A simple case of bullying.
That’s how the Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association’s Gene Berardelli is characterizing his legal run-in with a deep-pocketed developer responsible for founding the now-defunct Wiz electronics stores.
Lawyers for Stephen S. Jemal – the developer behind a number of different building projects in Mill Basin, Gerritsen Beach and Sheepshead Bay – took exception to a recent blog posting Berardelli put on the civic’s website describing Jemal’s past business ventures.
Gerritsen Beach blogger Dan Cavanagh of GerritsenBeach.net also ran the posting as well as a link to court papers outlining Jemal’s $5.5 million contract dispute with his investment companies.
Jemal’s lawyers sent letters to both men demanding that the entire post be removed from their websites, a retraction run and $20,000 paid to cover the developer’s legal fees.
“In my opinion, this was clearly bullying,” Berardelli told the Bay News.
Cavanagh contends that the alleged bullying went even further when his website was briefly hacked just prior to receiving the demand letter from Jemal’s attorneys.
“The court complaint was the only thing being attacked,” Cavanagh said. “Then I got this demand letter. So then I said okay, this is completely related.”
Cavanagh also says that someone in Jemal’s employ later contacted him claiming that he had taught another person close to the developer how to hack into GerritsenBeach.net.
“They claim the hacker was a renegade employee,” Berardelli said.
Oliver Griffin, attorney for Stephen Jemal, doesn’t deny someone hacked into Cavanagh’s website, but he says the act can’t be pinned on his client.
“After an internal investigation on behalf of our client, there is no fact in evidence that in any way shows that Jemal or any one with corporate authority authored this cyber attack,” he said.
The attorney maintains that the language Berardelli and Cavanagh used on their sites to describe his client is defamatory.
Berardelli has since agreed to revise two paragraphs regarding Jemal on the sbpbcivic.org website. The developer is now even expected to attend the organization’s September meeting.
“They were going after [Dan] for something that I wrote,” Berardelli said. “We thought that this was pertinent information to put up. We feel that knowledge is power.”
Griffin says that Berardelli’s decision to revise his post is “indicative of the fact that we were right.”
“We’re happy that it’s down,” he said.
The controversial post, however, was still available at Gerritsen Beach.net at the time of this writing, and Cavanagh was adamant about it remaining there.
“I’m not taking anything down,” he said.
