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Belmont, town of Amity judge retires after 41 years OLEAN TIMES HERALD 716-372-3121 • BRADFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY
By CINDY WAGNER
BELMONT — Justice Steven Presutti may be retiring at the end of this month, but he’s not going away. After 41 years on the bench as Amity Town judge and 38 serving as Belmont Village judge, Presutti will be limiting his time to presiding over Misdemeanor Drug Court, which he has presided over for 16 years, and acting also as an associate village justice. “I’m going to stay on as village judge so I’ll just be here to kind of help out,” Prescutti said. “If Judge (Dennis) Stack needs some advice or some help with stuff, I’ll help him and that will allow me to stay and do drug court. That court gives a little more freedom (in scheduling) because Judge Brown and I work pretty good together.” Presutti credits his longevity to his clerk, Linda Healy, who has been with the judge for 35 years and is also retiring. “She said ‘You go, I go,” Presutti said. “She’s been invaluable and made the job a lot easier. I probably wouldn’t have lasted this long without her.” “He’s been here since he was a kid,” said Richard Hoshal, village clerk and treasurer who himself has 27 years in office. “He’s a big part of the community.” That sense of community accounts for a long history
Photo by Cindy Wagner Justice Steven Presutti sits in the Horn Room, which doubled as his trial courtroom, in the Belmont Town Hall.
of public service in the Presutti family. His father Leonard was mayor for a time and a member of the town board, as well as a judge, what used to be called “police justices.” His uncle Joe was a court clerk and deputy county clerk for a total of 55 years. A brother was a town supervisor and another a fire chief. That knowledge of the community and his longevity have enabled Presutti to know the county judges, police officers, attorneys and probation officers that he’s worked with. He’s known former Judge Euken since Euken was a district attorney and was a mentor for Presutti
when he first started out. He’s worked with Thomas P. Brown and Terrence M. Parker, county court judges and has known Allegany County District Attorney Keith A. Slep “since he was an intern.” “That’s the one thing I’ll miss is those people,” he said. “The staff here, the judges, the lawyers, the probation department.” Prescutti has spent his lifetime in the area, graduating from Belmont Central School in 1973 and receiving his associate degree at Genesee Community College. After leaving his position of real property tax director for Allegany County, he also served as an abstractor and
mapper for the county. He’s been both a coach for several sports and has officiated high school basketball. Prescutti has also served as a school board member for Belmont and Genesee Valley Central Schools. It does seem to him like he knows everybody and he ran into a lot of those people in his most memorable day in court following the arrest of over 50 local residents following an early Bump the Dump protest in the 80s. “We were lucky,” Prescutti said of the case. “Gary Fowler was the public defender that handled my court at that
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time and he was tripping because, just handling those people in the situation. It was volatile. It could have been much more volatile. When asked if it was difficult to pass judgement people that he knows, Prescutti shook his head. “I know most of the people that come see me. Now I see kids, grandkids of people I first saw, when I was 22 or so,” Presutti said. “I take every case individually. I just try to let people state their case and have their day in court. I listen to what they say and just explain what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I try to be fair ... that’s just what I’ve done for 40 years.” “I know how hard it is to come up with money. Like even now, the mandatory surcharges used to be 10 dollars, now they’re 93 dollars,” he continued. “That’s a lot of money to a lot of people,” on top what the court fines may be. I try to be fair.” Presutti, and his wife Pat, a retired schoolteacher, have two sons and two grandchildren, with another due in April. They’ll be traveling around the country visiting their sons and Pat’s mother. “We’re just going to go … that’s the one thing about our traveling before, I always had to be home by Wednesday (for court) so she’s kind of excited to not have work around that. She’ll see them a little bit more for a little bit longer.”
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