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Distribution of racist, anti-semitic materials in New Paltz larger than first thought
Diane Pineiro-Zucker is reporting for the Daily Freeman that the flyers left illegally last week inside a number of Rosendale mailboxes and on car windshields in the New Paltz Plaza parking lot directed their recipients, via URL codes, to White Lives Matter and another Nazi-identified social media website. However, contrary to what the Ulster County Sheriff's Office said last week, the distribution was not limited to a “handful” of Rosendale addresses, and they included an image of Adolf Hitler and are blatantly anti-Semitic. One post on the site to which one flyer links says “‘Nazi’ just means ‘person not interested in sex with kids or attending urine themed homosexual orgies until festering boils break out all over your body.'” Another flyer linked recipients to the White Lives Matter Official site on Telegram. The Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes White Lives Matter as “a neo-Nazi group that is growing into a movement as more and more white supremacist groups take up its slogans and tactics.” New Paltz Police Chief Robert Lucchesi said the department had reported the incident to the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of Ulster County. David Drimer of the Jewish Federation of Ulster County and a member of the Ulster County Human Rights Commission, said he believes the distribution was the work of James Sheeley, KKK grand wizard of New York and New Jersey. Deputy County Executive Chris Kelly said Ulster County is “forming a Task Force for Preventing and Responding to Domestic Terrorism.” The flyer distribution in Rosendale is under investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Ulster County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Joseph Sciutto declined to categorize the flyers as “racist or white supremacist,” but his boss, Sheriff Juan Figueroa, called their message “despicable” calling the flyers “offensive.” Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.