Largest town in US held in contempt for producing just 17 of nearly 3K court-requested emails over school-bus cameras

 From The New York Post, story by reporter Brandon Cruz. Full story is here.

The largest town in America has been held in contempt by a New York judge for releasing just 17 of nearly 3,000 emails sought in a battle over alleged illegally issued school-bus-camera tickets.

State Supreme Court Justice Maureen McHugh Heitner last week ruled that the failure of the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, Long Island, to produce the roughly 3,000 records amounted to “willful disobedience and resistance.” 

The town had agreed to release the records after signing an agreement in June with the Brooklyn-based Aron Law PLLC, which is repping accused scofflaws — yet Hempstead has produced only 17 emails to date, court papers show.

And:

Aron’s law firm sued the town when Hempstead officials denied its original Sept. 2024 Freedom of Information Law request for the sought-after emails on the town’s servers, specifically any that contain the term “croce.” 

The firm’s request centered on whether the town was still issuing bus-camera violations in spite of People v. Croce — a 2023 Suffolk County decision that threw out a driver’s conviction after finding school-bus-camera footage alone wasn’t enough to prove guilt.

After the town denied Aron’s FOIL request as “overbroad,” the lawyer took the case to the state supreme court, and in June, signed a stipulation with the town requiring the release of the records.