My Father, Attorney and Human Rights Advocate Oleg Alexandrovich Lyamin: Discovering a Family History I Never Knew An unexpected encounter with my father's professional past through American journalism, Russian archival publications, and the history of international human rights advocacy

Until now, I have never publicly disclosed that my father was Oleg Alexandrovich Lyamin, a Russian high-ranking translator and interpreter, then sometime diplomat in London, then attorney and human rights advocate whose work extended across the Soviet Union, post-Soviet Russia, and Germany.

My parents separated when I was a child.  My father had another family.  My father and I had relatively little contact, and he rarely discussed his professional activities with me. Consequently, much of his career remained unknown to me, even as I eventually entered the legal profession myself.

According to one of my half-brothers, my father died 3 years ago.  That was around the time when the Russian army started bombing his native Kramatorsk, Urkaine.  

For reasons not within my control we did not communicate for the last 20 plus years of his life.  It is a pity - considering how close in our professional careers and thinking as human rights defenders we were, regardless of actual separation.  

Because of how the two mothers - my own and my half-brothers' - deliberately kept me and my father apart, something I have learnt about late in life - I became an ardent advocate for father-child relationships when I practiced as an attorney in Family Court.  It is the gravest sin that a parent or a spouse can accomplish - separate a child from his father and deprive both of their close familial and later professional connection and support.  

So, the circumstances that prompted this discovery were entirely unexpected.

I recently came across reports concerning Maria Bonzler, a Russian attorney and human rights defender from Kaliningrad, who is being prosecuted for high treason. Bonzler was among the founders of the Kaliningrad Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, an organization devoted to protecting the rights of military personnel and their families.

I remembered that my father had provided legal assistance to the Soldiers' Mothers movement, first in Russia and subsequently in Germany. I wondered whether their professional paths might have crossed.

That question led me to search for his name in historical publications.

To my surprise, I discovered references to my father in the Los Angeles Times, the Russian independent press, and archival materials of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

The documents revealed a professional history that I had never known and, perhaps more remarkably, an unexpected parallel between his career and my own.

From Soviet International Trade to the Practice of Law

My father's educational background was unusually broad, even by the standards of the Soviet professional intelligentsia.

He initially studied English and German at a Soviet institute of foreign languages. He subsequently graduated from the Academy of Foreign Trade and the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Law, commonly known by its Russian acronym, VYuZI.

The Academy of Foreign Trade trained specialists for the Soviet Union's highly centralized system of international commerce. Unlike in the United States, foreign trade in the Soviet Union was a state monopoly, conducted through government ministries and specialized foreign-trade organizations. International commercial negotiations therefore occupied a distinctive position at the intersection of economics, diplomacy, and state administration.

My father then - according to accounts of some people who knew him - worked in London, reportedly for about 10 years, in a position as a diplomat.  

VYuZI, meanwhile, was an institution of higher legal education that allowed students, including working professionals, to obtain law degrees through a combination of independent study and formal examinations. It was an important component of Soviet legal education and subsequently became part of the institutional history of what is now Kutafin Moscow State Law University.

At some point in his career, my father served as an interpreter for Nikolai Semyonovich Patolichev, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Trade from 1958 until 1985.

Patolichev occupied a consequential position in Soviet economic diplomacy for nearly three decades, overseeing foreign commercial relations during the Cold War.

My father's linguistic training, combined with his subsequent education in economics and law, equipped him to work across national and institutional boundaries.

I do not know the precise chronology of these professional transitions. What the surviving publications demonstrate, however, is that by 1990 he was publicly identified as a human rights attorney.

December 1990: My Father Appears in the Los Angeles Times

On December 23, 1990, the Los Angeles Times published an article entitled "Pullout Means Fear, Hardship for Soviet Troops."

The article addressed the predicament of Soviet military personnel and their families stationed in Germany as the Soviet Union prepared to withdraw its armed forces from Central Europe.

The historical context is important.

Following German reunification in October 1990, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the massive military contingent stationed in what had been East Germany. The withdrawal, completed in 1994, involved hundreds of thousands of military personnel and dependents, together with an enormous military infrastructure.

For the soldiers and their families, however, the geopolitical settlement created immediate and often devastating practical questions.

Where would they live upon returning to the Soviet Union? Would housing be available? What employment prospects awaited them? What legal protections existed against arbitrary decisions by military commanders?

The Soviet military system did not provide anything resembling the combination of judicial remedies, veterans' benefits, administrative procedures, and independent legal representation familiar to American military families.

It was within this context that the Los Angeles Times identified my father, Oleg Lyamin, as a "Soviet human rights lawyer."

He was quoted as a source familiar with the circumstances confronting Soviet military personnel and their families.

This is the earliest published reference to his human rights work that I have discovered so far.

It is particularly striking that an American newspaper was consulting him on the legal and humanitarian consequences of one of the largest military withdrawals in modern European history.

Source: Los Angeles Times, December 23, 1990, "Pullout Means Fear, Hardship for Soviet Troops."

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-12-23-mn-9895-story.html

1993: The International Society for Human Rights

A second documentary reference appears in archival materials preserved by the Moscow Helsinki Group.

The Moscow Helsinki Group was founded in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the human rights commitments undertaken in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. Its members became prominent figures in the Soviet dissident movement, and several were imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for documenting governmental violations of those commitments.

In a collection of materials relating to legal defense seminars held in 1993, my father's name appears as follows:

"Lyamin Oleg Alexandrovich, ISHR, Moscow."

The original Russian entry reads:

"Лямин Олег Александрович, МОПЧ, Москва."

The abbreviation refers to the International Society for Human Rights, associated with the German Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte (IGFM).

The organization originated in Frankfurt am Main and became involved in international campaigns concerning political prisoners, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and abuses of governmental authority, particularly in the Soviet bloc.

The archival reference places my father within an organized network of human rights lawyers and advocates during the early years of post-Soviet Russia.

In 1993, my daughter Olga was born. I was occupied with raising a young child and had not yet become involved in human rights advocacy myself. I knew virtually nothing about my father's professional activities.

Only now have I discovered that he was participating in precisely the sort of legal and human rights work that would eventually become central to my own professional life.

Source: Moscow Helsinki Group, archival collection of legal defense seminar materials, 1993.

https://www.mhg.ru/sites/default/files/inline/files/yuridicheskaya-zashchita-seminary-bogoraz-1993.pdf

May 1994: The Defense of Major Georgy Shkutnik

On May 6, 1994, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an article by journalist Vladimir Demchenko entitled "Military Logic: If He Waves His Arms, He Must Be Stealing."

The article concerned the criminal prosecution of Major Georgy Shkutnik, an officer serving with the Russian military forces stationed in Germany.

My father represented Shkutnik as defense counsel.

The case unfolded against the background of the withdrawal of the former Soviet military forces from Germany, an undertaking accompanied by disputes over military property, command authority, corruption, and the treatment of personnel.

According to the newspaper's account, Shkutnik had been subjected to detention, psychiatric confinement, and eventual incarceration in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina detention facility.

Matrosskaya Tishina is one of Russia's best-known pretrial detention institutions. Its name has long been associated with prominent criminal prosecutions and controversies surrounding conditions of confinement.

The psychiatric component of the case also carries particular historical significance.

In the Soviet Union, psychiatry had at times been used as an instrument of political repression, with individuals subjected to involuntary psychiatric confinement on grounds that international human rights organizations challenged as medically and legally indefensible.

By the early 1990s, the use of psychiatric institutions in cases involving disputes with state authorities remained an especially sensitive human rights issue.

In the Novaya Gazeta article, my father publicly challenged the conduct of military prosecutors and described violations of his client's rights.

Among the matters he raised were conflicts of interest within the military justice system, including circumstances involving familial relationships between prosecutors and defense counsel.

For an American legal audience, the significance of such concerns is readily apparent. Questions of professional independence, divided loyalties, prosecutorial misconduct, and the integrity of criminal proceedings are not peculiar to any particular legal system.

The article also referred to video evidence obtained by the German publication Der Spiegel, which the defense intended to use in connection with the case.

