Long Island business owners say vandal with anti-Putin messages is mistakenly targeting their building

SEA CLIFF, N.Y. — The war in Ukraine and anger at Russian President Vladimir Putin is staying performed out on the North Shore of Nassau County.

House owners of a local loved ones organization who are sympathetic to Ukrainians inform CBS2’s Jennifer McLogan they are staying wrongly focused as Russian oligarchs.

“We just want it to prevent,” Phillip Stehling said.

Phillip and Catherine Stehling and their colleagues at their Sea Cliff construction firm, say police, are victims of mistaken identity.

“We are not Russian. We have nothing to do with Putin. We never support him by any implies,” Phillip Stehling claimed.

A vandal, still on the free, seemingly thinks their creating on Most important Road is owned by a Russian oligarch and has been defacing the home overnight for months, spray-portray anti-Putin slogans with the name and tackle of a gentleman he is focusing on.

“We never understood the Russian human being that he spelled out existed. It is really type of unnerving since we have lived in this city for 18 many years,” Catherine Stehling reported.

Their development organization moved into the building a yr in the past.

“The deal with he thinks is the Russian is essentially the previous operator of this developing, but that person is not Russian and so it is just misinformation,” Phillip Stehling explained.

The vandal has brought on $6,000 in damage so far to the stucco walls.

Russian Individuals and Ukrainian Us residents coexist peacefully in North Shore communities on Extended Island.

Nearby in Glen Cove, some want the Russian estate Killenworth closed. Now, the Russian mansion has diplomatic immunity, which prevents it from getting entered or searched, and is exempt from home taxation.

“Since the conflict started off, we have beefed up patrols in and all-around the embassy. We experienced some peaceful protests that happened outside the house the gates,” stated Det. Lt. John Nagle, with the Glen Cove Law enforcement Department.

Back in 2016, previous president Obama closed the Russian compound Norwich Dwelling, which is 5 miles absent in Higher Brookville.

“It is regrettable due to the fact we’re sympathetic with circumstance that’s heading on in Ukraine. There are so quite a few greater ways of striving to convey whatsoever you are feeling,” Sea Cliff business enterprise co-proprietor Joe Gudino claimed.

“We are worried for our basic safety, our employees’ safety, our family,” Phillip Stehling explained.

The Stehlings are hoping to get the information to the vandal — he’s concentrating on the mistaken person, urging him to improve his protest to a tranquil one.