Cedarhurst jewelry store owners sue Nassau County over news release accusing them of robbery

Three brothers who run a Cedarhurst jewelry shop filed lawsuit Wednesday against Nassau County and a county detective, claiming they were libeled by a police news release, accusing them of robbery, assault and unlawful imprisonment — charges that were later cleared after a grand jury declined to indict them.

Jacob, Daniel and Dov Avital, who own and operate Five Towns Jewelry Buyers, charge that their reputations and their business were negatively impacted after the police department issued a release on Sept. 12, announcing their arrest.

The release, which is still online, states that the three men attacked a man trying to sell them fake Cartier bracelet, dragging him into their house, where they held him against his will, then beat him with their fists and a baseball bat. The police statement also says they threatened him with a sledgehammer and then took his phone and the bracelet before fleeing the scene. The failed sale took place at the brothers’ home because their business address was under renovation, it said.

The news release also includes the mug shots of the Avitals.

"It's a classic expression of defamation," the brothers’ attorney, Alexander Klein, told Newsday. "It is knowingly or recklessly false, widely publicized. To my clients, great detriment. If you're going to publicly accuse someone of a violent crime, you better be right."

The Avitals maintain that the seller filed a false report against them with the Nassau County police.

They said in the lawsuit that their home security footage undermined the man’s account, but police never asked to review it and officers never searched their home for the alleged weapons.

"They had full access to my home, and they walked around my home," Jacob Avital told Newsday in April after the case was dropped. "They didn't even attempt to check the cameras or go for the weapons, because they knew it was nonsense. They took zero evidence. The only evidence they took was the jewelry and they gave it back to the guy two days later."

One police officer on the scene expressed skepticism of the alleged victim’s crime and then turned off his body-worn camera, according to the complaint.

The release went out Sept. 12 and the Avitals said the fallout was devastating.

"The fallout from the defamatory news release was immediate," the suit states. "The [Avitals’] hard-earned reputations plummeted in their local community, where they run a family-business; credit lines dried up; business tanked; and their emotional distress skyrocketed. Indeed, despite the passage of time, the dismissal of the charges, and the readily available evidence of their innocence, the defamatory news release remains plastered on the County’s publicly available website to this day."

The Avitals are seeking to recoup more than $225,000 they say they lost in business and another $120,000 they spent on defense lawyers and trying to protect their reputations online.

The criminal charges hung over the brothers for eight months. They hired a private detective who they say found other instances of the alleged victim trying to pass off fake designer jewelry.

They also set up a website and even picketed in front of the Nassau County courthouse, protesting their innocence.

On April 1, county prosecutors convened a grand jury on the case and two days later, the panel voted not to indict, and the case was sealed.

Klein said his clients are not asking that the police stop putting out information on crime in Nassau County.

"If the outcome of our suit is that the police department is more careful about when and how they issue these press releases, then we'd be very happy about that," he said. "We all recognize that there are crimes that are terrible that the public ought to be informed of, that's not an excuse for recklessness."

The Nassau County police and the county executive’s office did not respond to a request for comment.