My father described obstacles encountered in representing his client and efforts to attract international attention to the proceedings.

Organizations mentioned in connection with the case included Amnesty International, the International Society for Human Rights, and groups concerned with the political abuse of psychiatry.

His representation of Shkutnik therefore extended beyond conventional courtroom advocacy.

It involved the preservation and presentation of evidence, public scrutiny of prosecutorial conduct, international human rights organizations, and investigative journalism.

I find this aspect of his work especially remarkable because it so closely resembles the methods I would eventually employ in my own legal and investigative activities.

Yet I had no knowledge of his work on this case until I discovered the article more than thirty years later.

Source: Vladimir Demchenko, "Military Logic: If He Waves His Arms, He Must Be Stealing," Novaya Gazeta, May 6, 1994.

https://rima.media/paper/033kM5R3p1qgJHcVC42KNF-1994-05-06-novaya_print-486270-voennaia-logika-esli-mashet-rukami-znachit-voruet

The Soldiers' Mothers Movement and My Father's Years in Germany

I had known that my father assisted the Soldiers' Mothers movement, first in Russia and later in Germany. I did not, however, know the details of that work.

The Soldiers' Mothers movement emerged during the late Soviet period in response to the treatment of conscripts and the lack of effective legal remedies available to their families.

Its work included assisting soldiers and their relatives in cases involving abusive military practices, unlawful conscription, hazing, injuries, deaths, and violations of statutory protections.

The movement became especially prominent during the wars in Chechnya, when families sought information about missing servicemen, challenged military practices, and demanded accountability from state authorities.

Although the name may sound to American readers like that of a military family support organization, the Russian Soldiers' Mothers committees performed a much broader function.

They served as independent human rights organizations confronting a military bureaucracy that had historically operated with limited transparency and accountability.

My father's involvement with this movement was therefore consistent with the professional activities documented in the Los Angeles Times and Novaya Gazeta.

After moving to Germany, he lived first in Gera, a city in Thuringia, in the territory of the former German Democratic Republic. During the final years of his life, he lived near Düsseldorf, in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

I know that his assistance to the Soldiers' Mothers movement continued during his years in Germany, but I have not yet located documents describing that period of his career.

The archives of the International Society for Human Rights in Germany may contain additional information about his activities, correspondence, legal work, and participation in international human rights initiatives.

Maria Bonzler: The Unexpected Beginning of This Investigation

The immediate reason I began researching my father's professional history was the prosecution of Maria Vladimirovna Bonzler, an attorney and human rights advocate from Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, geographically separated from the rest of Russia and bordered by Poland and Lithuania. Before 1945, the city was known as Königsberg and belonged to Germany.

Following World War II, the northern portion of East Prussia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Kaliningrad subsequently became an important Soviet, and later Russian, military and naval center.

Bonzler participated in founding the Kaliningrad Committee of Soldiers' Mothers in 1995.

She later became known for representing individuals in politically sensitive proceedings, including cases arising from opposition to Russia's war against Ukraine.

In May 2025, she was arrested. The charges against her were subsequently escalated to high treason.

On November 10, 2026, Russian prosecutors requested a fifteen-year prison sentence.

Reading about her case reminded me of my father's work with the Soldiers' Mothers movement.

I wondered whether they had known one another or collaborated professionally.

So far, I have found no documentary evidence of a direct connection. Their work, however, involved the same broader human rights movement, and the possibility of professional contact remains a subject for further research.

It was this question that unexpectedly opened a much larger inquiry into my own family history.

Three Degrees, Two Legal Careers, and an Unexpected Parallel

Perhaps the most remarkable discovery is the similarity between my father's educational and professional trajectory and my own.

My father first studied foreign languages, then international trade and economics, and finally law.

I followed essentially the same educational sequence, independently and without any conscious intention to imitate him.

I first obtained my linguistic education in Moscow, studying foreign languages. I subsequently pursued graduate education in economics at the Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics, commonly known as MESI.

Only afterward did I study law, earning my Juris Doctor degree from Albany Law School in New York.

I was admitted to the New York Bar in 2009.

My own professional interests eventually came to encompass constitutional law, civil rights litigation, judicial accountability, the independence of the legal profession, and investigative journalism.

I began publishing investigative work concerning judicial conduct and the administration of justice, using legal documents, court records, and public reporting to examine questions of governmental accountability.

Only now have I learned that my father had employed a remarkably similar combination of legal advocacy, international engagement, documentary evidence, and journalism decades earlier.

There is a certain irony in discovering this resemblance.

I did not grow up under his professional guidance. He did not introduce me to his cases, teach me his methods, or encourage me to follow his career.

Indeed, I knew so little about his work that I had to learn about it from newspaper archives.

Nevertheless, we independently pursued the same three areas of higher education — languages, economics, and law — and eventually developed overlapping professional interests in the protection of individual rights against abuses of governmental power.

I do not know whether to call this coincidence, intellectual inheritance, or simply the convergence of two professional lives shaped by similar interests.

But it is a striking discovery.

A Professional Biography Still Waiting to Be Reconstructed

At present, three published sources provide a preliminary documentary chronology of my father's human rights work.

In December 1990, the Los Angeles Times identified him as a Soviet human rights lawyer commenting on the plight of military personnel and their families in Germany.

In 1993, the Moscow Helsinki Group's archival materials listed him as a representative of the International Society for Human Rights in Moscow.

In May 1994, Novaya Gazeta documented his representation of Major Georgy Shkutnik and his public criticism of military prosecutorial practices.

These references almost certainly represent only a fraction of his professional activities.

Much remains to be learned about his work in Soviet international trade, his years as an attorney in Russia, his involvement with the Soldiers' Mothers movement, and his later activities in Germany.

Law was very far from my career purpose at the beginning.

But I ended up being a daughter of a lawyer, a wife of a lawyer, a lawyer myself, a stepmother and a mother of a lawyer.  Five lawyers in one international family spanning continents and generations.

I hope that further research in Russian and German archives will illuminate for me my father's professional life as a human rights defender. 

I would also welcome information from anyone who knew Oleg Alexandrovich Lyamin professionally, worked with him in the International Society for Human Rights or the Soldiers' Mothers movement, or remembers his legal work in Russia or Germany.

There is something profoundly unexpected about discovering one's father through historical newspaper articles and human rights archives.

For most of my life, I knew very little about his professional accomplishments. I certainly did not know that he had been engaged in international human rights advocacy long before I entered the legal profession.

And now, decades later, I find myself reading about his work and recognizing not merely the professional interests we shared, but an approach to the practice of law that I had believed I developed entirely on my own.

I began this research because of another attorney's prosecution in Kaliningrad.

I ended up discovering a part of my father's life — and, unexpectedly, a part of my own professional history.

Town of Meredith, New York: Videoconferencing for Town Officials, but Not for Disabled Members of the Public?

I recently requested that the Town of Meredith, Delaware County, New York, provide ongoing live, interactive videoconferencing access to public meetings and hearings of its Town Board, Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, and other municipal bodies as a reasonable accommodation for my disability.

Today, November 9, 2026, I received a response from Town Attorney Carly Walas, Esq.

Her answer was essentially this: the Town is not required to livestream its meetings for the public, and if I want to attend a particular meeting remotely, I should submit a separate accommodation request identifying that proceeding.

Walas wrote:

"The Town's ordinary in-person meetings are not, merely by virtue of being public meetings, subject to a general statutory requirement that the Town provide livestreaming or interactive videoconferencing to the public."

She continued:

"Please identify the particular municipal proceeding or proceedings for which you are requesting accommodation."

Apparently, the Town expects a disabled property owner to apply repeatedly for access to public proceedings, notwithstanding a continuing disability and a continuing need for accommodation.

But there is much more to this story.

Videoconferencing for Town Officials, but Not for the Public?

I am informed that many municipal meetings in the local townships, including the Town of Meredith, are already convened virtually for the convenience of Town officials and board members.

If that information is correct, the Town already has the technology necessary to conduct municipal business through videoconferencing.

