Daniel Banyai, owner of the Slate Ridge paramilitary training facility in West Pawlet, appears for his contempt hearing in Environmental Court in Rutland on Nov. 4, 2022. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
The town of Pawlet wants to foreclose on Slate Ridge, the controversial paramilitary-style gun range run by Daniel Banyai.
In court documents filed this week in Vermont Superior Court Rutland civil division, the town’s attorney, Merrill Bent, wrote that Banyai owes more than $226,000 in fines and legal fees he accrued during his yearslong legal battle with Pawlet over unpermitted structures on his 30-acre property.
Two other entities appear to have a financial interest in Banyai’s property, according to Pawlet land records. One is a land surveying company in Clarendon that claims to be owed money by Banyai, and the other is David Brodsky, who was described in a story in The New Yorker to be an alleged financial supporter of the Slate Ridge owner.
Brodsky, a part-time resident of nearby Danby, has a financial claim to Slate Ridge in the form of a mortgage, court records show, dating back to January 2024.
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Land records indicate Banyai transferred Slate Ridge from himself to “Slate Ridge Incoperated” (the records note that Banyai “declined to change spelling errors on documents”). Slate Ridge Incoperated, described in Pawlet’s judicial request as a “non-profit corporation … administratively terminated by the Vermont Secretary of State for failure to make annual filings,” took out a mortgage with Brodsky, records show.
Pawlet, in its court filing, argued its claim to Slate Ridge is superior to the apparent financial interests of the two others.
In an interview, Bent, the town attorney, said it could be “a long time” before a judge rules on the foreclosure.
“There were many, many, many opportunities to resolve this,” she said of the town’s legal struggle with Banyai, “without it going this way.”
Banyai’s attorney in the case, Robert Kaplan, said in an email that his role in the foreclosure is “limited to accepting service of the initial paperwork on behalf of Mr. Banyai.”
Earlier this month, Banyai was arrested for violating conditions of release in his pending criminal case. He is charged with aggravated assault on a police officer after allegedly fighting a Pawlet constable who arrested him in March.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Pawlet wants to foreclose on Daniel Banyai’s Slate Ridge.