordinary in October 2026.
In Neroni v. Molé, we had challenged circumstances surrounding James Laughman, whose presence, alleged criminal activities, and connections with law enforcement were material to litigation concerning our property at 201 Main Street, Delhi, NY, which Laughman captured in 2022, kept for two years, threatened gun violence upon our daughter living nearby - among other things - and whose presence there was ended only after he allegedly dropped dead in the house, leaving it irreversibly contaminated by fentanyl.
Now we are facing environmental remediation expenses that exceeds the value of the property, while the local municipalities - despite a stop occupancy order posted in October of 2024 on the door by the Village of Delhi - continue to tax it as an inhabitable residence AND a commercial office.
We sought Laughman's criminal records through FOIL requests.
County Attorney Amy Merklen and County District Attorney Shawn J. Smith, both represented by Miller in an action by which we seek reimbursement for the government taking - because we asserted, and as professional criminal defense litigators, correctly assessed (as it came now last week) - that Laughman was a convicted drug dealer and thus a very likely confidential informant of the local law enforcement PLANTED into our house and the house was TAKEN from us and turned BY DA SMITH, AMY MERKLEN, CRAIG DUMOND, TINA MOLE with assistance of MICHAEL MILLS of Delhi Police into a drug lab/halfway house/drug dealing sot.
These actors resisted disclosure while at the same time seeking all kinds of sanctions against us for TELLING THE TRUTH and SEEKING COMPENSATION for the County releasing a convicted drug addict and dealer onto the unsuspecting community which not only resulted in destruction of our property - but which resulted, very likely in the spreading of drugs in the community to help DA Smith claim a good conviction rate.
Laughman put on OUR house surveillance cameras and a sign: "FUCK THE POLICE I WILL SHOOT".
He threatened to shoot our daughter's eyeballs, openly.
He was a convicted felon, he could not possess a gun.
My daughter complained.
Village of Delhi police arrived and protected Laughman - REPEATEDLY.
On October 9, 2026, we finally obtained criminal records establishing that Justice Joseph A. McBride, formerly Chenango County District Attorney, had personally prosecuted Laughman, obtained a felony conviction, and participated in subsequent probation proceedings.
McBride had already imposed sanctions and anti-filing injunctions against us in Neroni v. Baker and Neroni v. Watershed Agricultural Council.
He had also pronounced actions filed by us during the preceding three years frivolous, including litigation concerning Laughman.
He did so without disclosing his own prosecutorial involvement with that individual.
The newly discovered records are central to Frederick J. Neroni's pending Motion #14 in Neroni v. Molé. We assert that McBride's prior involvement created disqualification and material-witness issues, including under Judiciary Law § 14, 22 NYCRR 100.3(E)(1), and Judicial Ethics Advisory Opinion 25-20.
Miller represented governmental defendants with access to records we had been unable to obtain.
HE GODDAMIT KNEW that we were right when we were asserting that Laughman was a drug addict and drug dealer - Miller had in front of him such RECORDS in the County Clerk's office since 2017!!!!
Yet, he had us sanctioned for frivolous conduct - because I turned him in for his prior shenanigans into the grievance committee and he had to pull certain unredacted child records offline - he was doxxing a child to get even with Scuderi-Hunter.
He secured sanctions before we obtained the records exposing the judge's prior prosecutorial role, and is now trying to capitalize on it, MULTIPLYING litigation against the county - because they DID NOT foreclose my access to FEDERAL COURT where I can CONTINUE to sue the County for what I have just discovered and will continue to discover, as a journalist, as a property owner and as a taxpayer.
And those sanctions are now being invoked in further litigation.
This is how public liability multiplies: instead of resolving an underlying dispute, government-funded litigation generates additional proceedings concerning sanctions, disqualification, withheld records, judicial conduct, and the right to obtain appellate review.
Who pays for all of that?
Even the Attorney General joined the demand for punishment
The problem extends beyond Delaware County's private outside counsel.