The question is not whether the Town must purchase expensive equipment, develop a new technological system, or fundamentally change how its municipal bodies operate.

The question is why the Town cannot open its existing virtual meetings to the public.

If Town officials can participate remotely for their own convenience, why should disabled members of the public have to submit individual applications for permission to do the same?

There is an obvious distinction between making a public meeting available through an existing videoconferencing system and creating an entirely new municipal service.

Town Attorney Walas does not address whether Meredith already conducts virtual meetings, whether the public can be admitted to them, or what expense or difficulty would result from doing so.

Instead, she answers a different question: whether the Open Meetings Law requires all public meetings to be livestreamed.

That was not the basis of my request.

I Am Not the Only Person Who Needs Remote Access

Meredith is a rural mountain snowbelt town with an aging population. Many residents have disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mobility limitations. Others may be temporarily unable to travel because of illness, injury, or dangerous weather conditions.

And winter is coming.

Anyone familiar with Delaware County winters knows what that means: snowstorms, icy roads, difficult driving conditions, and households that may be snowed in.

Why should an elderly resident have to risk driving on icy mountain roads to observe a Town Board meeting?

Why should a person with a mobility impairment be excluded from a public hearing because the municipal building is inaccessible to that person in practice?

Why should someone recovering from surgery, caring for a disabled family member, or unable to leave home during a snowstorm be deprived of the opportunity to follow decisions affecting their property and community?

Remote access is not merely a convenience. For many people, it is the only practical means of participating in local government.

And the benefits would extend beyond people with disabilities.

Livestreamed meetings would allow working residents, caregivers, seasonal residents, and out-of-town property owners to follow municipal proceedings. They would make local government more accessible, more transparent, and more accountable.

If videoconferencing is already available to municipal officials, extending it to the public should be an obvious subject for consideration, not a reason to send disabled residents through repeated accommodation procedures.

The Town Attorney Confuses the Open Meetings Law with the ADA

My request was made under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12132, which prohibits disability discrimination in the services, programs, and activities of public entities.

Under 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(b)(7)(i), public entities must make reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures when necessary to avoid disability discrimination, unless they demonstrate that the modification would fundamentally alter the nature of the service, program, or activity.

Under 28 C.F.R. § 35.160, public entities must ensure effective communication with individuals with disabilities.

Those obligations exist independently of whether the Open Meetings Law requires livestreaming for the general public.

The absence of a general statutory requirement to livestream every public meeting does not answer whether a particular public entity must provide remote access as a disability accommodation.

Walas acknowledges that Meredith is subject to Title II. Yet she refuses to agree to my request for ongoing access and proposes that I identify particular proceedings for separate consideration.

But I already identified the proceedings: the public meetings and hearings of the Town's municipal bodies.

My disability does not disappear between Town Board meetings. It does not disappear when the Planning Board convenes. And it does not require a new legal analysis every time the Zoning Board of Appeals schedules a hearing.

Requiring a disabled person to repeatedly apply for access to recurring public proceedings creates an additional burden precisely because that person has a disability.

New York Voters Added Disability Discrimination to Their Constitution

There is another important legal development that the Town Attorney's letter does not address.

On November 5, 2024, New York voters approved an amendment to Article I, § 11 of the New York State Constitution, expressly extending constitutional protection against discrimination to disability, age, and other protected characteristics.

The amendment became effective on January 1, 2025.

Article I, § 11 contains two distinct protections: equal protection of the laws and a prohibition against discrimination in civil rights by the State and its agencies or subdivisions.

Disability is now expressly included among the prohibited grounds of discrimination in civil rights.

This is not merely an administrative regulation or a policy adopted by a state agency.

It is a constitutional command approved by New York voters.

The Town of Meredith is a political subdivision of New York State. Its meetings and hearings are governmental activities. Access to those proceedings implicates the ability of residents and property owners to participate in the civic affairs of their community.

The constitutional amendment therefore adds an independent state-law dimension to the Town's treatment of disability-related requests for access.

The Town Attorney's letter does not mention the amendment, much less analyze its application to a municipality that refuses ongoing remote access to a disabled property owner.

New York voters did not amend their Constitution merely to have municipalities continue treating disability access as an occasional favor to be requested separately for each public proceeding.

What Alternative Does Meredith Propose?

Walas writes that the Town will consider:

"any effective alternative accommodations that may provide meaningful access to the particular municipal proceeding."

But her letter identifies no alternative.

A written agenda does not allow a person to hear a live discussion.

Minutes prepared after a meeting do not permit contemporaneous observation.

A recording supplied after a public hearing has concluded does not allow a person to speak during that hearing.

Written comments are not necessarily an equivalent substitute for participation in a live proceeding where other members of the public can address officials and respond to issues as they arise.

The Town Attorney does not identify any technical difficulty associated with the requested accommodation. She does not provide a cost estimate. She does not explain whether the Town's existing videoconferencing arrangements could be opened to public observers.

Instead, she proposes a proceeding-by-proceeding application process.

That proposal raises a serious question: is the Town accommodating disability, or creating an additional administrative obstacle to participation because of disability?

Public Meetings Belong to the Public

The Supreme Court has recognized the breadth of Title II's application to public services and activities. See Pennsylvania Department of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206 (1998), and Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004).

Local government is no exception.

Town boards decide questions of taxation, municipal expenditures, land use, infrastructure, and public safety. Planning boards and zoning boards make decisions that can profoundly affect property rights, neighboring landowners, and entire communities.

These proceedings are not private gatherings of municipal officials.

They are exercises of governmental authority conducted on behalf of the public.

And in a rural community with an aging population, difficult winters, and residents who cannot always travel safely, remote access is an obvious means of expanding meaningful public participation.

The reported use of videoconferencing by Town officials makes Meredith's response particularly difficult to understand.

If remote participation is convenient enough for the people exercising governmental authority, why is it not available to the people affected by their decisions?

The Town Reserves Its Defenses. I Am Still Waiting for Access.

Walas concludes her November 9, 2026 letter with this statement:

"Nothing herein should be construed as a waiver of any rights, defenses, or legal positions available to the Town."

The Town has reserved its legal defenses.

I am still waiting for it to provide access.

I did not request special privileges, control over municipal proceedings, or the right to dictate the Town's agenda.

I requested the opportunity to observe and participate in the same public proceedings that people without my disability can attend in person.

I also believe that opening municipal videoconferencing to the public would benefit many Meredith residents, particularly elderly and disabled people facing another Delaware County winter.

The issue is not whether the Town of Meredith must livestream every meeting for everybody under the Open Meetings Law.

The issue is why a municipality quite capable of conducting meetings virtually - just one smart phone is needed for that - for the convenience of its own officials refuses to provide continuing remote access to a disabled member of the public, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York's newly amended constitutional prohibition against disability discrimination.

The people of Meredith deserve an answer.

And they deserve access to their own government.

Fraser BESS: Copper Thieves, an Unmanned Mountain Facility, and an Electrical Fire That Already Happened in Neighboring Otsego County On July 23, 2026, copper thieves broke into a fenced electrical substation in Hartwick, stole wiring, damaged electrical equipment, and caused a fire. Why is Fraser Storage proposing an unmanned battery installation on a remote mountain in neighboring Delaware County?

My prior experience with criminal defense matters has taught me something that I initially overlooked when examining the proposed Fraser Battery Energy Storage System in the Town of Hamden, Delaware County, New York.

Criminals.

Whenever there was a snowstorm, my husband and I would start receiving phone calls of police picking up people breaking into seasonal homes and facilities alike, under the cover of bad weather.

While preparing to file my Fraser BESS project lawsuit, I have examined the proposed installation's fire hazards, its location on a forested mountain ridge, the surrounding wetlands, potentially combustible organic soils, winter access problems, inadequate firefighting resources, and the discrepancies between the project's publicly represented energy capacity and its own emergency response plan.

But there is another foreseeable source of danger that has nothing to do with defective batteries, manufacturing errors, or spontaneous thermal runaway.

Copper thieves. Burglars. Vandals.

