Social services chief: Wading River Motel raid a ‘witch hunt for contraband and criminals’

Three days after a Friday night raid he calls “Gestapo-like” and “sleazy” and says “terrorized” homeless residents in emergency housing at the Wading River Motel (prior story), Suffolk County Social Services Commissioner Gregory Blass is even angrier at Riverhead Town for its actions, because now he’s convinced the town was on a “witch hunt for contraband and criminals.”

Now that he’s seen the search warrant executed by town police Friday night, Blass says the document on its face violates basic Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, Blass said.

“It doesn’t even name anyone, not even John or Jane Doe. It purports to give the town officials carte blanche to rifle through the personal belongings of anyone they find on premises, without probably cause to believe a crime has been committed, and seize anything they want,” the angry social services commissioner said Monday. “That is a blatant violation of the most basic of constitutional protections,” said Blass, an attorney and former Suffolk County Family Court judge. “No warrant shall issue but upon probable cause specifically describing the person to be searched and the property to be seized,” he said.

“This warrant is appalling,” Blass said.

The warrant was signed at 1:05 p.m. on Thursday afternoon by Riverhead Town Justice Richard Ehlers, upon the application of Riverhead Town Investigator Richard Downs. It says it relies on proof in the form of affidavits by Downs, by Police Officer Patrick Lennon and by the head clerk of the town building department. Blass said yesterday his agency and the county attorney were still trying to get copies of the supporting affidavits.

The search warrant, a copy of which was obtained by RiverheadLOCAL [download a copy], states any police officer of the town is authorized to search the motel premises for things like electric meters, improvised living spaces and kitchens, but it also authorizes a search for “personal clothing to include socks, pants, shorts, shirts, hats and gloves” and “personal hygiene items including but not limited to hairbrushes, combs, toothbrushes and razors, prescription medications and their containers, letters, bills photo identification(s) to include passports, licenses, club memberships, prescriptions and magazines…”

The search warrant also states the police are “authorized to count, identify and interview each person found in the subject premises and ascertain his/her name, address and relationship (if any) to the owner of he subject premises” and states the police are authorized to physically seize evidence including “identification cards, letters and paper items”…”that may not photograph well enough to be utilized at trial.”

Blass said he was “very surprised” Judge Ehlers would sign such a warrant. “The judicial branch safeguard seems to have fallen flat on its face here,” Blass said. “That’s where this should have been prevented. Instead, it was enabled.”

Supervisor Sean Walter, who has complained of a “spike in police calls to the motel” and in June said he does not believe town code allows using the motel as an emergency shelter for homeless people, said yesterday the town’s action Friday night was only about safety.

“It’s not about who the people are or where they’re from, it’s about whether [the motel owner] has converted basement space to living space. It’s about things not being up to code,” Walter said.
 
“My responsibility is to those families, to make sure the place is safe. That is paramount right now,” the supervisor said. “If there aren’t C.O.s and inspections haven’t been done, I don’t know whether they’re safe or not,” Walter said.

The supervisor said he is waiting for a report from the town attorney on what was found during the execution of the warrant.

“Once that’s ascertained, then we can discuss the legitimacy of that use at the motel,” Walter said.

Blass isn’t buying any of it. The town has never been denied access to inspect the motel at any time, he said. It didn’t need to use “Gestapo tactics” to gan entry.

“If they wanted to inspect the premises, all they had to do was ask,” Blass said.

Blass says he believes the town was hoping to find drugs, weapons and people wanted on outstanding warrants, because it hoped to discredit the motel operation and gain support for its goal of shutting the place down.

“That’s why they came with two empty vans,” Blass said, “to haul people off.”

They found nothing, Blass said, and made no arrests, except for one woman who had an outstanding DMV warrant, for not answering a traffic ticket. Police took the woman into custody, leaving behind her small child.

Blass says even though the judge signed the warrant on Thursday at 1 p.m., town officials purposely waited until after business hours Friday in an effort to prevent the social services agency and the motel owner from stopping the illegal raid. The warrant states the town can enter the premises any time between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 12, but it wasn’t executed until 5:30 on Friday.  “That’s proof on its face of what they were really up to,” Blass said.

Riverhead Town senior investigator Kevin Maccabee told RiverheadLOCAL Friday night the timing was a result of “the availability of manpower.”

Maccabee maintains the town’s inspection was for the purpose of finding code violations.

“We were looking for code violations and overcrowded conditions, as well as improvements made to the property without permits, including the installation of electrical and plumbing systems, and the possible construction of two illegal apartments on the premises,” he told RiverheadLOCAL Friday night.

“They want people to believe we park these families in unsafe conditions,” Blass said. “That’s just not true. The primary regulator of motels, under state law, is the health department. The facility passed muster in health and safety inspections by the state and by the county social services department,” he said.

Even so, Blass said, the town has had ample access to the premises for numerous inspections, Blass said. The town and the motel owner are currently in Riverhead Town Justice Court on a code enforcement action — the town issued the owner, who bought the property in January, a summons for not having a rental permit. The previous owner had a rental permit.

“The town now wants to make it sound like the raid enabled them to discover things. That’s not the case. They are fully familiar with these premises,” Blass said.

The town knows, for example, that the previous owner built an apartment in the basement of the motel, and had a staff housekeeper living in it, according to Blass. The housekeeper stayed on after the closing, without the new owner’s consent. The current owner has an eviction proceeding pending in the town’s own justice court, Blass said, and the town is completely aware of that.

“This raid was about politics and, I daresay, bigotry. They would have never done this if they were families that had substance and good luck on their side. But these are families that have nothing.  They are desperate, and there but for the grace of God go any of us.”

Blass said he intends to send a warning to municipalities that such actions “are not going to be tolerated.” The county  attorney has been asked to study the underlying documents submitted in the town’s application for the search warrant, but the social services commissioner said he is not sure what steps the county will take next.