Discord at the Dreams Park

August 14, 2008 08:26 am

— Staff Report

HARTWICK SEMINARY — The campers at the Cooperstown Dreams Park are playing baseball, but the Presutti family is playing Family Feud.

A brief article last week by Laura Italiano in the New York Post says that Joseph ``Uncle Joe’’ Presutti has filed suit against his brother Lou ``Coach’’ Presutti and Coach’s son Louis Presutti, the Dreams Park CEO. The suit was filed Aug. 4 in Manhattan Supreme Court.

According to the article, Uncle Joe spent years working to turn the park into one of the country’s premier youth-baseball tournament facilities where more than 1,000 teams come to play each summer.

In the suit, Uncle Joe claims he has been kicked out of the project — and left penniless — by his two partners. The Post article states that Joseph Presutti is seeking unspecified damages, claiming his brother and nephew forced him out of the organization and badmouthed him as an unstable drunk to staff and relatives. The feud apparently started after Joe asked his brother and nephew to abide by a long-standing agreement that he is entitled to a 5 percent interest in the park’s worth.

The park, the article states, operates one of the largest youth-baseball tournaments in the world and generates more than $12 million annually.