Joe Mastroianni (R) is running against Angelo Santabarbara (D) in New York’s 111th legislative district for an Assembly seat. The 2024 race is a rematch; Santabarbara defeated Mastroianni by 54%-43% in 2022 (see those results here). Santabarbara, 54, is a professional engineer; Mastroianni, a high school graduate, works in his family’s food distribution business.
On October 17, 2024, Mastroianni was distributing campaign flyers when a local resident’s Ring door camera caught him taking his opponent’s campaign mailer out of the resident’s mailbox, pocketing it, and walking away with it (video below). Since stealing mail is illegal, the resident filed a police report (see story here), and there have been calls for Mastroianni to resign from his position on the town board (see story here).
When a report asked Mastroianni about the incident, he called the question “hit journalism.” Under pressure to say something, he said making an issue of it is “silly.” But the reporter was just doing his job, and it might not look so silly to him if he’s criminally charged with mail theft.