Basom

An abandoned house in the area of 422 Council House Road, Tonawanda Indian Reservation, is reportedly on fire.

The call reports flames and smoke showing.

Alabama Fire, Pembroke Fire, and Indian Falls Fire dispatched.

Sheriff's Deputies and Oakfield-Alabama teachers faced off in a charity fundraiser game in the high school gym on Thursday night.

The event was held to help raise money to support the family of Andy Merkel, who died unexpectedly on March 21 at age 38.

Photos by Philip Casper.

The Basom resident passed away unexpectedly on March 21 at age 38. He had three children.  He was a baseball coach, dog trainer, volunteer firefighter and emergency dispatcher.

The Oakfield-Alabama Little League is holding a prize raffle with a grand prize of a lifetime NYS Hunting and Fishing license or $500 cash.  Other prizes include an autographed Thurman Thomas Football, free pizza, cornhole boards and membership in the Oakfield Rod and Gun Club.  Tickets are $20 with the drawing to be held May 27 at the Alabama Hotel. To contact the league, click here. There are tickets available at Elba Central School, the Alabama Hotel, from board members, and the board meets at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at The Goose.

A charity basketball game, with all proceeds benefiting the Merkel family, is set for April 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Oakfield-Alabama High School.  The game will be played between the O-A faculty and deputy sheriffs. Tickets are $2 for students and $3 for adults.

A GoFundMe campaign has reached its target goal of $30,000 and is still accepting donations.

To read Andrew Merkel's obituary, click here.

Merkel was laid to rest on Monday. 

The top photo below is from the Sheriff's Office. The other photos are reader-submitted.

As the community was still mourning the loss of Genesee County Sheriff's dispatcher Andrew Merkel, Legislature Chairwoman Rochelle Stein read some words in his memory during the Legislature meeting Wednesday evening.

Emergency Services Dispatcher Andrew K. Merkel unexpectedly passed away at the age of 38 on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

He served the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office since October 1, 2011. In addition to his regular duties as an Emergency Services Dispatcher, he was a Communications Training Officer and a board member of the Genesee County Sheriffs Employee Association.

Andy, as he was more popularly known, was also a former employee of Mercy EMS from 2009 to 2015 as an EMT, an Oakfield baseball coach and mentor and a longstanding member of the Alabama Fire Department.

Outside of serving his community, he spent his time operating Wings Cupped Retriever Services, his dog training company, which specialized in obedience, retriever and gun dog training. He also enjoyed duck hunting and the outdoors.

"On top of all that, he was a family man and a great friend," Stein said. "He loved spending time with his wife and three young children, and talking about their escapades. He contributed valuable guidance and tremendous support over many years to anyone who crossed his path."

A GoFundMe has been organized by members of the Genesee County Sheriffs Association. All money raised will be given directly to Andrew Merkel's family, Stein said.

For more information, go to  https://gofund.me/8e7f0f3a for the Merkel Family Donation Fund. Or feel free to donate by mail to GCSEA, PO Box 46, Batavia, NY, 14021.

Video: Andy Merkel featured in a video about the Retriever Hunting Challenge.

Top photo: By Howard Owens. Andy Merkel at Little League opening day in Oakfield in 2017. Inset photo, submitted. 

About 400 National Grid customers in Genesee County are without power due to weather-related outages.

The largest outage is in Darien with 310 customers without power.

There is an outage along Beckwith Road in Batavia, one in Basom and one in East Oakfield, along with outages that affect five or fewer customers in East Bethany, and Batavia.

East Pembroke was dispatched to Beckwith Road on wires.  National Grid is on scene.

Earlier, Alexander Fire was dispatched to Halstead Road for a wire down and a field on fire.

Jamie S. Schlonski, 50, of Old Meadow Lane, Batavia, is charged with grand larceny 4th, criminal possession of stolen property 4th, and three counts of falsifying business records 1st. Schlonski is accused of stealing more than $1,000 in merchandise from Dick's Sporting Goods and pawning it at Pawn Kings, which required completing paperwork for the transaction. Schlonski was issued an appearance ticket. 

