GOSHEN – An Orange County realtor from Goshen, who maintains that the County of Orange and County Executive Edward Diana purposely blocked his client from being considered to purchase the former Camp LaGuardia property, has filed a federal lawsuit.

Robert Lawrence claims the county and Diana violated the Fair Housing Act when Diana allegedly blocked his client, a Hasidic Jew, from being considered to buy the property for development, according to his attorney, Michael Sussman.

 “It’s our understand and information that upon receipt of that, Mr. Diana expressed directly that he would not consider this proposal; he did not want a Hasidic developer purchasing the property; he did not want another Kiryas Joel created in Orange County, not that that developer was intending to create another Kiryas Joel, but that was the response.”

In the lawsuit, Lawrence alleges Diana expressed his intent to block the developer and refused to consider the proposal to purchase the property through Lawrence.

Lawrence said that resulted in a loss of commission to him, a loss which provides him standing to sue under the Fair Housing Act.

The county has sold the property to Mountco Developers of Westchester County, in a deal Lawrence claims was inferior to his.

There was no comment from the county.