In New Twist, Jason Golub Blames His Deputy, Joe O’Neill, for Clogged Sink Scandal

In recent articles in the Daily Gazette, the Saratogian, and the Times Union, attorney Karl Sleight now blames former Public Works Deputy Joe O’Neil, not his client former Saratoga Springs Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub, for directing a DPW employee to unclog a drain in Golub’s private residence. Sleight claims Golub was only present when the work was done. Golub has been charged with the misdemeanor of official misconduct for having city employees work on his private residence.

From the March 11, 2025 edition of the Times Union:

Moreover, he noted that Golub’s deputy commissioner Joseph O’Neill — not Golub — directed the plumber to unclog the sink. For his part, O’Neill pleaded guilty in January in city court to disorderly conduct. He was also suspended from his city job without pay for five days.

Golub, he wrote, simply allowed the plumber to work on his sink.

“ ‘Accepting repairs’ from a DPW employee is not, in and of itself, improper because doing side jobs is allowed,” Sleight wrote.

Times Union

In its March 16 edition of the Saratogian newspaper, reporter Emma Ralls wrote:

“Nothing in this or the other statements from witnesses remotely suggest that the defendant intended to obtain improper benefit through an unauthorized exercise of his official functions,” Sleight wrote. “Defendant did not direct Dooley to come to the Kaydeross Park Residence or otherwise know that Dooley was ‘on the clock’ for the city at the time of Dooley’s appearance at the Kaydeross Park Residence for the Green Gobbler drop off on Dec. 27.

“The absence of that fact is a fatal flaw to the case.”

From the March 14, 2025 edition of the Daily Gazette:

In his police interview, Golub did not dispute Dooley coming to the residence, but said he had left it to O’Neill to make sure the person was off-hours. Golub’s attorney Karl Sleight notes in his dismissal filing that side jobs are allowed off-hours by DPW employees.

“And again, you know how DPW works, people have all different hours,” Golub said in the transcripts. “I’m not keeping track of it.”

Daily Gazette

Parsing Out Sleight’s Defense

Sleight told the Saratogian:

“There is zero evidence that Jason Golub knew that Dooley was on the clock for those eight minutes in December of 2023; therefore, the crime, in my opinion, does not exist.”

and

“The charge stems from an incident in December 2023, when Golub sought the help of his Deputy Commissioner Joe O’Neill in finding someone who could fix a clogged kitchen sink, to which O’Neill identified DPW employee Ken Dooley, who agreed to help, as it wasn’t out of the norm for city employees to do outside work.”

Saratogian

First, consider that, according to Sleight, Golub asked his Deputy to find him a plumber. Golub is not the chief executive of a private company. While he is authorized to direct the employees under him for duties laid out in their official job descriptions, they are employed by the city, not Golub. It was inappropriate for him to ask O’Neill to find him a plumber in the first place. That very request was related to working on his boss’s private residence, which was entirely inappropriate. It helps explain the culture that fostered the abuse Golub is charged with.

More to the point, consider Golub’s supposed surprise when two of his employees, accompanied by O’Neill, arrived at his home to fix his sink. Bear in mind that the issue of paying Dooley and the other city employee somehow never came up. One would have thought that Golub would have raised the issue of paying Dooley and the other city employee if they were not there as city employees. Golub is hardly acquainted with Dooley or his colleague. It’s not like they are friends who have come by as a favor to help out. So inquiring minds (Golub) might have asked Dooley, “On what terms are you here helping me today?” or similarly asked O’Neill. For that matter, what was O’Neill doing at Golub’s home?

It simply begs credibility that Golub assumed that Dooley was being privately employed by him rather than as part of his city job, even if one of the visits was not during the regular DPW working hours. Readers should remember that DPW workers are commonly employed and paid for overtime, so the fact that it was “after hours” is meaningless. Dooley and the other city employee’s second visit to Golub’s home during the working day should have stimulated a question directed to Dooley, the other city employee, or O’Neill, “on what terms are you here today?”.

If this was being left to O’Neill to handle, why didn’t Golub ask O’Neill if he could reimburse him for what he had paid the two city employees (that is, putting aside paying O’Neill to come to his house plus arranging for the plumbing to be done)?

Golub Lawyer Offers Dubious Analysis With Cooperation of Times Union To Confuse Public

The Times Union reported:

“A document in the SSPD file references a complaint by a local political blogger [JK: Presumsbly me] who started this folly with a complaint to the OSC [the NY State Comptroller], which for obvious reasons was not acted upon,” Sleight wrote. “The clear-eyed view of this situation by a dispassionate investigative agency, and quick dismissal of the complaint is relevant to this case.”

