ALBANY – Former Albany County Legislator Brian Scavo was found guilty on Tuesday, June 20, of harassing a woman at Crossgates Mall.
After a bench trial, a judge ruled the 62-year-old did “annoy and harass a female victim by following her and repeatedly asking for her personal information” on Dec. 19, 2015 at the Guilderland mall, according to District Attorney David Soares.
Scavo, who was arrested on this charge while he was awaiting his sentence after being found guilty of trying to pass bad checks at a Bethlehem bank in 2015. He ended up serving six months in jail, but was looking at up to seven years behind bars.
He was found guilty of two counts of harassment, both of them violations. One was for “following a person in or about a public place” and the other for “engaging in a course of conduct which alarm or seriously annoy another person.”
Guilderland Judge Richard Sherwood ordered Scavo to pay a fine and surcharges and issued a no-contact order of protection for the victim.
Scavo, a Democrat who represented the Delaware Avenue area of Albany from 2008 to 2011 has had several clashes with law enforcement. In 2008 he was charged stalking one woman and that same year he was charged with harassing one of his tenants. And in 2011 he was charged with forging a tenant’s signature on a an eviction notice. All those charges were eventually dismissed.