An email exchange between the town attorney for Pawlet and Daniel Banyai, owner of the Slate Ridge firearms training facility in Pawlet, shows that Banyai will not comply with a recent court order, the attorney argues.
In a court decision issued in March, Banyai was ordered by Thomas Durkin, a judge with the Environmental Division of Vermont Superior Court, to deconstruct buildings and gun ranges used for Slate Ridge’s paramilitary training classes. He was also ordered to stop training.
On Wednesday, town attorney Merrill Bent filed a motion asking Durkin to hold Banyai in contempt of court after he held a picnic last weekend where attendees used firearms on one or more of the facility’s ranges.
On Thursday morning, she filed a supplemental motion she said proves Banyai will not comply, and it includes emails Banyai sent to her that are peppered with expletives.
The court order required Banyai to hire a surveyor who could assess improvements to his land and make a site map — Banyai told the NYTimes he has invested $1.6 million into on-site training facilities. Since then, he reached out to the court, asking for clarification about what the site map should include.
The court instructed Banyai to seek guidance from Bent. Bent contacted him, then included the resulting email chain in a supplementary filing to the court Thursday morning to substantiate her argument that Banyai does not plan to comply with the court’s March order.
In her first email, Bent suggested that Banyai send her the information of his surveyor so she could connect with that person directly.
“The time to submit an initial contract has already passed, so the sooner we sort this out the better,” she wrote.
Banyai responded soon after.
“We have told you on numerous occasions to not correspond with us directly,” he wrote. “You are a racist b—- that is a narcissist and controlling constitutionalist. For the last time while your entitlement serves you and the rest of the racist in this community no accountability cease and desist from contacting me directly.”
Bent responded.
“You are a party to the proceeding, and I am an attorney for the other party. If you prefer not to communicate with me, perhaps just put me in touch with the surveyor directly, or hire an attorney to do the communication for you. Either way, we need to get this work done.”
Banyai answered several minutes later.
“You are not my boss c— you are a piece of s— racist low life with daddy issues. Your messages threaten me. F— you,” he wrote back.
In her supplementary filing, Bent said the exchange made clear “that Mr. Banyai has no intention of making a good faith effort to comply with the Court’s Order, and is instead using a request for clarification to delay and obstruct enforcement thereof.”
Banyai has published personal information about, or doxxed, Bent on several occasions and recently posted a photo of her with no caption to Slate Ridge’s Instagram page.
