Pirates Booty founder stages attempted coup by declaring himself mayor of Long Island village residents say old beef to blame
He’s trying to pillage the village.The creator of popular cheese-buff brand Pirate’s Booty is staging an “attempted coup” of a Long Island village — as residents speculate he’s trying to get back at them due to a longstanding beef.
Robert Ehrlich, 66, alongside a three-man crew, stormed into Sea Cliff’s village hall Monday, declaring that he was its new mayor and everyone was fired before he demanded an office.Town officials say the standoff lasted about an hour — with police eventually showing up to diffuse the situation before Ehrlich and his fellow insurrectionists left peacefully without being arrested.“He is f–king crazy,” one Sea Cliff resident, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of legal retaliation, told The Post Friday — the day Ehrlich was seen waving a massive American flag on the streets of the Nassau County enclave.
“It was an attempted coup.”He and other villagers said they believe this is simply Ehrlich’s way of retaliating against the village after defeating him in a 2003 federal lawsuit in which the Pirate’s Booty founder accused officials of harassing the local businesses he owned because he was Jewish.Ehrlich was ordered to pay Sea Cliff $900,000 in legal fees, later suing the lawyer who represented him for malpractice — a case that was dismissed.And if that wasn’t barnacles enough, the village is set to hold elections Tuesday, with Mayor Elena Villafane running unopposed for the part-time seat — at least until Ehrlich declared himself a write-in candidate after his stunt.Villafane, who was elected in 2021 after serving as a trustee for several years, had been participating in the meeting virtually and rushed over after being informed of Ehrlich’s attempted takeover.“At one point, he says to me, ‘You’re not the mayor anymore.I’m the mayor.
And if you spend another cent, it’ll be considered embezzlement,’” Villafane recounted to The Post Friday.She said she offered to make a copy of his ...