Monticello free speech suit costs $95,000

By TRISTRAM KORTEN
Staff Writer

MONTICELLO - Speech may be free, but it's going to cost the Village of Monticello $95,000.

That's what a lawyer for five people suing the village and the police department for violating their civil rights said about a settlement reached yesterday. The $95,000 offer to drop the case was made during the second day of the civil rights trial of the "Monticello Five," said their lawyer, Jane Gould, of White Plains.

Monticello's insurance company, the National Casualty Company, will pay the settlement, village officials said. Monticello's lawyer, Monte Rosenstein, declined comment. So did Mayor Robert Friedland.

"It's between them and the insurance company," the mayor said.

The Monticello Five said their freedom of speech was squelched when they were charged with disorderly conduct, a violation, at an Aug. 2, 1993, village meeting. They held up placards criticizing the Village Board for a job swap that became known as "musical chairs." In the swap, several elected officials resigned and were appointed to higher-paying jobs, ostensibly in an effort to create a full-time attorney position.

A state Supreme Court justice later ruled the job swap was illegal.

Likewise, the charges against the Monticello Five - Thomas and Carmen Rue of Monticello; Glenn Pontier, then of Narrowsburg; Mary Marino of Monticello and Charles Stephenson of North Branch - were dropped in February 1994.

"This case was about one issue: free speech," Gould said. "Government should not and cannot stifle a protest by its citizens... That value was vindicated today."

In their suit, the five plaintiffs sought $25 million in damages. Gould said the damages they sought were to punish the village for trying to step on their free speech, as well as compensation for the emotional stress of being arrested.

Rue, a contributing writer to The River Reporter weekly newspaper, said Friedland apologized in court to them. Friedland, however, denied apologizing.

"We're elated the First Amendment has been vindicated in the Village of Monticello," Rue said.

Pontier was editor of The River Reporter when he was charged. He is now a news director at WVOS radio in Ferndale.

"Clearly a government can't go around arresting its citizens who want to express their point of view," Pontier said. "Certainly, it was incumbent upon them to redress the wrong they had done. The government we were protesting was illegal."

Lynn DeWaters, director of the Westchester office of the New York Civil Liberties union, said she didn't know of any similar cases.

"I think they certainly would have won a jury trial," DeWaters said. "As long as they were not holding up the signs in a manner that impeded the meeting, just bringing the signs, is a First Amendment right.

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