Anyone familiar with criminal defense practice in rural upstate New York knows that unoccupied properties can and do attract thieves.  Seasonal homes are burglarized.  Copper piping and electrical wiring are stripped from buildings.  Stolen metal is sold to scrapyards.

And now EDF Renewables Development, Inc. and Fraser Storage, LLC propose to install a massive, unmanned industrial facility containing approximately 767.5 megawatt-hours of stored electrical energy on a remote mountain ridge.

It is a huge piece of candy for local criminals calling their names off that mountain ridge.

Before dismissing criminal interference as a hypothetical danger, consider what happened just this summer in neighboring Otsego County.

July 23, 2026: Copper Theft Causes an Electrical Fire in Hartwick

On July 23, 2026, WBNG reporter Madeline L. Adams published an article titled Police Search for Suspects in Copper Wire Theft at Otsego Electric Substation.

According to the New York State Police account reported by Adams, two individuals entered the fenced Otsego Electric Cooperative substation on Kinney Road in Hartwick at approximately 2:30 a.m.

They stole copper wiring.

The theft caused significant damage to electrical equipment, resulting in a fire at the substation.

WCDO Radio reported the same incident on July 23, 2026, explaining that the damage produced sparks and a fire inside the installation.

The State Police sought the public's assistance in identifying the suspects.

This was not an abandoned farmhouse.  It was not a seasonal residence. It was an electrical substation, surrounded by a fence.

The fence did not prevent the intrusion.

The intruders did not need to destroy the entire installation.  They wanted copper.  Their interference with the equipment caused an electrical fire.

That is precisely the category of danger that must be considered when evaluating the proposed Fraser BESS facility.

Hartwick is in Otsego County, immediately neighboring Delaware County.

And this incident occurred on July 23, 2026, while the Fraser project was under consideration.

September–October 2026: Stolen Copper in Delaware County Results in a State Prison Sentence

The Hartwick incident is not isolated from the local criminal landscape.

On September 11, 2026, WBNG reported that Eric Meade of Delhi, Delaware County, pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal possession of stolen property in connection with stolen copper.

According to the subsequent October 22, 2026 WCDO Radio report, the investigation began after Otsego County Crushers contacted the State Police about Meade's repeated visits to exchange copper fittings and wiring for money.

Investigators determined that the copper had been stolen.

On October 20, 2026, Meade was sentenced in Delaware County Court to a prison term of two and one-half to five years, as reported by WCDO.

The significance of this case is not merely that someone possessed stolen copper.

It demonstrates an actual local market for stolen copper materials, with repeated transactions and criminal prosecution in the very county where Fraser BESS is proposed.

January 26, 2022: Copper and Steel Stolen From a Stamford Building

On January 26, 2022, reporter Kathy Whyte published Delaware County Man Accused of Stealing & Selling Metal, describing another Delaware County copper-theft investigation.

According to the Delaware County Sheriff's Office account reported in the article, Jeremiah Clark of Roxbury was accused of stealing copper and steel from a building in the Town of Stamford and selling the materials to Otsego Auto Crusher's scrapyard in Davenport.

Clark was charged with felony falsifying business records and criminal possession of stolen property.

Investigators also alleged that records had been falsified to make it appear that the seller lawfully owned the materials.

The case illustrates the economic incentive behind these crimes.

The thief is interested in the resale value of the metal.  The damage inflicted on the property owner is an entirely different consideration.

At an ordinary building, that damage may consist of destroyed plumbing, wiring, walls, and structural components.

At a large electrical installation, interference with equipment may have consequences far beyond the replacement cost of the stolen material.

July 13, 2021: Seasonal-Home Burglaries Across Three Counties

The vulnerability of unoccupied rural properties is also documented.

On July 13, 2021, Kathy Whyte reported for WNBF that New York State Police were investigating burglaries involving seasonal homes across Chenango, Delaware, and Otsego Counties.

Two individuals, Christopher Youngs Jr. of Maryland, New York, and John Clark of Morris, were arrested on felony burglary and stolen-property charges.

State Police reported that the suspects were linked to burglaries in Delaware and Otsego Counties. Investigators believed additional individuals might be involved.

Homeowners were urged to inspect their seasonal properties and sheds. Reported stolen property included firearms, generators, tools, and other valuables.

This investigation demonstrates that remote or intermittently occupied properties in the three-county region have been targets of organized or repeated burglary activity.

An unmanned industrial installation cannot simply be presumed secure because it is located away from population centers.

June 2022: Copper Stolen From a National Grid Substation in Cortland County

The Hartwick fire was not the only reported copper theft involving an electrical substation in upstate New York.

On June 28, 2022, Kevin L. Smith of The Cortland Voice reported that the Cortland County Sheriff's Office was investigating the theft of copper wiring from a National Grid substation on Route 11 in Cortlandville.

The amount of copper stolen was not disclosed.

Again, the target was electrical infrastructure, not an abandoned residence.

November 2025: More Than $20,000 in Copper Equipment Targeted at an Albany County Substation

On November 8, 2025, the Times Union reported that a Schodack man had been charged with multiple felonies following an attempted theft at a National Grid substation in New Scotland, Albany County.

According to the Albany County Sheriff's Office account reported by the newspaper, deputies discovered a hole cut in the perimeter fence and evidence that a storage building had been entered.

Investigators reported finding copper electrical components valued at approximately $20,000, along with sections of underground copper grounding wire that had been cut and removed.

The accused was charged with burglary, criminal mischief, attempted grand larceny, and possession of burglar's tools.

Once again, a fenced electrical installation was targeted for valuable copper components.

And once again, the criminal activity involved damage to the facility itself.

The Mountain Is Remote for Firefighters, Not Necessarily for Criminals

Now return to Fraser BESS.

The proposed installation is located on a forested mountain ridge in the Town of Hamden, with seasonal access roads that present serious problems for emergency vehicles during winter.

But roads impassable to heavy firefighting apparatus are not necessarily impassable to snowmobiles or all-terrain vehicles.

Commercially available drones also make it possible to observe remote properties without physically entering them.

The difficulty of reaching the site with fire engines, water tankers, and specialized equipment does not mean that an individual intent on committing theft or vandalism would face the same obstacles.

There is a fundamental asymmetry.

A criminal needs to reach the equipment. Firefighters need to reach the equipment with sufficient personnel, resources, and specialized apparatus to control the consequences.

The very remoteness that makes Fraser BESS difficult to protect and service could also complicate the detection of and response to unauthorized intrusion.

And the facility is proposed to be unmanned.

The Owner's Representative Is Four Hours Away

The Fraser emergency response arrangements contemplate an owner's representative approximately four hours away by car or air.

Four hours is travel time, not necessarily response time.

Before a representative can intervene, an intrusion must be detected, assessed, and communicated. Personnel must be contacted and dispatched. Weather and access conditions must permit arrival.

Meanwhile, an intruder interfering with electrical equipment may already have caused damage.

A remotely monitored alarm is not a firefighter. A surveillance camera cannot repair damaged equipment. And the presence of an electronic security system does not establish that qualified personnel can intervene before an incident escalates.

What happens if a criminal damages electrical components or protective systems?

What happens if an electrical fault produces sparks or fire?

What happens if the fire spreads beyond the equipment enclosure into the surrounding forest?

What happens if the seasonal access roads are impassable?

These are not questions answered by a statement that the installation will be monitored remotely.

Fraser BESS Is Not an Ordinary Electrical Substation

The December 14, 2025 Fraser emergency response plan identifies 196 Tesla Megapack 2 XL units, each with a stated capacity of 3,916 kWh.

That produces a total of 767,536 kWh, or approximately 767.5 MWh.

This substantially exceeds the 500 MWh and 540 MWh figures previously presented publicly.

The installation is proposed on a forested mountain ridge, in the vicinity of wetlands, potentially combustible organic soils, and terrain that complicates emergency response.

The consequences of criminal interference with such an installation must be assessed in light of those site-specific conditions.

The July 23, 2026 Hartwick incident demonstrates that copper theft can cause electrical equipment to spark and catch fire.

