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 being played out on the North Shore of Nassau County.
Owners of a local family business who are sympathetic to Ukrainians tell CBS2's Jennifer McLogan they are being wrongly targeted as Russian oligarchs.
"We just want it to stop," Phillip Stehling said.
Phillip and Catherine Stehling and their colleagues at their Sea Cliff construction firm, say police, are victims of mistaken identity.
"We're not Russian. We have nothing to do with Putin. We don't support him by any means," Phillip Stehling said.
A vandal, still on the loose, apparently believes their building on Main Street is owned by a Russian oligarch and has been defacing the property overnight for weeks, spray-painting anti-Putin slogans with the name and address of a man he is targeting.
"We never knew the Russian person that he spelled out existed. It's kind of unnerving because we have lived in this town for 18 years," Catherine Stehling said.
Their construction firm moved into the building a year ago.
"The address he thinks is the Russian is actually the former owner of this building, but that person is not Russian and so it's just misinformation," Phillip Stehling said.
The vandal has caused $6,000 in damage so far to the stucco walls.
Russian Americans and Ukrainian Americans coexist peacefully in North Shore communities on Long Island.
Nearby in Glen Cove, some want the Russian estate Killenworth closed. Currently, the Russian mansion has diplomatic immunity, which prevents it from being entered or searched, and is exempt from property taxation.
"Since the conflict started, we have beefed up patrols in and around the embassy. We had some peaceful protests that occurred outside the gates," said Det. Lt. John Nagle, with the Glen Cove Police Department.
Back in 2016, former president Obama closed the Russian compound Norwich House, which is five miles away in Upper Brookville.
"It's unfortunate because we're sympathetic with situation that's going on in Ukraine. There are so many better ways of trying to express whatever you are feeling," Sea Cliff business co-owner Joe Gudino said.
"We're concerned for our safety, our employees' safety, our family," Phillip Stehling said.
The Stehlings are hoping to get the message to the vandal -- he's targeting the wrong person, urging him to change his protest to a peaceful one.