Lisa Marlene Durham, no age provided, no residence provided, is charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance 7th. Durham was allegedly found in possession of fentanyl at 12:27 a.m. on June 9 at a location on East Main Street, Batavia. She was arrested on Nov. 20 and issued an appearance ticket.

Kervin John Jonathan, 28, of Council House Road, Tonawanda Indian Reservation, is charged with criminal contempt 2nd. Jonathan is accused of violating an order of protection by being at the home of a protected party at 2:14 p.m. Nov. 17. He was issued an appearance ticket.

Andrew J. Duckworth, 43, of Liberty Street, Batavia, is charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance (degree not listed in press release) and criminal use of drug paraphernalia 2nd. Duckworth was arrested at 10:22 p.m. Nov. 9, by Deputy Mason Schultz at a location on Liberty Street, Batavia.  Details of the arrest were not released. he was released on an appearance ticket.

Robert P. Grimm, Jr., 56, of Batavia, is charged with aggravated DWI and other vehicle and traffic infractions. Grimm was stopped on Nov. 24 in the Town of Batavia by State Police. He allegedly failed a field sobriety test and State Police report his BAC was .18. He was issued an appearance ticket.

 Michelle S. Froebel, 44, of Alexander, is charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance 7th. Froebel was arrested by State Police following a traffic stop by Warsaw Police on Genesee Street in the Village of Warsaw. She was allegedly found in possession of cocaine. She was processed at SP Warsaw and released on an appearance ticket.

Not too many criminal defendants have good things to say about the prosecutors who came down on them hard and recommended they be locked away for as long as possible. 

Isaac D. Abrams has only good things to say about Melissa Lightcap Cianfrini.

"She isn't God but she's right up next to him," Abrams said Thursday from inside a smokeshop he's opening on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation. "She's up there. She's a force to be reckoned with. Don't (expletive) with her."

Cianfrini was the first assistant district attorney in early 2018 when Abrams was sent to prison as a 17-year-old for one-and-a-third to four years for making terroristic threats. That conviction has now been expunged, but Abrams had a track record at the time, as Cianfrini noted back then, that indicated he was a young man out of control.

In arguing against any kind of leniency for Abrams, Cianfrini told then County Court Judge Charles Zambito that Abrams had engaged in increasingly violent acts, shown a disregard for authority and human life, and violated his release under supervision contract numerous times.

"He's a high risk to the community," said Cianfrini, who is now the County Court judge. "Look at his statements. He seriously minimizes his conduct. He said that he gave people something to talk about at dinner. This is not somebody expressing remorse."

Abrams said he has no bitterness toward Cianfrini.  She was doing her job, and in doing her job, she put him in a position that forced him to look at the world differently.

"What she put me through," he said, "I honestly feel that if I hadn't gone through that, I would still be a bad little shit just like everybody else. I had an eye-opener. She gave me an eye-opener."

And life in prison isn't something he wants to repeat.

"I went through horrible experiences," Abrams said. "I have scars on my eyebrows now that are permanent. I have stab wounds on my back and on my shoulders. I went from prison to prison. It was a horrible, horrible experience."

Not that getting his life straightened out has been easy for Abrams.  He's had setbacks. He's made mistakes. He's had people set up roadblocks. But he says he's determined to be a successful businessman, to become wealthy, and at age 22, to be an example for younger kids on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation that success is possible and you can overcome life's errors.

He was in court on Wednesday, standing before Cianfrini on an attempted burglary conviction, prepared for the worst because of one of the mistakes he's made while on his path toward redemption (he carried to court a plastic grocery bag filled with toiletries and personal items in case he was sent back to prison).

The possibility of going back to prison
In August, Abrams admitted to attempted burglary in the second degree. The incident involved Abrams entering the residence of a man identified as his mother's boyfriend on Dec. 29 after the boyfriend reportedly abused her.

First Assistant District Attorney Joseph Robinson, on Wednesday, was just as certain as Cianfrini was in 2018, that Abrams deserved no leniency in sentencing.