It does not prove that the same incident would produce battery thermal runaway at Fraser. That depends on the equipment affected, the electrical configuration, protective systems, and the ability to isolate faults.

But it does establish that theft-induced electrical fire is a real initiating event, not a speculative invention.

And the consequences of such an event at Fraser require a site-specific assessment.

Did Fraser Storage Evaluate Criminal Interference at All?

This is the question that EDF Renewables Development, Inc., Fraser Storage, LLC, and the Town of Hamden must answer.

Has the developer evaluated the risk of unauthorized intrusion, theft, vandalism, and deliberate equipment damage?

Has it identified which components could be damaged or compromised by criminal interference?

Has it assessed the potential consequences of damage to electrical grounding, cabling, monitoring equipment, and protective systems?

What physical security measures are proposed?

Who responds to an intrusion alarm, and how quickly?

What happens when the access roads are impassable?

Has the developer examined the possibility that an electrical fire originating outside the battery modules could threaten the installation or surrounding vegetation?

And has the December 14, 2025 emergency response plan been reviewed or updated following the July 23, 2026 electrical substation fire in neighboring Otsego County?

These are factual questions requiring documentary answers, not assurances.

A Private Theft Can Produce a Public Disaster

There is a substantial difference between a thief stealing copper piping from an unoccupied farmhouse and a thief interfering with electrical infrastructure at a massive battery energy storage facility.

In the first case, the immediate consequences may be confined to the building and its owner.

In the second, the consequences may extend to surrounding forests, neighboring properties, volunteer firefighters, and public water resources.

The criminal may be interested in the scrap value of copper.

The developer may regard theft primarily as a security or property-loss problem.

But the public has a separate interest in whether criminal interference could initiate an industrial emergency that local responders cannot promptly control.

The July 23, 2026 Hartwick fire should put an end to any suggestion that theft-induced electrical fires are merely theoretical.

Theft at electrical installations has occurred in upstate New York. Copper theft has occurred in Delaware County. Burglaries targeting unattended properties have been investigated across Delaware, Otsego, and Chenango Counties.

And in neighboring Otsego County, copper thieves actually caused a fire inside a fenced electrical substation.

Before Fraser Storage is permitted to install approximately 767.5 MWh of battery capacity on a remote, forested mountain ridge, the public is entitled to a documented explanation of how the developer intends to prevent, detect, and respond to criminal interference.

A mountain is not a security system.  A fence is not a guarantee against burglary.  An alarm is not a firefighter.  And a four-hour journey is not an immediate emergency response.

The residents of Hamden and the surrounding communities should not be expected to bear the consequences of a hazard that the developer has failed to examine.

Selling Justice While Neglecting Public Safety: How Will Delaware County Residents Evacuate a Fraser BESS Fire Without Transportation? Delaware County's District Attorney wants more money from motorists. Meanwhile, the Fraser battery project raises an unanswered question: how will residents without reliable transportation escape a major industrial fire?

 

Delaware County, New York, has a remarkable set of priorities as to rural transportation - read Part I here, Part II here.

County District Attorney Shawn Smith operates a traffic-ticket diversion program charging motorists $317, including $250 for the District Attorney's services.  Now he wants to increase the price to $350, generating additional revenue for the County and participating municipalities.

Meanwhile, for Delaware County residents, private automobiles in a rural area are the only means of transportation since the busy County, applying and receiving all kinds of state and federal grants, did not come around to get a grant for public transportation.  Not a priority.   

And now, in the Town of Hamden, a 6 by 10 mile area, a massive industrial Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) is proposed on a forested mountain ridge, raising the prospect of large scale catastrophic lithium-ion battery fires, explosions, toxic smoke, and wildfire spreading through surrounding forests and underground peat, gas and oil deposits - the County is sitting on a Marcellus gas shale and reports multiple oil wells, and the project's emergency "plan" reports the project being put 125 feet away from wetlands - natural source of peat deposits.

In other words, the local authorities - ALL, Town of Hamden, County of Delaware, CWT, CWC and the developers - represented by one and the same law firm Young and Sommer - are merrily putting a powder keg over a bonfire.  Their site visits reported that - oh well, there are not a lot of people over there.  So what? They are expendable now?  With their homes, loved ones, pets, cattle and belongings?

NO EVACUATION ROUTES OR PLANS in any of the project documents that are so far publicly available. NONE.

So here is a question that Delaware County officials should answer before another permit is issued:

How are residents who cannot afford reliable transportation supposed to evacuate themselves if - or rather when, given how the project is handled - the Fraser BESS inferno occurs?

1. Delaware County's Motorists Are a Revenue Source

As discussed in the preceding article, Selling Justice in Delaware County, District Attorney Shawn Smith's traffic diversion program converts traffic-ticket dispositions into a source of revenue.

The current charge is $317, of which $250 goes toward the District Attorney's program. That represents approximately 78.9% of the total charge.

The proposed increase to $350 would make participation still more expensive.

For residents of a major metropolitan area, losing access to a car may mean taking a bus, subway, or train.

In rural Delaware County, the consequences can be considerably more severe.

Residents depend on their vehicles to reach employment, medical appointments, grocery stores, schools, and essential services. Those without a car may depend on relatives, neighbors, or limited transportation services.

For an elderly person, someone with a disability, or a low-income resident, the difference between owning a functioning automobile and being unable to maintain one can determine whether that person can leave home independently.

Yet the County treats motorists as a source of additional prosecutorial revenue.

And that transportation dependence has implications far beyond ordinary traffic enforcement.

2. Fraser BESS: A Fire Emergency That Will Not Wait for Residents to Find a Ride

The proposed Fraser BESS project is located on a forested mountain ridge in the Town of Hamden, within the New York City watershed.

The developer's December 14, 2025 Emergency Response Plan identifies 196 Tesla Megapack 2 XL units, each with a stated capacity of 3,916 kWh.

That amounts to approximately 767.5 MWh of installed battery capacity, substantially exceeding the 500–540 MWh figures publicly associated with the project.

The proposed facility would be unmanned.

The emergency response documentation contemplates a potentially four-hour response time for an owner's representative.

The surrounding terrain includes forested slopes, wetlands with potential peat deposits and difficult emergency access.  If a peat bog catches fire, the equipment that is needed to extinguish that type fire needs to be delivered by giant military helicopters.  If the surrounding forest catches fire, at the speed of the recent California forest wildfires, the entirety of the Town of Hamden (remember, roughly a 6 by 10 mile area) will be wiped out in less than an hour.

Hamden does not have its own fire department - a VERY good candidate for an industrial project of the type reported around the country and state of New York alike to burst into uncontrollable fires often, including on a scale requiring massive evacuations of surrounding areas.

Emergency response depends upon volunteer resources from neighboring communities, including Delhi, NY.

I reported on this blog how in one case, Delhi, NY volunteer firefighters arrived to a house fire at night without water.  A dog died in that fire, the house was completely destroyed, the owner suspected and reported an arson, the Village and County refused to investigate.

I received not only harassment online, like here and here and here (not the full list), for reporting on that fire - and no other media source, as far as I know, reported on it. 

Here is the juiciest piece of advice to me from commentators:

I also received death threats, and was relentlessly harassed for reporting the incident by Sharon Reichert-Morgan, wife to Josh Morgan, a then-volunteer firefighter who was among the crew who arrived at that house fire without water - and by a flock of her friends.  

Josh Morgan's wife promised me, among other things, that if MY house catches a fire, she will hide her husband's keys.  Which would have made no difference since he was arriving to house fires without water anyway.

Guess what - Josh Morgan has now risen in the local ranks, he is the Chair of the local Republican Party, a Councilman in the Town of Delhi, and a CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER in the Village of Delhi, and THE TOWN OF HAMDEN!!!

He is the one who is going to be "responsible" - a funny word, isn't it, when pronounced next to Josh Morgan given what I reported about him 10 years back - for fire safety.

But, in this case, Josh Morgan's competency - and conflicts of interests (Young Sommer represents every single stakeholder, developer and government alike) involved - are not the subject of online spats, or even death threats to one particular investigative journalist.

