This morning, counsel for Lawler for Congress filed a summation in the New York State Supreme Court, Rockland County, laying out the case that Democratic congressional candidate Effie Phillips-Staley’s designating petition is so permeated with fraud that it must be invalidated in its entirety.
“This is fraud, on the record, in open court, by the campaign of a candidate for US Congress,” said Ciro Riccardi, campaign manager for Lawler for Congress. “Voters have taken the stand and testified that their signatures were forged. Twenty-seven more are submitting sworn affidavits saying the same thing. The candidate herself signed the contract, was present when the petition was bound, and didn’t bother to review a single page. The voters of NY-17 deserve a primary contest decided by real signatures from real people.”
The filing, submitted by attorney James P. Curran, documents the following on the record:
– All parties have stipulated that 829 signatures collected by six different subscribing witnesses on Phillips-Staley’s petition are invalid.
– Three voters have already testified, under oath, that their signatures were forged. One of them, Frank Capuano, was away at college in Ithaca on the date he supposedly signed. Another, Lisa Locatelli, testified that the forger got her apartment number wrong and listed an address on the line above hers that does not exist.
– The campaign is preparing to submit 27 additional sworn affidavits from voters whose signatures were forged onto the petition — affidavits that directly contradict sworn statements from Phillips-Staley’s own subscribing witnesses, who claimed under oath to have personally watched every voter sign.
– The six subscribing witnesses in question accounted for 95 sheets — roughly a quarter of the entire petition.
– Phillips-Staley personally signed a contract with the firm Bartholomew Communications to produce 1,600 signatures, more than half of the total she submitted. According to testimony, the campaign performed only a “cursory review” before binding and filing the petition, and not a single page was pulled for fraud.
– One subscribing witness, Dion McBean, recorded 127 signatures in a single day of door-knocking — a figure the filing notes any experienced campaign worker would recognize as wildly improbable, and well beyond the 8-per-shift expectation laid out in Phillips-Staley’s own contract with Bartholomew.
“We are asking the Court to do what the law requires and invalidate this petition in its entirety,” concluded Riccardi.
The court is scheduled to resume proceedings this morning. The full summation has been filed on NYSCEF and is available HERE.
All NYSCEF documents related to 032794/2026 can be found HERE.
Full minutes of the April 20 pretrial conference and the April 22 and April 24 evidentiary hearings are available HERE.