Times Union March 11, 2025

Sleight is universally respected for his work as a criminal defense attorney, which makes the above statement all the more odd.

The New York State Comptroller does not have the authority to prosecute criminal activity. When they uncover potentially criminal conduct, they turn to the New York State Attorney General or the New York State Police to pursue the matter. So Sleight had to know that the Comptroller’s response was not a “quick dismissal of the complaint”. The Comptroller’s “clear-eyed view” was to see that the matter was pursued by the proper authorities rather than ignored as implied by Sleight. It is regrettable that Ms. Liberatore, the TU reporter, uncritically simply reported Sleight’s attempt at spin.

More Mud Thrown At Coll

Sleight continues to allege in the articles that Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll acted as a “a man of malicious intent” and that Coll somehow manipulated the police to bring charges against Golub.

One of the central themes offered by Sleight is to somehow blame Public Safety Commissioner Coll for engineering the bringing of charges against Golub and O’Neill out of some kind of animus against Golub. In past statements, Sleight has gone so far as to imply that Coll’s actions are racially motivated. This is to bring the focus away from the established facts that public employees worked on Golub’s private residence.

As part of this campaign, Sleight alleges that Coll is somehow responsible for withholding materials from the defense. Sleight’s unsubstantiated claim is that there exist documents that establish Coll’s supposed vendetta against Golub that he hasn’t been able to get yet.

The myth that, unfortunately, Liberatore promotes is that Coll is personally responsible for deciding what materials will be provided to the defense. In fact, the responsibility for “discovery” [JK: The providing of evidence to the defense] rests with the District Attorney’s office. This is something that Sleight knows well, and which Liberatore knew. Liberatore pursues this line with Coll, and when he explains to her that she should direct her questions to the District Attorney’s office, she conveniently ignores him. Of course, had she inquired about this to the DA’s office, the story meant to damage Coll would have instead undermined Sleight’s credibility.

Beware Of Fragments

Liberatore reported:

Sleight argues that Coll was involved with the investigation and questions why charges were brought against Golub when transcripts of Golub’s interview with city police Lt. Paul Veitch show that Veitch didn’t believe there was a case.

“This is a big pile of what the f—,” Veitch said in the transcribed interview with Golub.

First, for anyone who watches the many police procedural television programs, interrogators utilize a variety of schemes to ingratiate themselves with potential criminals. As I do not have a copy of the full transcript and do not have the privilege of interviewing Lt. Veitch, it is difficult to effectively evaluate this snippet. Given Sleight’s history of manipulating the story, I remain skeptical. I would note that if this was a sincere remark by Lt. Veitch, not taken out of context, it would not reflect well on Veitch.

Liberatore’s Self-Imposed Blindness

Liberatore’s story focuses on Golub’s allegations that one of the city’s plumbers who performed the work had been fired. Golub goes even further, alleging the circumstances under which this employee was terminated, implying that the charges are under a cloud due to the possibility that the information came from a disgruntled employee.

This blogger would like to point out that, normally, employees dismissed during their probationary period, as was the case with Dooley, are provided some privacy. If Ms. Liberatore had contacted the city’s Human Resources Department as to why Dooley left his city employment she would have been told that privacy precluded any answer. Golub felt no constraint in publicly embarrassing Dooley.

Golub upped the ante against Dolley with this allegation:

Golub said after that Dooley threatened both him and O’Neill, who did the actual firing, and Dooley said he was going to go to Human Resources “to tell them I did this stuff.”

Times Union

The problem is that Ms. Liberatore had to know that two employees, not just Dooley, were sent to address the clogged sink issue. Both men provided the evidence that led to the charges. The other employee has a long and respected career with the city. Unfortunately, Ms. Liberatore omitted this critical information and, in so doing, promoted Golub’s ugly spin.

A Dubious Request

In his effort to create a blizzard of issues meant to obscure the central question of Golub’s culpability, in the Times Union, Sleight added on yet another red herring:

Finally, Sleight is also seeking a court-appointed hearing officer who will “set forth findings of fact and conclusions of law” and deal with pretrial motions.

Times Union

The court will, at times, appoint a special hearing officer when the issues in a trial involve arcane questions that are best handled by an attorney with special knowledge in the field. It verges on the comical that Sleight would make this request. Sleight continually repeats how simple the issues are in this case. It again reflects badly on Ms. Liberatore that she would uncritically report Sleight’s assertion.