Lawsuit: Greece response to chief's drunk driving was to help Reilich's election. He won.
With a popular town leader up for re-election, Greece officials came forward with a false narrative in an effort to help his campaign, recently filed court papers allege.
Supervisor Bill Reilich was the one in an election race.
Some Greece officials pushed a false idea that they were the driving force behind an investigation into the 2021 drunken driving crash of Police Chief Andrew Forsythe, recently filed court papers allege.
Forsythe resigned less than a week after the crash.
"Bill Reilich and (Deputy Supervisor) Michelle Marini believed that the Chief's crash could ruin Bill Reilich's re-election chances," alleges former Greece Deputy Police Chief Casey Voelkl in the court filing. Voelkl is suing the town, the police, Reilich and Marini.
Voelkl made similar allegations in his initial lawsuit, filed in February, but an updated complaint filed this in August uses new sources — text messages and deposition records from a District Attorney's investigation among them — to try to bolster the claims. Voelkl's lawyers have requested that the amended complaint be accepted.
Town attorneys denied that the handling of Forsythe's crash was driven by the approaching election date, and other allegations by Voelkl, in Greece's response to the initial lawsuit.
This time, an attorney for the town, Joshua Steele, declined to discuss the litigation because it is pending, as did a labor lawyer for the town.
Reilich won the election.
Drinking, driving, a high-profile crash. Complaints of 'media' attention.
Voelkl was demoted after initiating an outside investigation into the crash, an act that turned him into a "scapegoat," the lawsuit has alleged. Voelkl notes that he contacted the District Attorney's Office to seek an investigation, a move that he claims put him on the outs with town leadership.
Marini, for one, believed that "but for Casey Voelkl's call to DA Sandra Doorley, the media would have moved on to a different story," the newly filed court papers allege.
In earlier court papers, town officials acknowledged that it was Voelkl who first contacted the DA's office.
After drinking heavily at a downtown event, Forsythe drove his town-issued sport utility vehicle home. He lost control on Interstate 390, slamming into a guardrail. He continued to drive, with sparks flying from the car's underbelly until it became inoperable.
Forsythe eventually came to a stop and claimed in talks with police and town officials that he had swerved to avoid a deer. His speech was slurred in a call to 911, but he maintained that he had a head injury.
Responding Greece officers did not test his sobriety.
Forsythe later pleaded guilty to driving while impaired.
Within hours of the crash, town officials grew concerned about the impact on the election, which was only days away, Voelkl's court papers claim. Reilich and Marini, the papers allege, at first:
Did not take steps to inform the public.
Did not contact any law enforcement agency.
Did not notify the town's human resource director, even though Marini believed that Forsythe should see a doctor, the papers allege.
The court papers allege that:
Marini at first did not want Forsythe placed on leave during the DA investigation, and she told Voelkl that he suggest to Forsythe that he take vacation days. In an interview with the DA's Office, Marini instead said that the decision to place Forsythe on leave was made by town leaders before the talk with Voelkl.
A labor attorney for the town considered the crash "so intrinsically linked to the election" that she threatened an officer who photographed the totaled car at the impound lot with "criminal prosecution for election interference." Those photographs made their way to local media.
To try to tarnish Voelkl's reputation, Greece officials claimed in a letter to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services had “potentially cheated on a fingerprint examination” in 2017, a year before Greece "had found Casey Voelkl to be of such high moral character that it sent him to the FBI academy."
Attorney Maureen Bass, who is representing Voelkl, declined to comment, referring to the legal papers as a source for the specific allegations.
DEMOTED AFTERWARD: Voelkl, who was promoted to the rank of deputy chief in 2015, was demoted to the rank of officer in December 2021 after the town completed an internal investigation into the crash and how the department handled the investigation and its aftermath.
TARGETING POLICE IN GREECE? His lawsuit also challenges the substance of the investigation, alleging that it was designed to target police and clear town officials — a claim denied by the town in its earlier legal response.
FORCED LABOR LAWSUIT: Reilich and Marini were accused in another recent lawsuit of forcing a longtime town employee to do personal jobs for them. Reilich said he had been directed by the town's lawyers not to discuss the allegations.
— Gary Craig is a veteran reporter with the Democrat and Chronicle, covering courts and crime and more. You can reach Craig at gcraig@rocheste.gannett.com. He is the author of two books, including "Seven Million: A Cop, a Priest, a Soldier for the IRA, and the Still-Unsolved Rochester Brink's Heist." Say hello to Gary if you see him writing at the local coffeeshop (unless he looks like he is on an urgent deadline! - editor).
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bill Reilich re-election in Greece drove town fiasco response: Lawsuit
