Corcoran Group severed ties with a broker who was filmed calling a woman a vile term and giving her the finger during a confrontation over political signs last weekend.
Long Island woman Alethea Shapiro posted a video on social media Saturday that showed broker Roy Silber walking back to his car after allegedly ripping out a pro-Biden sign she had planted.
“Take a picture,” he is filmed telling Shapiro, his middle finger raised at the camera. “Fucking cunt,” he adds.
The confrontation, on Glen Cove Road in Nassau County, continues after Silber rolls down his window and moves slowly forward, saying, “watch me, watch me,” his middle finger still raised. “For you and everyone in your family.”
Yesterday when legally placing @JoeBiden signs on a public road in LI a man named @roysilber w/ @corcorangroup pulled up parked his car besides me, illegally ripped up the sign & threw it in2 a puddle.Since I was alone I immediately grabbed my phone.This scary incident ensued. 1/ pic.twitter.com/HVBOllN77O
— offtherails (@Women2Dc) October 31, 2020
Contacted about the incident, which sparked scores of angry responses on social media, a spokesperson for Corcoran said the brokerage was “appalled by the abhorrent behavior an independent sales agent displayed.”
“Corcoran in no way condones his conduct, and we immediately disassociated him from our firm,” the spokesperson said.
Attempts to reach Silber were unsuccessful, but in a Facebook post Sunday that is no longer online, the broker said he was “deeply sorry for the language that I used and I truly regret that I said those words in the heat of the moment.”
Silber claimed on Facebook that the two “have a history,” and the incident was “not a random event.”
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It is unclear how well Silber and Shapiro know each other. In the video, Silber tells her “you should know who I am,” and when she asks him who he is, he tells her, “you’ll find out.” When she persists, he says, “don’t worry, just follow me; all the signs are coming down.”
Shapiro said on Twitter that she found out later that Silber lives in her neighborhood. She said she had blocked him on Facebook two years ago. She also accused Silber of pulling out four of the political signs she put up on the day the video was recorded.
The broker, who was wearing a red sweatshirt that read “I’d rather get Covid-19 than Biden-20,” posted that he “regularly passes signs supporting Biden-Harris and other issues I don’t agree with,” adding that “this was about my history with Ms. Shapiro — not her signs.”
Shapiro, who did not respond to requests for comment, posted that she plans to file a restraining order against Silber.
Among the thousands of people who have seen and responded to the video is Corcoran founder Barbara Corcoran, who tweeted that she thought Silber’s behavior was “absolutely outrageous and breaks my heart!”
“It insults each of us who believe in our most precious right to free self-expression,” she wrote. “Hate and divisiveness must be stopped if this country is to move forward again as a united family.”