TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. >> Ulster County Legislator Jennifer Schwartz Berky pleaded with a town police officer on May 24 to not give her a traffic ticket after saying she couldn’t afford the fine, a newly released recording shows.
A 26-minute video of the traffic stop, with sound, was made public during an Ulster Town Board meeting on Tuesday. It shows Berky, D-Kingston, beginning the conversation by acknowledging she was on her phone while driving on Ulster Avenue.
“Please don’t give me a ticket, I’m broke,” she says. “I’m completely broke, and if you tell people, it’s going to hurt me. I’m totally broke. I made $20,000 last year. Please don’t give me a ticket.”
Berky, who told the officer she was on her way home to pick up her son and then was going to the SUNY Ulster graduation, begins crying shortly into the conservation. She later says she’s late for a “job meeting” that would impact her career.
“I’m begging you,” she says. “I’m a very hard-working public servant. I’m a county legislator and I’m trying to find a full-time job, and if you do this, it’s going to hurt me. It’s going to hurt me bad.”
Berky was pulled over in the Aldi’s supermarket parking lot on East Chester Street Bypass, and she stepped out of the car while Officer Gary Short was checking her license and registration information through the computer in his patrol car.
When Short returns to the vehicle, Berky says she has post-traumatic stress disorder and begins saying she was singled out for enforcement.
When Short asks if she’ll listen to him, Berky responds: “Yes, I will listen to you, and you’re not going to let me go even though I’m a county legislator and I always do everything right and I follow the law and I was at the same pace as every other car.”
Twelve minutes into the video, a police dispatcher calls to check on the status of the officer, which ultimately leads to Officer Kevin Woltman arriving several minutes later as backup. Woltman is the nephew of Berky’s election opponent in Legislature District 7, Brian Woltman, the city of Kingston purchasing agent.
Berky says in the police recording that she plans to call town of Ulster Supervisor James Quigley and then says Ulster County Sheriff Paul VanBlarcum already has been contacted. She then has an unidentified person listen on her cell phone as Short spends nearly six minutes trying to explain why the ticket was being issued.
Short issued Berky a speeding ticket for driving 43 mph in a 30-mph zone.
He initially stated he was not going to issue her speeding ticket and instead would cite her for not wearing a seat belt, even though she was wearing one. When Berky protested that such a ticket would be inaccurate, Short issued the speeding ticket.
As the speeding ticket is about to be given to her, Berky says: “I have to move out of Ulster County. This is so wrong.”
Berky’s attorney, Joseph O’Connor, asked the Town Board to withhold the video, saying it would prejudice an upcoming court appearance regarding the ticket.
“The fact finder in this case would be a judge who would be able to see, either through a press release or a newspaper article, YouTube, social media, is going to be able to see a video … that could, in fact, affect our client’s ability to a fair trial and open a whole slew of issues, if it’s released, concerning her own constitutional protections,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor also said releasing the video before the Nov. 7 election could be detrimental to Berky’s bid for a second term as a county legislator.
“If it’s going to be released … before an election, she is a legislator, that could have an adverse affect,” he said.
A Freedom of Information Law request for the video initially was rejected by the town, but Town Attorney Jason Kovacs said his recommendation changed after reading an opinion from state Committee on Open Government Executive Director Robert Freeman.
Town Board members acknowledged not having the authority to make a decision about the release but said their 4-0 vote was to demonstrate support for making the information public. There were three Republicans and one Democrat voting, with one Republican absent from the meeting.
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