Steve Lieberman

slieberm@lohud.com

RAMAPO - Councilman Samuel Tress was arrested Thursday afternoon for voting to back a zoning change on a housing development he held a financial stake in — even though he had signed an affidavit stating he wouldn't profit from his decisions as a Zoning Board of Appeals member.

Tress, 71, who has a previous felony conviction, faces a felony charge of first-degree offering a false instrument and a misdemeanor count of official misconduct, according to the Rockland District Attorney's Office.

Airmont Justice Daniel Goldman arraigned Tress after detectives led him in handcuffs into the courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released without bail. Tress was accompanied by his lawyers, Kenneth Gribetz and Deborah Loewenberg.

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Executive Assistant District Attorney Richard Kennison Moran said Tress had been cooperative during the investigation. He asked for about month, until April 7, for Tress's next court date; a grand jury is expected to review the charges. Tress faces up to four years in prison if convicted of the top count.

Gribetz called Tress a man "deeply involved in the community" and said Tress was shell-shocked by the charges.

Asked if Tress would resign from his town office, Loewenberg said there was no reason he should have to unless he chose to do so, given the presumption of innocence in a criminal case.

District Attorney's Office detectives had been scrutinizing Tress's vote on May 4, 2015, to approve multiple variances for what was then a single-family house at 142 Blauvelt Road, District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said.

Tress cast the deciding vote to grant eight zoning variances for 142 Blauvelt Road in Monsey, prosecutors said, while failing to disclose to his financial interest in the property.

Tress on May 14, 2015 had filed a disclosure affirmation with the town asserting that he had not and would not engage in any activity that would provide a personal or pecuniary gain to himself in relation to his duties as a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, prosecutors contend.

Tress denied Wednesday to a Journal News reporter that he profited from the ZBA approval.

Tress served on the ZBA for years before getting elected in November to the Ramapo Town Board. In a September primary, Tress defeated Councilman Daniel Friedman, a fellow Democrat who had fallen out of favor with Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence.

The Journal News revealed before the election that Tress had a federal mail-fraud conviction and lived in Lakewood, New Jersey. Tress initially said he rented a Monsey apartment, but clarified, "I'm not denying that I live in New Jersey, but I am most of the week in Monsey."

At the time of his arrest on Thursday he gave the district attorney the home address of an apartment at 221 Kearsing Parkway in Monsey.

Concern about 'perception'

St. Lawrence declined to comment Thursday on his running mate and political ally, referring questions to Town Attorney Michael Klein.

Klein said detectives had subpoenaed Tress's personnel file and the Building Department's file on the property at 142 Blauvelt Road, the former home of Kol Yaakov Torah Center, near Maple Avenue.

"We're concerned about the integrity and public perception of government and government officials," Klein said. "I think we were surprised by this."

Ramapo Deputy Supervisor Patrick Withers, a retired New York City police officer, said no one is above the law. "I assume this legal matter like all legal matters will now run its course through the legal process at which time we will have more information as to what has truly happened," Withers said.

The investigation that led to Tress' arrest Thursday was conducted by the Public Corruption Task Force, comprised of the Rockland District Attorney's Office, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The grassroots political party Preserve Ramapo provided Zugibe's office with more than 100 pages of documents on Tress during a meeting last month, said Michael Castelluccio, who runs the group's website.

"We are grateful that the District Attorney's Office has acted so quickly on the information Preserve Ramapo brought to them," he said.

Documents obtained by The Journal News before the arrest show Tress and his wife contracted to sell the single-family house for $500,000 to builder Samuel Wettenstein of Spring Valley in May 2013. Wettenstein obtained a demolition permit from Ramapo for his plan to build three condominiums and three accessory apartments on the property.

But the couple ended up with a 40 percent share of the property when the development stalled and Tress and his wife were still owed $150,000, according to town documents on the variance vote and a November lawsuit Tress filed against the buyer. The case was dropped last month, according to a document in file with the Rockland County Clerk's Office.

Tress signed an affidavit stating as a Zoning Board of Appeals member, he would not profit from his position. "With full knowledge and awareness, I affirm that I do not have, I have not engaged in and I will not engage in any activity that would provide a personal or pecuniary gain to myself, my spouse, or my dependents from the activity (activities) in which I now give (or am about to give) my services to the Town of Ramapo or any affiliated or associated board, commission or agency thereof."

"The documentation will clearly show I didn't gain financially," Tress said Wednesday. "The votes I made had no impact on any financial gain. I've seen the information and my attorney and I are awaiting to get all the documentation."

Property history

Tress has had financial ties to the single-family house since 1984, according to a court application filed in March 2009 to transfer ownership of the house and land under state religious law to Tress and his wife, Shulamis.

His late brother, Rabbi Avrohom Tress, was a founder in 1981 of the Kol Yaakov Torah Center, a school for Jews returning to Orthodox Judaism. Tress said in the document that he and his wife lived in the house rent-free and he worked as an instructor from September 1985 to June 1986.

In the March 2009 document, Tress said he paid the $140,000 mortgage and all the costs for the house but ownership remained under the name of Kol Yaakov Torah Center.

"However in truth and fact, the petitioner" - Kol Yaakov - "acted as a nominee on our behalf," Tress says in the document. "We supplied the funds to purchase the house and have been paying the mortgage payments, maintenance and taxes since it was purchased in 1985. The petitioner has never paid any money for the purchase or upkeep of the house."

Tress said in that 2009 affidavit that he and his wife "now desire to have the premises" in their name "since we are the true owners - because we may want to sell or mortgage the house in the future."

Wettenstein originally planned to build three condominiums, three accessory apartments and storage space at the former school, according to the lawsuit and town planning department documents. Wettenstein expanded the size of the Blauvelt Road project without town approval by adding plans to build three additional condo units and then ran out of financing to complete the project, delaying payment to Tress, the lawsuit says.

The Ramapo Building Department obtained a court stop-work order last year because of the unauthorized expansion of the project, according to the lawsuit and town documents from the department. The lawsuit also contends the Wettensteins didn't get Tress's approval for the additional condominium units.

Tress sued Samuel and Aaron Wettenstein, another investor, in November 2015 when they failed to pay him the final $150,000 and provide Tress with one of the three accessory apartments as part of their contract.

The lawsuit states Samuel Wettenstein had paid Tress $350,000 on March 11, 2014.

The U.S. Attorney's Office and Rockland District Attorney's Office have been conducting several investigations in Ramapo and Rockland. In May 2013, the FBI and District Attorney's Office seized boxes of documents and computer hard drives from Ramapo town offices.

In a separate case, two Spring Valley officials were sentenced to prison for taking bribes.

"I find it very disheartening when public officials use their position to benefit themselves," said Robert Romanowski, a Ramapo resident who has run for office against the St. Lawrence team. "That's not what public service is about."

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