Harassment Charge Dismissed Against Launderette Owner; Civil Rights Suit Filed

Sag Harbor Village Justice Lisa Rana this week dismissed the charge of second-degree harassment filed against William Tabert, 61, the owner of the Sag Harbor Launderette, by Sag Harbor Village Police last year after a Black Bridgehampton woman, Nia Dawson, 22, claimed that he had shoved her and ordered her to use the back entrance of his business after she rebuffed his request to sit with her and her brother on a bench outside.

Rana granted a motion by Tabert’s attorney, Arthur Grieg, to dismiss the charge after the District Attorney’s office had presented its case in a three-hour, non-jury trial on Tuesday, September 13.

According to Greg, Rana agreed with him that the D.A.’s office had failed to provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Tabert had committed a violation of the penal code.

“I’m very happy that justice was served,” Tabert, who lives in Hampton Bays, said in a brief interview on Wednesday. He declined further comment.

Two days after the trial, Dawson opened a new front in the legal battle over the incident as her attorney, Frederick K. Brewington of Hempstead, filed a civil rights lawsuit against Tabert on her behalf in Eastern District of New York federal court in Islip.

It seeks $27 million in compensatory damages plus unspecified punitive damages, costs and fees on nine causes of action, ranging from violations of federal, state and county anti-discrimination laws to negligence, emotional distress and battery.

Dawson referred a request for comment to her lawyer.

In a phone interview on Thursday, Brewington said that Tabert was “being served this moment” with the federal civil rights suit to “inform him that being acquitted in a criminal matter doesn’t necessarily give him a complete out from the wrongful actions that he took against this young lady and her 11-year-old brother.”

Tabert’s attorney, Arthur Grieg, commented on Friday that he was aware of a possible civil suit, but had not yet seen any papers.

“Unequivocally, we believe there’s absolutely no basis for a discrimination action here,” he said. “What are the damages? What’s the action that was discriminatory? Yeah, he said, ‘Go around to the back.’ He also said they were social distancing” as an explanation for not allowing Dawson and her brother in the front door — the same reason Dawson had given Tabert for not wanting him to sit with her and her brother.

“They were giving each other a hard time. She was BS-ing him and he was BS-ing her,” Greig said.

A day after the incident last year, Dawson wrote in a widely read August 28, 2021, Facebook post, “Not only was there barely enough space [on the bench] but due to the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, coupled with my younger brother still being too young to receive the vaccine, we have been doing our best to social distance … especially with strangers.

“I stated, ‘I’m sorry sir we’re actually practicing social distancing.’ Hoping that this would be the conclusion of a quick and uncomfortable encounter. He then replied ‘Are you kidding me right now?! This is my store and I can’t sit on my bench?’”

His demand that she use the back entrance, she wrote, reminded her of her grandfather’s stories of “the many times he, as a Black man in predominantly white spaces, had to enter through the back door of stores and restaurants.”

Dawson told Sag Harbor Express reporter Stephen J. Kotz in an interview soon after the incident that when she attempted to enter the launderette, Tabert was waiting for her, blocking her from entering. She said he told her, “You need to go around back. Everyone here is social distancing.”

When she tried to get around him one more time, she said he shoved her with his shoulder, knocking her off balance. Tabert’s attorney said that he brushed Dawson as she went in.

Although Dawson had started a group Facetime call with her family, and her brother was filming the encounter, no video of the event has been released or made public, according to Dawson’s attorney.

Tabert said in an interview with The Express soon after the incident that he had not shoved Dawson on purpose, but had bumped into her. While he admitted he had sent her around to the back of the store, he insisted there had been no racist intent in his demand.

“Why would I have wanted to sit down next to her if I was a racist?” he said.

When she was finally able to retrieve her laundry, Dawson said Tabert continued to verbally harass her, so she called Sag Harbor Village Police.

“Before they even arrested him, the cops asked if he was drunk or there was something wrong with him,” she told The Express. “If he was someone of color, there would have been no time for questions. He would be cuffed.” She added that Tabert stared her down, directed profanities at her, and lunged at her even as he was being detained.

Last year, soon after the incident, Tabert told The Express in an interview, “I was wrong. I was an ass. I admit it. I apologize, I apologize, I apologize.”

Dawson is a 2021 graduate of Baruch College, and a 2017 graduate of Bridgehampton High School, where she was senior class president and class salutatorian. A member of the venerable Hopson and Pinckney families of Bridgehampton, she won the annual college scholarship given by St. Ann’s Church to a graduating Bridgehampton School senior in 2017. Her Linked-In profile indicates she is a production assistant at ABC Signature Studios, a Disney subsidiary.

The episode at the launderette drew widespread press coverage and a street protest by dozens of Dawson’s supporters on the sidewalk outside the laundromat on October 11.

Tabert’s attorney, Greig, said he faults the District Attorney’s office for refusing to dispose of the case by asking for an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal — the typical process for a charge like second-degree harassment and the kind of he-said, she-said case on which it was based. “Instead, we had to take it to trial,” he said.

He also questioned the unusual process by which Rana issued an order of protection against Tabert for Dawson and her brother, which he said followed a phone call to the assistant district attorney handling the case from Dawson and was not requested during Tabert’s arraignment. “That’s not how an order of protection is supposed to be gotten,” he said.

“I’m really ticked off at the D.A.’s office here because it sounds like they were abused,” Greig said.

“This whole case may have been a pretext to bring an action of some sort: in federal court,” he said.