WILLFULL DECEPTION: LIPETRI ADMITS TO FILING UNDER FALSE ADDRESS – AFTER CLOCK RAN OUT ON LEGAL CHALLENGES
Hach: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was thrown off the New York ballot for exactly this. Mike LiPetri knew that; timed confession so no court could touch him.”
Perennial and nomadic congressional candidate Mike LiPetri filed a false home address on his congressional designating petitions — then waited until the deadline passed for challenges to his petitions before admitting that he lied about his legal address in a recent Newsday interview, the campaign of America-First Republican Greg Hach today charged.
Robert Kennedy, Jr. was thrown off the presidential ballot in 2024 in New York for doing the same thing.
The false filing is not an aberration for Mr. LiPetri, the Hach campaign noted. It is the latest chapter in a career defined by hunting for a district rather than living in one and serving it:
2020: Just one term into representing the 9th Assembly District, Mr. LiPetri abandoned his own constituents on the South Shore to chase an open congressional seat in New York’s Second District. He lost the primary in part because of his residency issue.
2024: Lipetri resurfaced in New York’s Third Congressional District while again living outside of the district in which he was running. He lost that election.
2026: He is running in the Third District again, this time being forced to admit that his petitions were filed under an address where he does not reside.
Mr. LiPetri stayed silent through the legal objection period under New York Election Law — the brief window in April when his petitions could have been challenged and invalidated — and came clean only after that window slammed shut. That is a calculated deception, executed by a lawyer who knew precisely which deadlines he was running out, the Hach campaign said.
“Mike LiPetri is an attorney. He knew the address was false when he signed the filing, he knew a false address invalidates a petition, and he knew the date after which nobody could do anything about it,” Mr. Hach said. “But Mr. LiPetri clearly doesn’t believe the law applies to him, so he found a sneaky way to game the law. Voters in the Third District deserve to know that Mr. LiPetri got on the ballot fraudulently.
“Mr. LiPetri has now run for four different seats in three different parts of Long Island within just seven years,” Mr. Hach said. “And in every single one of his House races, he has not lived in the district or he has concealed his actual address. If those are Mr. LiPetri’s ethics, NY3 voters need to know it.”
In August 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was removed from the New York presidential ballot after a state Supreme Court justice found that the Westchester address on his nominating petitions was a “sham” — an address claimed for political purposes where he did not actually live. The court held that the false residence statement alone required invalidation of the petition.
“The only difference between Bobby Kennedy and Mike LiPetri is that Mr. Kennedy got caught inside the deadline,” Mr. Hach said. “The law that took Kennedy off the ballot is the same law LiPetri violated. He cynically gamed the calendar.”
Mr. Hach noted that while the ballot-challenge window has closed, Mr. LiPetri’s exposure has not. Knowingly filing a false instrument with a board of elections implicates New York Penal Law sections 175.30 and 175.35 — offering a false instrument for filing — as well as the Election Law’s misconduct provisions, none of which expire with the petition deadline.
“If Mike LiPetri will lie on a sworn government filing to get himself on a ballot, what won’t he lie about in Washington?” Mr. Hach said.