They may cost LIVES and may cost an ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER spreading far beyond the Town of Hamden.

A battery fire can produce hazardous smoke and gases. A fire spreading into the surrounding forest could require evacuations extending beyond the immediate facility.

In mountainous terrain, weather and wind conditions may complicate both suppression and evacuation.

A plan for managing the burning equipment is not a plan for evacuating the population.

Source: Fraser BESS Emergency Response Plan, December 14, 2025; project documentation concerning battery capacity, site conditions, and emergency access.

3. Where Are the Buses? Where Are the Evacuation Vehicles?

Suppose a Fraser BESS incident requires evacuation of nearby residents.

What happens to a household without a functioning car?

Who picks up an elderly resident living alone?

How is a wheelchair user transported?

What happens to someone who cannot drive at night, or whose vehicle cannot negotiate a seasonal road in winter?

Who transports residents requiring oxygen, mobility equipment, or other medical assistance?

And how are families supposed to evacuate their pets, horses, cattle, and other livestock?

An emergency evacuation plan must identify transportation resources before the emergency occurs.

It must establish who will dispatch vehicles, how residents will request assistance, where they will be collected, which roads will remain available, and where they will be taken.

It must account for road closures, smoke conditions, disabled vehicles, and the possibility that the same limited road network will be needed by arriving emergency responders.

Simply telling residents to leave is not an evacuation plan.

And, by the way, where the Fraser BESS project is planned, the road leading to that ridge-top location is gravel, narrow and windy, and equipment going up to extinguish the fire may clog the ways of frantic people and cattle going down escaping the fire and running for their lives.

If Delaware County cannot identify sufficient transportation capacity for residents without private vehicles, that deficiency belongs in the Fraser BESS risk assessment before the project is approved.

4. Delaware County Was Already Involved in Fraser BESS Planning

The County cannot treat these questions as matters solely for the Town of Hamden or the developer.

The Fraser BESS project review included County participation.

The July 9, 2025 project kickoff and site visit involved the Delaware County Emergency Response Director, County Planning representatives, and local officials.  Was not very widely advertised though.

Subsequent project records describe coordination concerning transportation and road access, including an April 28, 2026 meeting involving the New York State Department of Transportation, Delaware County Department of Public Works, and Delhi and Hamden highway officials.

These meetings demonstrate that transportation and access were already within the scope of governmental project review.  Under the guidance of Young Sommer, of course.

But reviewing how construction vehicles and emergency apparatus will reach a battery installation is not the same as establishing how residents will escape from it.

Where is Delaware County's civilian evacuation transportation plan?

Where is the inventory of vehicles available to transport people who cannot drive?

Where are the arrangements with transportation providers?

Where is the plan for winter evacuations, accessible transportation, emergency shelters, and livestock relocation?

And where is the evidence that the required transportation resources will actually be available during a major fire?

Sources: Fraser BESS project kickoff/site visit records, July 9, 2025; April 28, 2026 transportation coordination meeting records.

5. The Same Government That Collects Money From Motorists Must Plan for Those Who Cannot Drive

If you caged a person or animal, you are responsible for their well-being.

The same simple maxim applies if you grounded a person or animal and de facto deprived him or her of their means to escape a fatally dangerous industrial event.

The connection between traffic enforcement and emergency preparedness is not incidental.

Delaware County's residents depend exclusively on automobiles because of the County's rural geography and limited transportation alternatives.  THAT'S WHY DA Smith reported such a high revenue for the tickets.  In any metropolitan area, as Smith's and Public Defender Ermeti's disclosures reveal (reported today by the Reporter), people may use a taxi, an Uber, subway etc.   

That dependence gives the District Attorney's traffic diversion charges an economic significance far beyond the nominal cost of disposing of a ticket. 

Not in the Town of Hamden.

Not to escape off the burning forested peat-covered mountain ridge with seasonal snowed in gravel roads.

In the Town of Hamden, the proposed Fraser BESS project creates a scenario in which private transportation may become a matter of immediate survival.

A person who cannot afford to repair or maintain a vehicle does not become less vulnerable because the County has collected additional traffic diversion revenue.

A resident who cannot drive because of age or disability does not acquire transportation merely because an emergency alert instructs everyone to evacuate.

The County's responsibility to plan for those residents exists independently of whether they own automobiles.

The question is therefore one of public priorities.

Delaware County has identified a mechanism to extract additional revenue from motorists.

Has it demonstrated comparable initiative in identifying, financing, and organizing emergency transportation for people who cannot evacuate themselves?

The Fraser BESS project makes that question urgent.

6. Emergency Readiness Must Precede Industrial Development

The relevant distinction is between emergency response at the industrial facility and emergency preparedness for the surrounding community.

The developer may provide instructions concerning battery isolation, incident command, hazardous gases, and firefighting tactics.

But a major incident could extend beyond the facility boundary.

County and municipal authorities must address the civilian consequences, including evacuation warnings, transportation, accessible shelters, medical support, road management, and coordination with neighboring jurisdictions.

The issue is particularly serious where an industrial installation is proposed in a forested mountain environment with limited access roads and volunteer emergency services.

Emergency readiness cannot be improvised after an incident begins.

And the absence of reliable transportation cannot be treated as the private problem of residents who lack automobiles.

7. A Question for District Attorney Shawn Smith and Delaware County Government

The District Attorney's traffic diversion program has a price.

The proposed increase has a revenue objective.

But what is the County's budget for evacuating residents who cannot drive?

How many accessible vehicles can be deployed in Hamden?

How many people can be transported within the time available during a spreading wildfire?

Who has responsibility for residents living along seasonal roads?

Has the County determined whether emergency vehicles and outbound civilian traffic can use the same roads simultaneously?

Has it conducted a full-scale evacuation exercise involving residents without private transportation?

And has the County required the Fraser BESS developer to demonstrate that an industrial fire can be managed without leaving surrounding residents stranded?

These questions require documented answers, not general assurances.

Delaware County cannot reasonably treat motorists as a dependable revenue source while treating the transportation needs of its most vulnerable residents as somebody else's responsibility.

Before the Fraser BESS project proceeds, the public should be shown a comprehensive, operational civilian evacuation plan, including arrangements for residents without transportation.

Because when an industrial fire threatens a rural community, the ability to escape must not depend on whether a resident can afford a car.

Selling Justice in Delaware County, Part II: Wayne Marshfield's 80/20 Deal — Sharing the Proceeds of Traffic Ticket-Fixing with Municipalities Whose Judges Deliver the Dismissals: Wayne Marshfield Arranged for Municipalities to Receive 80% of the Money Gouged From Motorists by District Attorney Shawn Smith. The United States Supreme Court Has Already Condemned Financial Interests in Traffic Court Adjudications

In my previous article, “Selling Justice in Delaware County: District Attorney Shawn Smith Wants to Raise the Price of Traffic Ticket Dismissals While Half the County's Drivers Cannot Afford to Keep Their Licenses,” published November 6, 2026, I examined how Delaware County District Attorney Shawn Smith charges motorists hundreds of dollars for his prosecutorial “services” as a salaried public official, in exchange for obtaining dismissals of traffic tickets from local town and village justices.

Smith's office openly advertises a $250 “DA Fee” as part of the $317 charge for traffic diversion. 

He now proposes raising the total charge to $350. 

His office reported nearly half a million dollars in revenue for 2025 and budgeted approximately $750,000 for 2026.

As reported by J. Lawrence-Bauer in The Reporter on November 6, 2026, Smith and Delaware County Public Defender Joseph Ermeti acknowledged that approximately half of the county's drivers may lack valid licenses, that poverty contributes to the loss of driving privileges, and that residents of this vast rural county have virtually no public transportation.

Smith knows that losing a driver's license in Delaware County may mean losing employment, access to food, medical care, and the ability to maintain a livelihood. Nevertheless, he is proposing to gouge motorists for even more money.

But Smith is not the only public official involved in this traffic ticket-fixing revenue business.

