NISKAYUNA — All charges have been dismissed against the former Niskayuna resident who allegedly left a racist voicemail last August for former Town Supervisor Jaime Puccioni.
Osman Rasul was charged with second-degree aggravated harassment as a hate crime, a felony, after he allegedly called Town Hall and left a racist voicemail for Puccioni on Aug. 16.
The charges were dismissed at the request of the Schenectady County District Attorney’s Office, deciding not to pursue the charge brought by the town police.
Rasul allegedly called Puccioni’s office on Aug. 16 from an anonymous number and left her a voicemail explaining that he wanted to reach the supervisor, who had announced two days prior that she planned to resign from office.
“I have some concerns that she may want to hear, otherwise the next step is federal criminal charges against the N— and N— lover,” the caller stated. Puccioni is a woman of color.
Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said the call did not meet the threshold of a felony count of aggravated harassment.
“If he’s just spewing things but not actually making a threat to harm somebody or do some act that’s illegal, but his threat was that the next step would be criminal federal prosecution, he doesn’t have the power to do that, so that’s not a real threat,” Carney said on Friday.
The district attorney said his office met with Niskayuna police and the town attorney’s office before deciding to drop the charge.
“We told them that in our opinion it just didn’t meet the threshold and we couldn’t sustain it,” Carney said.
In an email on Tuesday, Niskayuna Town Attorney Alaina Finan noted that a town judge had determined that there was probable cause for the offense to be charged and signed a warrant based on a review of the case.
“The [Niskayuna] police department followed proper procedure in presenting the case for judicial review, and only made an arrest after the judicial review resulted in the signing of a warrant for arrest,” Finan noted. “The town cannot control what the D.A.’s Office does from that point, but not sure what they were thinking with this one when the clear letter of the law and supporting case law support the arrest made.”
An additional misdemeanor criminal contempt charge against Rasul tied to a social media post was previously dropped.
Puccioni did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Rasul attorney Alex Shmulsky criticized the town for bringing the charges against his client.
“The dismissal of these charges represents a crucial first step in addressing the profound damage inflicted upon him," Shmulsky noted in a statement. "At no point was there any credible evidence to suggest that Mr. Rasul was guilty of any offense. The Town of Niskayuna must be held accountable for its gross overreach and lack of due diligence. Rather than offering assistance, the town subjected our client to unfounded persecution and exaggerated criminal charges.”
Current Niskayuna Supervisor Erin Cassady-Dorion, who was Puccioni’s confidential secretary at the time of the phone call last August, stated in a deposition last summer that she had recognized Rasul’s voice from previous repeated calls to Puccioni’s office.
“There have been times where [Rasul] has called several times in a row, which prevents me from effectively doing my job,” Cassady-Dorion noted in the deposition. “I am worried he is going to come here because I have seen him at town board meetings and he is loud and aggressive.”
Rasul spoke during the public comment portion of the Town Board’s July 23 meeting, asking the board for increased oversight of the town’s apartment complexes and claiming that he was the subject of harassment by town police.
“I used to be proud being from this town,” Rasul said. “I graduated from the high school, class of 2019, a few years ago. I played high school football here. And this is what I get? When I ask for help, all of a sudden I’m a criminal.”
Additional town police officers were stationed at Town Hall during the July 23 and Aug. 13 board meetings that Rasul attended, with Puccioni growing visibly emotional during the July meeting while seated on the dais as Rasul made his remarks to the board.
Following the announcement of her resignation last summer, Puccioni said that safety concerns had contributed to her decision to vacate the last 15 months of her second term.
Finan contended Tuesday that “the intent to harass alone, without a threat, meets the legal elements for the offense charged.”
Carney said that his office had determined that the charges against Rasul could not be sustained.
“I can understand why people would feel he’s obnoxious and terrible to deal with and feel uneasy about it, but it still has to have an objective threat, not just a subjective feeling that there’s a threat,” Carney said.
