Geraldine Ferraro’s family is suing the lux Fire Island village of Saltaire, claiming an appraiser barged onto their waterfront property despite “no trespassing” signs, and snapped dozens of pictures in an “outrageous” privacy breach.
The January 2022 look at the Richards Walk property by appraiser John E. Grossman Associates included 60 photos of the home’s interior and exterior and was done in “bad faith” because similar homes in the tiny community did not get the same attention, according to the homeowner.
“As a result . . . it is now public knowledge were [sic] the residents and their children sleep, that there is a dock for access, how to access the property and the fact that the entrance to the premises is remote,” according to the Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit against the village and Grossman.
The property is owned by Village People LLC, which lists a Soho apartment as its address. Records show Ferraro’s widower, John A. Zaccaro, 90, lives at the Manhattan home, while the couple’s son, John A. Zaccaro Jr., the one-time mayor of Saltaire, is listed as the lawyer who filed the legal action.
“It’s his property,” the elder Zaccaro said, referring questions to his son.
The Zaccaros are demanding $300,000 in damages from the tiny village, a mostly summer community of just 400 homes.
Ferraro, the first female vice presidential nominee of a major American political party when Walter Mondale selected her as his running mate in 1984, died in 2011 at age 75 of blood cancer.
She and Zaccaro were married for 50 years and shared three children.
Husband and son had their own legal troubles: in 1985 the elder Zaccaro pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of scheming to defraud in connection with obtaining financing for the purchase of five apartment buildings.
He was later accused and acquitted of trying to extort a bribe from a cable television company.
Zaccaro Jr. was convicted in 1988 of selling cocaine to an undercover Vermont state trooper and served three months under house arrest and later pardoned.
A lawyer for the village declined to comment.