The 2018 felony conviction was off limits for Robinson to cite since the record is sealed, but Robinson had plenty of material to draw from to try and make the case that Abrams deserved prison time.  He said Abrams has a history of misconduct going back to high school, that he had violated terms of a conditional discharge on another conviction, and that he had faced a criminal contempt charge in Erie County.

"Mr. Abrams is not a good fit for a community-based, probationary sentence," Robinson told Cianfrini. "He enters the house of another person and then strikes the victim and claims it was in defense of his mother because of prior abuse. He took the action of judge, jury and executioner. That is not the way society works."

Robinson recommended four years in prison (the statutory range on the conviction is 2-7 years) and three years post-release supervision (parole).

Defense Attorney Fred Rarick offered a very different take on his client's prospects for complying with the terms of a probationary sentence. He noted that Abrams has been in full compliance with the terms of his release-under-supervision contract while awaiting sentencing, that his client had been diagnosed with mental health issues that had never been treated, and that his client understands that he mishandled the situation in December that led to his arrest.

Rarick said his client's relationship with his father is non-existent, and when mental health treatment was recommended for Abrams as a teenager, his mother decided the trip to counseling was too far to drive, so Abrams never got the help he needed.

He said Abrams had previously witnessed his mother being abused and on the night of this incident, his mother, instead of calling the police, called her son to say she had been abused. Rarick suggested that she knew her son, who has anger management issues, would take matters into his own hands.

She should have called the police, Rarick said.

But once she called Abrams, the young man should have called police, he said.

Sending Abrams to prison, Rarick said, would disrupt the positive path the young man has been on -- a year ago, he opened a small smoke shop on the reservation and was getting ready to open a second.

When it was his turn to talk, Abrams told Cianfrini, "when I first met you, I didn't really like you. But then I went to prison and I realized you did a lot for me. You changed me. You changed the way I talk. You changed the way I walk." 

He said he wanted to lead the younger generation on the reservation out of trouble.

"I'm a changed man from when you first met me," he said.

He said he felt like he had let her down and that he understood if she was disappointed in him.

"I promise I will never be in a situation like this again," Abrams said.  "If something like this happens again, I'm calling 9-1-1.  I promise."

Call 9-1-1
That promise was put to the test on Thursday night.

On Thursday afternoon, a new pre-built building was delivered to 368 Martin Road in Basom, the site of Abram's new smokeshop and dispensary.

Shortly after he opened the doors for the first time, he met with The Batavian and discussed his future plans.

That night, at about 10:45 p.m., the Alabama Volunteer Fire Department was dispatched to 368 Martin Road.  The Batavian sent a text message to Abrams, who responded that he had already been told of the fire by a family member, was on his way to the shop, and that he had called the police to report the crime.

As he promised Cianfrini, rather than get mad, he called 9-1-1.

The fire burned itself out before fire crews arrived on scene.  The fire was intentionally set, a fire investigator said, at the base of the building by the front door.  It caused some minor heat damage to the metal plates at the base of the door.  A Sheriff's deputy opened a criminal investigation.

Earlier in the day, Abrams said that many people on the reservation encourage him and are happy to see him turning his life around.  Others, he said, want to pull him back down.

When asked why he thought anybody would try to torch his new building, he said, "jealousy."

"This would  be the bad crowd," he said, "like the alcoholics, the drunks, the ones who like to stay out all night."

Rather than prison, an opportunity
Earlier in the day, Abrams was full of enthusiasm for his new business.

With only a few cartons of cigarettes and some jars of marijuana in the new building, Abrams said it was just a start.  He is funding the venture with profits from the Weeping Willow, his first smokeshop on Purdy Road.  

On his small plot of land, Abrams cleared trees and put down gravel.  As a reporter looked on, the excited young man paced off his expansion plans -- where the handicap-accessible ramp will go, leading to double doors and windows, and shelves filled with product.  Abrams sees it all in his mind.

