A local businessman who said he hasn't even had time to grieve his sister's death because of five years of litigation around her estate was given a conditional discharge in County Court today on his prior guilty plea to a misdemeanor of falsifying business records.
James Pontillo's attorney, Fred Rarick, reminded Judge Michael Mohun, who is handling this case, that his client accepted a plea deal, not because he had done anything wrong, but because he wanted to get this part of the legal issues surrounding his sister's estate behind him.
"I tried to do everything the best of my ability," Pontillo said. "I did everything I was called upon to do, but there seems to be a misunderstanding."
Much of what this case is about, apparently, is tied up in surrogate's court, where Scott German, as one of his duties as county treasurer, has been appointed the administrator of the estate of Jeanne Veronica Pontillo, because there was nobody else deemed qualified to assume that role.
Pontillo has said he was trying to take care of his sister's properties while the estate was settled.
The conditional discharge means the Pontillo's conviction can be dismissed if he has no run-ins with the law for a year. He was required to pay $2,500 in restitution, which Rarick asked to be applied to back taxes on Jeanne Pontillo's properties, but District Attorney Lawrence Friedman objected to the redirection of the money.
Three of the properties -- none of them in Genesee County -- are about to go into tax lien foreclosure because nobody has paid the property taxes on those properties.
"The hardest thing about all of this is I haven't been able to properly been able to grieve for my sister," Pontillo said. "This has been going on for five years. She was more than a sister to me," he said as his voice quivered, "she was like a daughter to me."
He said the litigation has affected him personally, financially and professionally.
"I just want it to end."
Friedman renewed his request for an order of protection, requiring Pontillo to have no contact with German. This was a contentious issue in December in front of then Interim Judge Micheal Pietruszka. Rarick raised concerns about the order and the ongoing probate issues, so Pietruska agreed to amend the order, but Friedman asked for further refinement, and after more back and forth among the attorneys, Pietruszka literally tore up the order in court.
Again, today, Rarick and Friedman couldn't agree on the necessity of the order, and while Rarick acknowledged personal animosity between Pontillo and German, he said he feared German could use the order to make a false claim against his client.
Friedman scoffed at the suggestion and said a false claim is possible with any order of protection. That's no reason, he said, not to issue one.
Mohun didn't sign the order. He thought an order of eight years was excessive in a case involving a conditional discharge, but he amended Pontillo's conditional discharge so it requires him to stay away from German for the next year.
Previously: Landlord accused of falsely claiming to own a dwelling in Batavia (we've covered James Pontillo extensively over the years and this story contains links to most of that prior coverage).
