Tables Turn on Benczkowski

When it’s election season, just make stuff up, accuse a politician of some random federal crime and accuse him of bribery.

You’ll get the headlines you want when you make sure the Bee picks it up and basically uncritically acts as your stenographer.

But when the truth comes out – that you are absolutely and unequivocally full of shit and that no crime exists, none was committed, and you spent the better part of a few months just smearing someone – in this case Cheektowaga Councilman Brian Nowak – you end your lame, baseless, and idiotic witch-hunt “not with a bang, but a whimper.”

So, to backtrack for a second, this all started because current town supervisor Diane Benczkowski is aligned with Nowak’s opponent in the supervisor’s race, Michael Jasinski. At a recent town board meeting, when a resident was being considered for a seat on the town’s ethics board, Nowak objected, stating that the nominee had flown a Confederate flag on at least two occasions outside her house, and he had the photos to prove it. He did not show the photos publicly, but it was enough of a concern that he thought the members of the council should be aware. Well, Jasinski and Benczkowski swore out a fatwa against Nowak for this, almost immediately calling for his censure for “defamation”, while accusing him of a federal crime to the Bee’s reporter and also of bribery as to a highway department job.

The reaction was pure politics at its ugliest, and it was bullshit. The only person defamed here was Nowak.

The news here is that the conspiracy failed. It’s over. Not only is it over, it is over in dramatic fashion. Let’s backtrack again:

The effort to censure Nowak failed. Unsatisfied, Benczkowski decided that there ought to really be an investigation, thus implying that there had been no investigation before she and her henchcretins decided to defame Nowak and accuse him of crimes, etc. (In other words, the caselaw definition of “actual malice.”)

The resolution to launch an investigation was brought by Benczkowski and another board member, Brian Pilarski, on October 10th. The text of the resolution is here. It is breathtaking in its stupidity. Basically, Nowak was trying to ensure that this guy doesn’t get hired to another supervisory role, and otherwise told Wegner that it wasn’t a personal vendetta and he’d have Wegner’s back in the future. The meeting was to discuss possible alternative arrangements to having a formal deputy highway superintendent. None of this constitutes a “bribe.”

The DA had already looked into all of it and determined that no crime was committed.

So, Pilarski had had enough of all of this remarkably stupid nonsense and told Benczkowski to her face at a working session prior to the full board meeting. When discussing the proposed agenda, Pilarski said that he had received documents via FOIL that had been sent to the AG and DOJ, and he said that it all amounted to a “political witch hunt.” The complained-of meeting between Nowak and Wegner took place in April 2022. No one complained to any law enforcement about what happened until a year later – April 2023. The complaints were made by Mark Wegner and Diane Benczkowski, and she clearly knows all about it when confronted – “Mark asked me to send them for him,” she says. The letters to law enforcement were signed by Wegner and on highway letterhead but had Benczkowski’s personal email address on them.

On September 12, Benczkowski called for Nowak’s resignation. On September 26, she filed the resolution to censure Nowak. In early October, the Highway Association flagged Pilarski in a letter, which prompted him to try and find out if this had already been investigated, and if so, that this would obviate the need for a further investigation via resolution or otherwise. Pilarski received no response. On October 10th, Benczkowski and Pilarski filed the resolution calling for an investigation into Nowak’s “bribery.” When someone finally got a hold of the Chief of Police, he said that this whole thing had been resolved “months ago.” But just to be sure, the chief called Wegner and then re-closed the file without action.

Meanwhile, Benczkowski had run to the media to tell them she wasn’t aware that the police had brought this matter to the attention of the District Attorney. The bottom line is that Benczkowski knew when she filed her “investigate Nowak” resolution that an investigation had already been conducted and closed without action. Pilarski concludes that, “this whole thing is a witch hunt” and that Benczkowski had “duped” him into putting his name on it when she knew an investigation was already either ongoing or closed.

Benczkowski is then confronted on why she would send something if she knew the information wasn’t true. The real reason is because she was advancing the political campaign of Nowak’s opponent. As Pilarski suggests, Benczkowski wasn’t happy with the result of the DA’s investigation, so she decided to smear Nowak publicly, politically by suggesting that something remained to be investigated. All for headlines.

At the board meeting, Benczkowski took her name off the resolution and it was pulled.

But she succeeded in her main objective – headlines smearing Brian Nowak.

What a shameful farce masquerading as a town government.