'False' Email Caused Abramowitz to Withdraw from Town Council Race

Roy Abramowitz withdrew his candidacy for a seat on the New Canaan Town Council on Jan. 11 because of an email sent by Historical Committee chairman Mike Farrell to Town Council chairman Mark DeWaele that he described as "totally false," according to the New Canaan News.

In the email, which DeWaele shared with the rest of the Town Council members, Farrell said that Abramowitz claimed in a letter to the Council that he was a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board when, in fact, he's only registered with the board as an accountant.

Abramowitz told the New Canaan News that his letter was edited before being printed in the New Canaan Advertiser because of word limit restrictions, so the letter read "member" instead of "member firm." Abramowitz said he was upset that the email was shared the morning before the vote was to take place.

Upon receiving Farrell's email, which has been published on the Advertiser's Web site, Abramowitz replied, "I am disgusted at this continued lack of civility and understand that Mark DeWeale has 'illegally' without investigation passed along a memorandum full of false, malicious, defamatory allegations made by a retired Price Waterhouse accountant."

DeWaele wrote in an email to the New Canaan News that he felt it was right to share the information with the Council and that members "would be right to criticize if the information was not made available to them for their own evaluation."

Local real estate agent and Zoning Board of Appeals member John Engel was chosen to fill the seat on the Council, which was vacated by Tom O'Dea, who was elected as state representative for the 125th District in the November election.