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Last year, when I heard that a former Oak Hill Country Club board president had quietly Venmoed money to a key witness in the club’s civil litigation, I had that typical reporter’s sensation: What a story!
I didn’t have the story nailed down, but the former president, Robert Sansone, stepped away from the other defendants in the lawsuit and retained his own attorney because of a possible conflict. He also left the board.
This didn’t confirm the tip I had, but it raised questions and put me one step closer.
Eventually, with court papers and other sources, I had enough for the story. But, as I dug deeper into the allegation, something happened that often happens with stories of this sort: It got murkier.
This post will probably be as much about journalism as it will about the money given from Sansone to Hanna Halpin, Oak Hill’s former food and beverage manager and a central witness in the civil trial.
The truth is that once I confirmed the payment, I could have reported the story with the basic facts and had what, in journalism circles, is known as a quintessential “gotcha” story. People then were unwilling to comment because of the ongoing litigation, but I had enough for the story.
It would have been widely read, widely talked about, and surely would have enraged the many people who, in our present environment, seem to search out reasons to be enraged.
It also may have been wildly incomplete.
The Venmoed money
In late 2024, Sansone Venmoed money to Halpin, a key figure in the litigation. Halpin had posted on Facebook that she was looking for an affordable rental car and Sansone sent money, ostensibly to help a former Oak Hill employee whom he knew and respected.
By then, the Oak Hill litigation was starting to boil, with both sides showing a willingness to forgo settlement and head to trial. That’s just what happened, with a trial that began at the start of December 2025 and ended in mid-January. A ruling is still months away.
(For those who don’t know, central to the Oak Hill litigation are allegations that retired businessman Eugene Baldino was removed from the board after boorishly berating Halpin about a dining issue at the club. Halpin has provided a different version, on the stand and in her own lawsuit against Oak Hill, and has given some defense for Baldino. If you scroll back through past Substack posts of mine, there are numerous stories with the history. Halpin’s lawsuit was recently dismissed but can be amended and filed anew.)
Sansone’s 2024 assistance took on the appearance of a bribe to some, an effort to ensure that Halpin did not give damning testimony against the club. At that point, Halpin had not spoken publicly about the interaction with Baldino.
(Here is my Democrat and Chronicle story about the Halpin lawsuit: “Oak Hill hit with lawsuit by former manager over board member’s ouster.”)
As well, Sansone asked Halpin in a text message to keep the payment between them.
Why, Sansone was asked in a deposition?
“Well, why would you want to share it with the world?” Sansone said. “My wife knew about it. I knew about it. Hanna knew about it. Who else needed to know about it?”
“How did the other (Oak Hill) governors end up finding out about it?” asked Kelly Foss, the attorney for the individuals suing the club, including Baldino.
“Because they heard it from outside sources,” Sansone said.
Outside counsel
In February of last year, Sansone took on his own counsel, separating himself from the club and its employees and governors who were being sued by Baldino and others at Oak Hill. The questions about the payment apparently necessitated individual representation for Sansone.
This was around the time I heard about the payment.
Sansone’s deposition shows that some fellow board members worried about the appearance of the payment, which came to light with subpoenaed texts and emails.
Asked how the board reacted, Sansone said: “I wasn’t in a position where I really wanted to explain myself and create a distraction (for) the board. The board had bigger issues. My term was almost up.”
“Did you observe the reactions of some of the board members to finding out that you had paid a key witness?” Foss asked.
“Number one, I wouldn’t phrase it that way,” Sansone said. “And number two, I only had one or two people reach out to me basically and said, ‘What were you …’”
(I pause here because I have a redacted copy of the deposition, and a redaction starts at the ellipsis with Sansone’s answer. I presume a board member may have been named. Also, I obtained the redacted depositions of Sansone and Halpin. They were not publicly filed. To be clear, and to avoid finger-pointing among the parties in the lawsuit, no one involved in the lawsuit—lawyers or parties—provided me with the depositions.)
In her deposition, Halpin noted that she had written to Sansone about the payment: “Your generosity was much more than I expected and brought me to tears. Thank you so very much from the bottom of my heart.”
Still, during depositions and at trial, the payment was hardly discussed.
This all begs the question, of course, as to why this largely disappeared from the talk about the case.
What the lawyers say
In his closing at the trial, David Rothenberg, the attorney for Sansone, spoke of the payment, using it to paint the lawsuit against the club as folly.
Speaking of those who sued— “petitioners” in the parlance—Rothenberg said, “Petitioners claims are lacking in credibility. The court may recall that Mr. Sansone had to hire separate counsel because petitioners alleged witness tampering.”
Yet, Rothenberg said, hardly a peep was heard about those allegations during depositions or at trial.
In an interview, Rothenberg again highlighted that those suing did not pursue the payment issue at trial. “There were no questions at all whether Sansone had influenced or tried to influence her testimony,” he says.
Instead, Rothenberg says, he thinks the issue was raised to give reason for a lengthy deposition of Sansone before the trial.
Foss, the lawyer for those suing the club, says she had been ready to go to trial even before Sansone’s deposition.
“We were prepared to go to trial without it,” she says. “We ended up using his deposition testimony by playing the video at trial.”
It’s understandable that Foss and her clients, upon learning of the payment, might probe deeper to find out whether there were questionable motives. And they did initially question the reasons Sansone reached out to Halpin.
But, by trial time, those questions appeared to be either answered or at least too uncertain to pursue at great length.
At trial, Halpin herself acknowledged that she did not see the payment as an attempt to sway her testimony. There were no more questions raised about the payment.
Sansone’s judgment can surely be questioned because, obviously, during the litigation was not the optimal time to send money to a significant witness, even if well-intentioned. But bad judgment does not equate to nefarious intent.
Sure, if there were proof of a bribe, the story would have been juicier. But there wasn’t proof, and this story is simply what it is—another possible misstep in litigation rife with missteps.
Missteps that, when all is said and done, will likely cost in the millions.
Gary Craig is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. A retired Democrat and Chronicle reporter, he now writes on Substack.
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