An action by former Southold Town police officer Garrett Lake seeking reinstatement to his job has been denied by a State Supreme Court trial judge.
Justice William Ford ruled in a decision dated July 17 that Lake failed to produce evidence demonstrating his dismissal last May was “motivated by illegal, impermissible or unconstitutional political motivations or retaliation.”
Lake was a probationary employee of the Southold Town Police Department when he was terminated on May 19, 2016, four days before his 18-month probationary period expired.
Lake brought an Article 78 petition that June asking the court to set aside the town’s action and seeking reinstatement to his position as a police officer. He claimed his termination was the result of two high-profile DWI arrests he’d made: the driver of the pickup truck in the fatal limousine crash on County Road 48 in Cutchogue in July 2015 and the Jamesport Fire Department assistant chief who crashed a fire department vehicle on Main Road in Southold in February 2016 and fled the scene.
The former officer claimed that the pickup truck driver was a close friend of a Southold Republican party official and a Suffolk County Police Department official and both officials pressured Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley to fire Lake. He also claimed that Jamesport Fire Department officials criticized Lake for arresting the assistant chief.
Southold Town said those arrests played no role in the decision to terminate Lake’s employment. Flatley said in an affidavit he found Lake’s actions in making both of those DWI arrests were sound and justified, the court wrote.
Flatley provided affidavit testimony about Lake’s “overaggressive and overzealous use of police tactics in conducting vehicle traffics stops, searches and arrests,” according to the court decision.
Flatley said he counseled Lake about his “overly aggressive police actions in October 2015” and the following month Lake attended a training session offered by the Suffolk district attorney for additional instruction or retraining concerning proper vehicle traffic stops and searches, the judge wrote.
The court noted the well-settled law that “a probationary employee may be terminated without a hearing and without a statement of reasons in the absence of a demonstration that the termination was in bad faith, for a constitutionally impermissible or an illegal purpose, or in violation of statutory or decisional law.” Judicial review of the termination is limited to whether the decision was made in bad faith or for the other improper or impermissible reasons, Ford wrote.
“This court finds and determines that petitioner [Lake] has failed to sustain his burden of demonstrating, by capable and competent proof: a triable issue of fact that his dismissal from probationary employee status was motivated by illegal, impermissible or unconstitutional political motivations or retaliation,” Ford wrote.
Lake offered the affidavit of former Southold councilman Christopher Talbot, who stated that within the Southold Republican party, there was rumor that Helf and Sawicki applied pressure and influence to terminate Lake, according to the decision. But Lake did not offer any further evidence supplying a causal link between that hearsay and his dismissal, the court ruled.
“It confirms what we had said all along. The police chief had recommended that the Town Board dismiss him based on his job performance and for no other reason,” Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell said this afternoon. “That fact has now been confirmed by the court.”
Lake’s attorney, Eric Bressler, did not return a call seeking comment.