On August 18, 2025, Frederick J. Neroni and I filed an Amended Verified Complaint in Neroni v. Delaware County, eliminating all federal causes of action and seeking remand to state court.
Four days later, on August 22, Assistant Attorney General Timothy P. Mulvey, representing Attorney General Letitia James, joined Miller and other defense attorneys in a letter asking the federal court to retain the amended complaint and consider whether our claims were frivolous.
The letter was filed as ECF Doc. 51 in N.D.N.Y. No. 3:25-cv-00801.
That request confronted the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger, 604 U.S. 22 (2025), holding that a post-removal amendment eliminating the federal claims supporting removal extinguishes supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims and requires remand.
The attorneys nevertheless requested that the federal court retain our state-law complaint for a frivolousness determination.
When Attorney General James later moved to dismiss the same complaint in New York Supreme Court, she did not pursue the accusation that the pleading was frivolous.
The demand for punishment disappeared.
The effort to dismiss our claims did not.
Personal grudges, public offices, and the same familiar officials
My disputes with Delaware County officials did not begin yesterday.
As a practicing attorney and later as an investigative journalist, I publicly criticized, since 2014 on this blog, and since 2009 as a lawyer, fabricated child protective charges, criminal prosecutions, and misconduct of officials including Amy Merklen, John Hubbard, Richard Northrup, DuMond, and former County Attorney Porter Kirkwood.
I described investigative practices I had encountered in professional litigation, including the use of undisclosed cooperating witnesses and provocateurs whose testimony could transform ordinary conversations into supposed evidence of wrongdoing.
I documented aspects of those practices in my 2018 book, The Oxygen Mask Rule, still available on Amazon.com.
In September–November 2015, after leaving New York but while I still held my law license, I published approximately thirty investigative articles sharply criticizing Delaware County officials, including then-County Attorney Porter Kirkwood.
Kirkwood was then running for a Family Court judgeship against Gary Rosa. Despite prominent political and judicial support - and he was supported by then-retired County Judge Carl F. Becker, retired 3rd Department appellate judge Carl Mugglin, and then-sitting NYS Senator James Seward - he lost.
I believe my reporting directly caused that result - my articles were scathing, document-based, based on my personal knowledge of Porter Kirkwood's conduct in litigation through interaction with him, as a lawyer, over the years, there were about 30 of them published a month or two before election in 2015, they are still available on this blog, just word-search his name - and he lost.
Kirkwood subsequently became Sixth Judicial District Executive, with responsibilities involving judicial administration and disability accommodations. He now - get the irony - assigning judges to our cases and is managing denials of disability accommodations to us by various judges.
The issue is the concentration of governmental authority in the hands of individuals with a long history of personal and professional misconduct, glaring misconduct, involving the very people affected by their decisions.
Public office cannot become a vehicle for settling old scores. Publicly financed litigation cannot become a private retaliation service.
The taxpayers are the involuntary financiers
NYMIR is a municipal insurance reciprocal.
In plain English - it is a pool of taxpayer money from different municipalities, about 1,000 of them across the State of New York based on my research, where municipalities use monies collected from taxpayers to finance each other's litigation needs.
Its financial resources arise from the insurance arrangements of participating public entities.
As insurer, NYMIR cannot simply assign a lawyer to represent a person out of the blue - there must be a paper trail: an existing municipality, an existing policy/contract/subscription with that municipality, the municipality's authorization of the legal representation under its insurance policy through NYMIR.
Delaware County - and that was confirmed in an October 2025 deposition of Amy Merklen in federal ongoing case Decker advertisement - I published her deposition on this blog - not just finances, but CONTROLS litigation its insurance finances.
I sued Marshfield in Neroni v Watershed Corporation where I specifically asserted that Delaware County is secretly pulling strings of local "independent" non-profits to do the County biddings - including in retaliation against journalists. I sued after WAC fired my daughter in retaliation against our litigation against Delaware County.
