The CEO of the custom sticker and T-shirt manufacturing company Sticker Mule, Anthony Constantino erected a 100-foot (30-metre) wide and 12-foot (3.5-metre) tall ‘Vote for Trump’ sign on the roof of his business in Amsterdam, New York last week. The sign can also be illuminated at night.
Evidently, this did not please the Democratic mayor of the city of around 18,000 residents. What is more disturbing, however, is that Mayor Michael Cinquanti used his executive power to silence the political opinion of one of his citizens. He cited dubious claims that the sign is distracting drivers and thus endangering traffic. After a complaint by the city council, Montgomery County Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Slezak issued an injunction, ordering the sign be covered up until the first hearing on the issue.
How Constantino’s sign is different from the many other illuminated signs on top of buildings, commonly used across America for advertisements, has not been explained by the complaining city council.
However, in a sudden turn of events, Judge Slezek reversed her decision after talking to Constantino’s lawyers. On the eve of Monday, 7 October, the ruling came down that the sign could be lit up after all, just as hundreds of people gathered to show their support to the New York businessman, who also runs a pro-Trump political action committee.
In her new decision, the judge explains that the signage is not dangerously close to any highways, thus it is safe to be displayed. However, this is still not the final ruling on the case, as the legal team of the city council can still re-file its complaint until 18 October.
‘All I know is tonight the party is on and the lighting will occur and there is no court order prohibiting the lighting and display of the sign. So it’s obviously a nice victory for Anthony and his team,’ Sal Ferlazzo, the attorney representing Constantino, explained the current state of affairs to the New York Post.
So, the official lighting ceremony could go on undisturbed on Monday night, 7 October. Former UFC champion MMA fighters Kelvin Gastelum and Henry Cejudo were also in attendance, showing their support for President Trump. At the event, Constantino said:
‘I’m here doing this on behalf of all Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike. This is about celebrating free speech and togetherness, and Donald Trump is “the unity candidate”,’ as quoted by The New York Times.
‘This is about celebrating free speech and togetherness, and Donald Trump is the unity candidate’
President Trump has had a lot of trouble with the New York State justice system lately. This case, in which he is not even personally involved, is by far the mildest one.
In May 2023, a jury in New York City found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a civil case, and ordered him to pay $88 million in restitutions, despite the plaintiff making her original claims of abuse 23 years after it allegedly took place. In January 2024, another civil case tried in—where else—New York City found The Trump Organization liable for business fraud, and fined it $354.8 million.
And, in the most infamous case of them all, in May 2024, Donald Trump became the first US President to be convicted in criminal court in a trial in Manhattan, for falsifying business records. He is still yet to be sentenced in that case, as his sentencing, originally scheduled for 11 July, has been delayed twice.
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