"My dreams are progressing every day as every day I’m one step farther into becoming a new man, a man in new business and a man of new character," Abrams said. "My dreams and goals for the shop are just to succeed in an all-around aspect so I can help my customers, friends, and family succeed around me, too. I really would like for the business to succeed. It took a lot of community members to get this far, and a lot of trust, so there’s no going back now all I can say now is 'Hi. My name is Isaac Abrams. How may I help you and be at your service.'"

The fire, he said later, was a momentary setback, but just financially, not "mentally or spiritually, and tomorrow is a new day with lots of potential."

Abrams is getting the chance to pursue his dreams because the person who took a dim view of the young man's future in 2018 is now persuaded that he deserves a shot at building something better for himself.

On Wednesday, after Robinson, Rarick, and Abrams all spoke, Judge Cianfrini said she needed a few minutes to research something and adjourned the court.

When she returned from chambers, she asked Abrams whether, if given the opportunity to go through Mental Health Court -- which would mean no prison time if he successfully completes the program -- would he commit himself to follow through and do what he needed to do.

A beaming Abrams said he would. He turned around so he was speaking to the whole court and said, "if anybody was here and saw me here before, I'm a changed man.  I promise you I'm not the same person you saw here before."

Cianfrini explained that Abrams will be screened for Mental Health Court to ensure he's a good candidate for the program, and once the screening is done, she can place him in the program.

Embracing what Abrams said about being an example to younger people on the reservation, she told him he had a chance to show a younger generation that the justice system is a place to "get help and rehabilitation and that it's not just for punishment."

Robinson told Cianfrini that he wanted to place on the record his objection to giving Abrams an opportunity to go to Mental Health Court.

Inside his new shop on Thursday, Abrams was nothing but grateful to Cianfrini.

"She honestly changed my life around.  I thank her for helping me. She did a lot.  Honestly, I wouldn't be here in these shoes.  I wouldn't be free today," he said. "I wouldn't be thinking clearly. I would have done none of that. I would have nothing.  I'd probably still be that broken little shit."

Photos by Howard Owens. Top photo, Isaac Abrams outside his new smokeshop.  Inset photo, file photo of Melissa Cianfrini in 2018 at a press conference on an unrelated case.

Justice Coniglio expressed a little surprise after Judge Melissa Lightcap Cianfrini sentenced him to seven years in prison on an assault conviction.

His understanding from his previous court appearance was that if he followed the judge's orders between the time of his guilty plea and his sentencing, he would get a reduced sentence.

That didn't happen and he wanted to know why.

Cianfrini indicated that wasn't how she remembered the previous appearance but called a recess so the transcript of the prior hearing could be reviewed.

It appears Coniglio misunderstood the judge's instructions.  

Coniglio's plea deal was for his sentences on assault and grand theft to run concurrently if he made his court appearances and stayed out of trouble.  If he didn't, then the sentences could run consecutively. 

In June, Coniglio entered a guilty plea to assault stemming from a July 23 incident on Bloomingdale Road in Basom where law enforcement came to his residence to arrest his brother Jarrett Coniglio for allegedly hitting a neighbor over the head with a bottle.  A scuffle ensued and a police officer was bitten by a K-9.

Defense Attorney Jeremy Schwartz said his client has a drinking problem and that he had been drinking that day.  The police officer who was there to arrest Jarrett, he said, wasn't dressed in a police officer's uniform. In Coniglio's drunken state, he said, he didn't understand the man was there lawfully to arrest his brother.

"I don't think he intended at all to stop an arrest," Schwartz said. "In his intoxicated state, he probably thought he was doing the right thing."

He said his client now recognizes that he was wrong.

That explanation didn't persuade Cianfrini to give Coniglio a lighter sentence.  She told him he was going to prison for seven years on the assault charge.

On the grand theft charge, regarding a vehicle that was reported stolen after it was involved in a fatal collision on Dec. 1 in Erie County, Cianfrini sentenced Coniglio to three to seven years in prison, to run concurrently with the assault term.

In the fatal accident in Erie County, Coniglio has admitted to vehicular manslaughter and will be sentenced in Erie County on Sept. 9.  That is a possible prison term of six to 12 years. Coniglio is accused of having a BAC of .18 percent or greater at the time of the accident.