Enter Wayne Marshfield, Supervisor of the Town of Hamden, NY.

On September 25, 2024, the Delaware County Board of Supervisors adopted Resolution No. 151. 

According to the county's legislative record, Marshfield proposed the amendment directing 80% of the designated traffic diversion revenue to the municipalities having jurisdiction over the original traffic infractions, while Delaware County retained 20%.

In other words, Marshfield arranged for the municipalities whose town and village justices must dismiss the traffic tickets to receive the overwhelming majority of the proceeds.

The scheme is simple.

The district attorney charges the defendants. 

The town and village justices dismiss the tickets. 

The municipalities employing those justices collect 80% of the money. 

Wayne Marshfield proposed that financial arrangement.

And the United States Supreme Court has already spoken about judges whose decisions generate revenue for the municipalities they serve.

Wayne Marshfield's 80/20 Deal: Sharing the Proceeds for Selling Justice

A traffic ticket is a judicial proceeding.  The district attorney does not own it.  He cannot impose a criminal fine, sentence a defendant, or dismiss a pending judicial proceeding by himself.  Those powers belong to the court and must be exercised according to law.

Yet Smith's traffic ticket-fixing operation charges motorists a predetermined amount for the opportunity to obtain dismissals.  The county collects the money, and the district attorney requests the judicial dispositions necessary to complete the transaction.

Marshfield's amendment added a financial distribution arrangement under which 80% of the designated proceeds are paid to the municipalities having jurisdiction over the traffic infractions.

The municipalities receive the money precisely because the traffic prosecutions arose within their jurisdictions.  Their town and village justices possess the judicial authority necessary to dismiss those prosecutions.

The financial beneficiaries and the judicial decision-makers are thus connected through the same municipal governments.

This is not an ordinary criminal fine imposed by a judge after adjudication.  It is a charge established outside the judicial sentencing process, collected through the district attorney's traffic diversion arrangement, and distributed according to a formula proposed by Marshfield.

What law authorizes a county supervisor to arrange the distribution of money charged by a prosecutor for obtaining favorable dispositions of judicial proceedings? What law authorizes the municipalities to receive it? And what law permits the judicial authority of town and village courts to become the indispensable component of a revenue-producing arrangement benefiting the governments that maintain those courts?

Marshfield's amendment deserves scrutiny  because of what is being divided.

The money comes from defendants facing prosecution. The promised result is dismissal. The judges must deliver that result. And their municipalities receive the proceeds.

The Supreme Court Already Condemned This Kind of Financial Interest in Tumey v. Ohio

In Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927), the United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant's due process rights were violated when the judicial officer adjudicating the case possessed a financial interest in convictions.

The case involved a mayor who exercised judicial authority and received compensation contingent upon convictions, while the municipality also benefited from the fines collected.

EXACTLY what we have with Marshfield-Smith's not-so-little revenue scheme.

The Supreme Court condemned the financial temptation built into the adjudicative arrangement.

The constitutional defect did not depend upon proof that the mayor had actually convicted an innocent defendant.  It arose from the financial interest attached to the exercise of judicial power.

A defendant is entitled to an impartial judge, not a judicial officer whose financial interests favor a particular disposition.

That constitutional principle is not suspended because the proceeding concerns a traffic ticket. 

Nor is it suspended because government officials decide to collect the money through an administrative arrangement rather than a fine imposed after trial.

The Constitution does not permit the financial interests of government officials to replace independent judicial adjudication.

Ward v. Village of Monroeville: The Judge Does Not Have to Pocket the Money Personally

The Supreme Court's decision in Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972), is even more important.

In Ward, a mayor adjudicated traffic and ordinance violations in a municipal court that generated substantial revenue for the village. 

The mayor did not personally receive the fines. 

Nevertheless, he exercised executive responsibility for municipal finances.

The Supreme Court held that this arrangement violated due process.

The money did not have to go into the judge's personal pocket. The municipality's financial interest, combined with the mayor's fiscal responsibilities, was enough to disqualify him from adjudicating the cases.

Now consider the Marshfield-Smith arrangement.

The municipalities receive 80% of designated traffic diversion revenue.  

Their town and village justices DELIVER the VOLUME of dismissals necessary for that revenue to exist.

It is the DA-judge-municipality financial chute.

Marshfield's legislative arrangement made the financial interest of the municipalities explicit.

The judicial officers are not mayors exercising executive responsibility over municipal budgets, as in Ward. 

They are town and village justices. 

But that does not make the financial relationship disappear. 

It raises the question of how the municipalities' financial interests are separated from the judicial decisions upon which the traffic ticket-fixing business depends.

The Supreme Court has already rejected the proposition that municipal revenue interests are harmless merely because the judge does not personally collect the money.

The county cannot avoid the constitutional question by routing the ticket-fixing scheme proceeds through the County Treasurer and municipal accounts.

Connally v. Georgia: Five Dollars Was Enough

In Connally v. Georgia, 429 U.S. 245 (1977), the Supreme Court invalidated an arrangement under which a justice of the peace received $5 for issuing a search warrant but received nothing for denying the application.

Five dollars.

The Court held that the financial incentive violated constitutional requirements of judicial impartiality.

According to The Reporter, Delaware County's traffic ticket-fixing operation generates hundreds of thousands of dollars annually - which DA Smith gleefully reports to the County, and asks to allow him to increase the fees.  

Under Marshfield's arrangement, municipalities receive the overwhelming majority of designated revenue.

According to J. Lawrence-Bauer's March 10, 2026 article in The Reporter, the Town of Hancock alone received $142,250 in 2025.

If a $5 payment contingent upon a judicial decision was constitutionally impermissible in Connally, the financial arrangements surrounding the dismissal of thousands of traffic prosecutions in Delaware County demand examination.

How much money, if any, reaches the town and village justices personally? How much supports the courts in which they preside? What understandings exist concerning the judicial dismissals that make the revenue possible?

The answers belong in the public record.

Non-Attorney Town and Village Justices Looking to Prosecutors for Legal Advice

New York permits town and village justices to preside over criminal and traffic proceedings without being attorneys.

Most of them are non-attorneys.

As a criminal defense counsel in the past who practiced in Delaware County justice courts, I have personally observed non-attorney town and village justices openly looking to local prosecutors for legal advice about how to resolve cases pending before them.

The prosecutor is an advocate appearing before the court, not the judge's independent legal adviser.

But, New York State does not have ANY education-level requirement for town and village justices' positions, and does not watch what the uneducated judges do in their "service".

So, the judges feel free to use DAs as their legal advisors.

So when, like we have in the Delaware County's traffic ticket-fixing arrangement, the prosecutor is also the official who establishes the monetary conditions for obtaining favorable dispositions and whose revenue figures are regularly reported to the county legislature, that interested legal advisor de facto means that how the judge will decide traffic ticket cases that the DA wants to charge defendants money for - is a given.

The district attorney charges the money, determines eligibility, and seeks dismissal. The judge, advised by that District Attorney, exercises the judicial power necessary to complete the transaction.  The municipality receives its share of the proceeds.

Sweet deal, isn't it?

It is. 

And it is as criminal as it is sweet.

The September 11, 2024 Delaware County Finance Committee records make the issue particularly important. 

Assistant District Attorney Schuyler Kinneman reported that some town judges had expressed skepticism about the proposed diversion program. 

He also discussed the participation of Delhi Town Court and the ability of individual judges to request that certain offenses be excluded from diversion.

Thus, before Marshfield's September 25, 2024 amendment, the district attorney's office was already discussing the participation and preferences of the local judicial officers - and whether those non-attorney judges, advised by the DA, may bow out of generation of the revenue stream much sought by DA Smith, the County and its municipalities.

What understandings were reached? 

Who participated in the discussions? 

Were the justices asked to approve the dismissal of charges after payment? 

Were they advised of the financial benefits to their municipalities? 

Did they independently examine the legality of the prosecutor's fees?

There is no public reporting or records available in open access about it.

And people need to start questions, why?