After Miller ran his mouth claiming that I was lying, frivolous, whatever - he then produced, as the fraudulent trickster that he is - after he obtained sanctions against me based on his sorry story from the disqualified Judge McBride, a prosecutor of Laughman in one of yet unadjudicated cases underlying sanctions that Miller asked McBride to prejudge - so he produced the NYMIR invoice PROVING ME RIGHT!!! but brazenly seeking his fraudulently obtained attorney fees against me nevertheless.
While refusing to disclose to me WHO AUTHORIZED THE WASTE OF PUBLIC FUNDS? WHO AUTHORIZED LEGAL REPRESENTATION OF MARSHFIELD IN A PRIVATE LAWSUIT AGAINST HIM AT PUBLIC EXPENSE? WHO DID WHAT I SAID IN THE LAWSUIT DELAWARE COUNTY IS DOING ALL ALONG - SECRETLY PULLING RETALIATION STRINGS ON JOURNALISTS? In a variety of ways? Despite already being sued - since 2023 - in Decker Advertisement where Marshfield, and Merklen, and the County, are represented BY MILLER at public expense - THROUGH NYMIR.
That means municipal insurance expenses have public financial consequences, even when the money does not pass directly from a town treasury to a lawyer's bank account.
Municipal contributions, insurance costs, claims experience, and litigation expenses ultimately affect the cost of operating local government.
And local government is financed by residents and property owners.
In Delaware County, where households struggle with property taxes and the costs of maintaining aging properties, every questionable legal expense deserves scrutiny.
An $8,192.70 invoice is not the entire issue. It is the documentary opening into a much larger question: how many legal expenses are being incurred for private conduct, retaliatory litigation, sanctions applications, and disputes that competent, independent public counsel could have avoided?
How much additional municipal liability is being created by litigation tactics pursued at public expense?
How much money is spent defending the consequences of earlier decisions?
And how many people know that their local government's insurance arrangements may be financing litigation they would never have authorized if asked directly?
Why I sued NYMIR in Nassau County
I filed my lawsuit on October 2, 2026, in Nassau County Supreme Court, where NYMIR maintains its principal office.
The action names NYMIR, Hancock Estabrook LLP, Ryan M. Poplawski, and Frank W. Miller.
It seeks relief concerning alleged taxpayer waste, the legality of the challenged insurance-funded representation, restitution, and statutory damages against the attorneys under Judiciary Law § 487.
I own multiple parcels of taxable real property in New York, including Delaware County. I pay the taxes supporting the municipal system whose expenditures I challenge.
My lawsuit asks who authorized the coverage, who benefited, what representations were made, and whether the arrangement complied with New York law.
It also seeks to prevent repetition of the challenged conduct.
A public official's private legal problems do not automatically become the taxpayers' financial obligations.
Neither a municipal insurance policy nor an attorney's invoice can supply legal authority that the Constitution and statutes withhold.
They simply cannot.
And voters can and should hold public officials accountable for stealing from taxpayer pocket - and that includes DA Smith who, instead of prosecuting Miller, is represented by him and is openly endorsing, through litigation, his continued waste of taxpayer funds.
The questions Delaware County must answer
The public deserves an accounting of who is receiving municipal-funded legal representation, the legal basis for that representation, the identity of the public entity bearing the expense, and the total cost of the resulting litigation.
Residents also deserve to know whether their governments are purchasing competent, independent legal advice or financing years of unnecessary litigation driven by personal conflicts, questionable sanctions requests, and attempts to shield public officials from accountability.
The problem is larger than one invoice or one attorney.
When government officials can use public resources to pursue private conflicts, the people who finance those resources bear the costs. When questionable litigation produces additional claims against the municipality, those costs multiply. When insurance arrangements conceal which municipality is paying, public accountability becomes harder still.
Delaware County's residents are entitled to transparency concerning their money.
I intend to continue demanding it.
The lawsuit against Delaware Count insurer NYMIR - and Miller and his law firm - for waste - is Neroni v. New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal, Nassau County Supreme Court, Index No. 621856/2026, NYSCEF Docs. 1–3, filed October 2, 2026.
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