BUFFALO, N.Y. — A brother and sister have come forward to say they have reasons to believe that the package that one of them recently dropped off at the office of Erie County Executive may have been part of what led to Mark Poloncarz having an armed security detail.
When WGRZ-TV was first to report about the new security detail Poloncarz initially didn’t want to divulge specifics on what prompted it.
“We’ve had an uptick of some serious incidents we're worried about," Poloncarz told 2 On Your Side following his state of the county address on March 27.
But earlier this week Poloncarz revealed through a tweet that one of those incidents involved a suspicious package delivered to his office. Though it was later determined to be benign, it was addressed to him personally and confidentially, marked urgent, and had no visible return address.
Package Delivered
Following our original story, Christina Little contacted us to say that in the mid-March, she carefully prepared a large envelope full of documents which her brother, Kevin Riford, agreed to drop off at the Rath Building.
Riford says after he and the package cleared the metal detectors and x-ray machine through which all visitors must pass, he went up to Poloncarz's 16th-floor office where he left the package with a receptionist without incident.
In addition, he says he delivered similar packages to Channel 2 and the Buffalo News, containing the same contents as the one left at the county executive’s office.
Visit from Police
The two are reasonably certain their package was what sparked concern because not long after that a sheriff's investigator showed up at Christina's door asking to speak with Kevin, who doesn't live with her.
“I then called my brother, and they talked to him directly on the phone," she said.
“He wanted to know if I had been in Buffalo and told me they found documents in the package,” Riford recalled. “I asked him if all he had found were documents, why was this even of a concern?”
His sister wondered the same thing.
“Why would it blow up to this extent?” wondered Little. “You’ve got ask yourself if there is something else going on besides simply a package?”
What they may not have known, but which Poloncarz has since acknowledged publicly, was that what his staff perceived to be a “suspicious” package was only one in a series of incidents that sparked concern for his safety.
He says these included threats made on social media and “an incident at my house which we've not talked about which has nothing to do with a package."
What Was Inside
According to Little and Riford, the package delivered to Poloncarz contained the same items that were delivered to us…a voluminous amount of documents chronicling a bitter custody dispute involving their sister, and what they claim is evidence of a corrupt judicial and legal system which failed her.
Though her case is largely centered in Niagara County, according to the documents, one of the parties indirectly involved is someone who formerly worked for Erie County whom they realized that Poloncarz might have been familiar with.
“Because of this person’s involvement, we thought maybe Mr. Poloncarz would take more interest of the contents of the situation and possibly be able to help my sister,” Little said.
They also thought that if he couldn’t help them, he might be able to forward their concerns to Governor Andrew Cuomo.
But they weren’t sure if he ever got to read the contents of the package, which was they wanted him to do in the first place.
On Thursday we took the package to where Poloncarz was holding a public event and asked him about it.
He thought the envelope looked different than the one his office received but acknowledged that once the sheriff’s department determined the one he received contained nothing dangerous, it was turned over to his staff to review.
“I’ve not actually read it. I've just been given an overview of what was in the materials,” said Poloncarz.
When asked specifically if he was informed that it involved a custody battle, Poloncarz replied, “I’m not going to go into it at this point….if it’s something that we can help with, we will.”
A Better Idea
Poloncarz also suggested that if someone wants to bring materials to his attention, then rather than hand delivering a package to his office with no return address, folks might want to call his office first, identify themselves, let them know they have materials to drop off, and when they would like to do that.