Including the zillion-dollar question: did Marshfield know what arrangements had been made with the judges before he proposed giving their municipalities 80% of the proceeds?

The Municipalities Are Making Real Money From This Arrangement

The revenue figures have been repeatedly reported by J. Lawrence-Bauer in The Reporter.

In “Traffic Diversion Program Generates $247K Year-to-Date,” published September 3, 2025, Lawrence-Bauer reported that Eric Northrup (quite coincidentally, nephew of former DA and former judge and present ADA Richard Northrup), appearing for District Attorney Shawn Smith, informed the county Legislative Committee that 267 diversion agreements had generated $66,750 in August 2025 alone.  Year-to-date revenue had reached $247,750, and Hancock received $16,500 for August.

In “Traffic Diversion Program Gains Speed After Strong First Year,” published February 11, 2026, Lawrence-Bauer reported that the program processed 2,544 cases during 2025 and generated $478,750.  Eighty percent went to municipalities, while Delaware County retained 20%.  Monthly revenue increased from $7,250 in January 2025 to $65,000 in January 2026.

In “Caseloads, Funding, and ‘Poaching’ Discussed at County Legislative Committee Meeting,” published March 10, 2026, Lawrence-Bauer reported Smith's March 4 statement that the program generated approximately $485,000 in 2025 and that the county budgeted approximately $750,000 for 2026.

The same article reported that Hancock received $142,250 in 2025, while Bovina and Tompkins received $500 each.  Smith had prepared individualized reports showing supervisors how much money was returning to their municipalities.

In “Fiscal Realities and Public Rebuttals: Inside the Delaware County Legislative Committee,” published February 9, 2026, Lawrence-Bauer reported Smith's disclosure that January diversion revenue reached approximately $68,000 despite winter conditions that ordinarily reduce traffic enforcement.

These are not insignificant sums.

Marshfield's arrangement made municipalities the principal financial beneficiaries of a traffic ticket-fixing operation that generated nearly half a million dollars in 2025 and was budgeted to generate three-quarters of a million dollars in 2026.

Where is the money going? 

How much has the Town of Hamden received?

How much did Marshfield personally receive for his input?

What part of the revenue supports municipal court operations? 

What payments, if any, have been made to judicial officers?

And how many traffic prosecutions have been dismissed by the participating town and village justices after motorists paid DA Smith off? 

New York Has Already Condemned Ticket-Fixing

In Matter of Conti, 70 N.Y.2d 416 (1987), the New York Court of Appeals sustained the removal of a town justice for misconduct involving ticket-fixing.

The integrity of judicial proceedings does not become less important because the charge is a traffic violation.

New York Penal Law §§ 200.00 and 200.10 prohibit bribery and bribe receiving involving public servants pursuant to corrupt agreements or understandings intended to influence official action. Penal Law § 195.00 addresses knowing unauthorized official conduct undertaken with the requisite intent.

Federal law also criminalizes qualifying corrupt arrangements involving public officials, including bribery under 18 U.S.C. § 666 and honest-services fraud involving bribery or kickbacks under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346.

The county cannot make an otherwise corrupt arrangement lawful by calling it traffic diversion or adopting a resolution distributing the proceeds.

If the prosecutor and the judges have reached improper understandings concerning predetermined dispositions, the fact that those understandings operate through an organized countywide system does not immunize them from criminal law.

A county resolution is not a license to fix judicial proceedings.

New York Judicial Ethics Authorities Have Already Warned About These Arrangements

New York's Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics has repeatedly addressed the dangers arising when prosecutors administer traffic diversion arrangements involving fees, judicial dismissals, and financial benefits to local governments.

Opinion 14-175 considered judicial participation in designing or implementing countywide traffic diversion programs, including the appearance-of-impropriety problems arising from financial interests in redirected traffic revenue.

Joint Opinion 10-32/10-48 discussed programs involving payments by motorists, prosecutorial requests for dismissal, revenue distributions, and even payments associated with cases disposed of through participating courts.

Opinions 19-145, 20-165, and 25-62 addressed additional concerns involving prosecutorial control of diversion, upfront payments, and the independence of town and village justices.

The courts are not administrative extensions of the district attorney's office. Their authority to dispose of prosecutions cannot be subordinated to the prosecutor's financial arrangements or the municipalities' desire for revenue.

The judges are supposed to administer impartial justice, in each and every case in front of them, not to deliver dismissals necessary to sustain a municipal revenue business, or DA Smith's personal business.

Marshfield's Arrangement in a County Where Poverty Is Already Destroying Transportation

The November 6, 2026 Reporter article makes Marshfield's arrangement especially disturbing.

According to Lawrence-Bauer, Public Defender Joseph Ermeti estimated that approximately half of Delaware County drivers lack valid licenses, and District Attorney Shawn Smith agreed that the estimate sounded about right.

The officials acknowledged that poverty contributes to the loss of driving privileges and that public transportation is virtually nonexistent.

They recognized that people continue driving because otherwise they cannot work, obtain essential services, or survive economically.

Yet Delaware County collects hundreds of thousands of dollars from motorists seeking favorable dispositions of traffic prosecutions and distributes most of the proceeds to municipal governments under the formula Marshfield proposed.

The county's residents are losing their ability to drive because of financial hardship, while their municipal governments collect revenue from a system built around the threat of traffic penalties and loss of driving privileges.

Instead of developing public transportation for residents who cannot afford to maintain valid licenses, county officials are discussing how to increase the charges imposed through the district attorney's traffic ticket-fixing operation.

Marshfield's amendment made the municipalities principal financial beneficiaries of that operation.

The same municipalities whose courts must independently adjudicate the traffic prosecutions.

What Did Wayne Marshfield Arrange, and Who Authorized It?

The September 25, 2024 legislative record identifies Marshfield as the official who proposed the 80/20 distribution.

The public is entitled to know what legal authority he relied upon, what discussions preceded his amendment, and what he knew about the arrangements between the district attorney's office and participating town and village justices.

It is entitled to know how much revenue the Town of Hamden has received, how that money has been spent, and what role the Hamden Town Court has played in delivering the dismissals necessary to generate it.

It is entitled to know whether the constitutional implications of Tumey, Ward, and Connally were ever examined by the County's giant legal mind, Amy Merklen - or was it "County Attorney" Kevin Young of Young Sommer, so reported in a recent Reporter's article?

And the public is entitled to know whether the county's officials considered the conflict between municipal financial interests and the independence of the judicial officers whose decisions make the revenue possible.

The County's Board of Supervisors cannot vote away the Fourteenth Amendment

---

Sources and Authorities

Delaware County Records

1. Delaware County Board of Supervisors, Resolution No. 151, September 25, 2024, including Wayne Marshfield's amendment establishing the 80/20 distribution of designated traffic diversion revenue.

2. Delaware County Finance Committee meeting records, September 11, 2024.

3. Delaware County District Attorney's Office, published Traffic Diversion Program fee schedule.

Reporting by J. Lawrence-Bauer, The Reporter (Catskills Today)

4. “No License, No Transit, No Choice? Public Defender Estimates Half of Delaware County Drivers Lack Valid Licenses,” November 6, 2026.

5. “Traffic Diversion Program Generates $247K Year-to-Date,” September 3, 2025.

6. “Traffic Diversion Program Gains Speed After Strong First Year,” February 11, 2026.

7. “Fiscal Realities and Public Rebuttals: Inside the Delaware County Legislative Committee,” February 9, 2026.

8. “Caseloads, Funding, and ‘Poaching’ Discussed at County Legislative Committee Meeting,” March 10, 2026.

United States Supreme Court Decisions

9. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927).

10. Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972).

11. Connally v. Georgia, 429 U.S. 245 (1977).

New York Case Law and State and Federal Statutes

12. Matter of Conti, 70 N.Y.2d 416 (1987).

13. New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, Opinion 14-175; Joint Opinion 10-32/10-48; Opinions 19-145, 20-165, and 25-62.

14. New York Penal Law §§ 195.00, 200.00, 200.10.

15. 18 U.S.C. §§ 666, 1341, 1343, 1346.