Esposito Uses Ethics Plan to Blast Rival on Toxic Dumping

Adrienne Esposito, the Democratic candidate for the Long Island seat being vacated by state Sen. Lee Zeldin, is releasing an ethics reform plan that seeks to tie her opponent to a toxic waste dumping scandal in Islip.

After contaminated debris was found in an Islip Town park, Islip officials blamed the illegal dumping on a local company called Daytree at Cortland Square of Ronkonkoma. Esposito’s backers have pointed out that her Republican opponent,  Tom Croci, was the Islip town supervisor when the scandal broke in March and that the company had donated to Croci. In the wake of the scandal another candidate, Islip Councilman Anthony Senft, dropped out of the race, one of the key tossups in the state Senate, with Croci taking his place.

“The last thing we need is to send another career politician with corruption cases looming to Albany and Suffolk County residents know it,” Esposito said in a statement.

She also knocked Croci for receiving $3,500 in donations from Daytree back in 2012 and called on him to refuse any more donations from the company and to refund the donations he already received.

Croci’s campaign said that his campaign committee had already donated contributions from Daytree to charity. Chris Geed, a spokesperson for Croci, said the candidate was deployed in Afghanistan at the time of the dumping in Islip.

“It is rich for Adrienne Esposito to issue a statement on ethics reform when ethics is something she has great difficulty with herself, especially during this campaign,” Geed said. He also said that Esposito has refused to share a list of her donors for her environmental group and missed filing deadlines for financial disclosures. 

“On his return he was outraged and sickened by the illegal dumping and immediately pledged to begin the clean up and support the efforts of the District Attorney’s Office to ensure that those responsible would be sought out and brought to justice," Geed said in a statement. "Tom has and will continue to do just that."

In her ethics reform package, Esposito also called for stripping pensions from any convicted elected official, as well as campaign finance reform and caps on “soft money” contributions.

“Elected officials should be held to the highest ethical standards, but our State Legislature has failed repeatedly to do anything resembling real ethics reform,” Esposito said in a statement. “Cracking down on corruption and holding government accountable to real New Yorkers is one of my top priorities, and I vow to act on it as soon as I get to Albany.”