in the run-up to the presidential election, new york city was hardly trump territory. and every time michael ricatto put another display of trump campaign signs up on the lawn of his sizable white house on abingdon road in kew gardens, queens, last summer, they were stolen or knocked down, actions that would later set off a series of events as unpredictable as the election itself. infuriated by the thefts, as well as an obscenity about donald j. trump that had been spray-painted on the public mailbox in front of his house, mr. ricatto installed a security camera. it captured a grainy image of a sign-stealer. mr. ricatto, 59 and a real estate investor, then printed fliers bearing the image and a $5,000 reward offer for information leading to the arrest of the sign thief. he hired some local teenagers to post the signs around the neighborhood with tape. when the tape ran out, he said, the teenagers used a stapler to post the fliers to trees on the streets. the hubbub made the news, and the stapling method was mentioned. in the weeks that followed, a team of enforcement officers from the parks department arrived at mr. ricatto<u+2019>s house, he said, and issued him 22 summonses with fines totaling $1,500 and citing unauthorized posting and <u+201c>minor tree damage<u+201d> to 11 trees. to mr. ricatto, his real transgression was supporting mr. trump, a republican, which he claims annoyed democratic city officials. <u+201c>let<u+2019>s call it staple-gate,<u+201d> said mr. ricatto, who calls himself a conservative, a proud gun owner and a fan of ronald reagan and john wayne. a supporter of mr. trump<u+2019>s democratic opponent, hillary clinton, would never have been cited in this situation, he fumed, and said that official parks department signs are often affixed to trees with similar staples. <u+201c>people in new york city don<u+2019>t like conservatives,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>they wanted to teach me a lesson about being outspoken, and about who i believe in. so they found something to hang their hat on.<u+201d> mr. ricatto said he paid the summonses because <u+201c>i didn<u+2019>t want the headache<u+201d> of fighting them, nor the expense of hiring a lawyer. instead of backing down, he splurged on a larger trump banner to hang in front of his house, and he called the prominent civil rights lawyer ron kuby to see if he had any grounds to sue the city for damages claiming political bias. in an interview, mr. kuby said that he thought the summons was <u+201c>a wild overreaction<u+201d> by the city, but that a suit by mr. ricatto claiming <u+201c>selective enforcement based on his trump leanings would be difficult case to make.<u+201d> a parks department spokesman dismissed the claim that the summonses were political and called them a routine penalty for damage to the trees. <u+201c>the fine had nothing to do with the content of the signs mr. ricatto posted and everything to do with the fact that staples can damage and even kill trees,<u+201d> the spokesman, sam biederman, said in a statement. he added that the fine was determined by the city<u+2019>s administrative court and <u+201c>not based on the amount of damage or the cost associated, but rather on the rule broken.<u+201d> the order to cite mr. ricatto set off something of a parallel episode within the parks department. an enforcement supervisor ordered a sergeant to write the 22 tickets. but the sergeant, joe oro, 54, refused, arguing that it was improper to write summonses weeks after the signs had been removed, with no witnesses to the violations. <u+201c>they were bogus summonses,<u+201d> said sergeant oro, a veteran with 29 years on the job. <u+201c>i might as well hit every dog owner who puts up a <u+2018>lost puppy<u+2019> sign.<u+201d> he said he also consulted a superior officer, <u+201c>and he told me, <u+2018>stay out of it <u+2014> it<u+2019>s too political.<u+2019><u+201d> a rookie officer wound up writing the summons, said sergeant oro, who has had previous run-ins with the agency as an outspoken member of his union, local 983 of dc 37. the local<u+2019>s president, joe puleo, characterized department officials as using the officers as <u+201c>pawns for their political favoritism<u+201d> in this case. sergeant oro said he was included in an email conversation about possibly forcing mr. ricatto to pay $41,000 in damage for the staple holes, a proposition that an agency lawyer replied to incredulously, in the email chain. as for mr. ricatto, president-elect trump<u+2019>s victory is a bit of revenge. last week, he bought and hung a new, larger banner. <u+201c>i told you so,<u+201d> the banner reads. <u+201c>trump trump trump trump.<u+201d> a version of this article appears in print on november 25, 2016, on page a23 of the new york edition with the headline: quest to find a trump-sign thief leads to fines and suspicions of bias. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
trump signs, trees and accusations that a new york agency is biased
corey kilgannon