A Burlington man has been charged with stalking Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak after a series of increasingly aggressive run-ins culminated in the mayor hiding in a locked bathroom at a downtown bakery last week to escape him, according to court documents.
In a Burlington courthouse on Monday, Aryeh “Ari” Moskowitz, 40, pleaded not guilty to charges of stalking and aggravated disorderly conduct. He was released on conditions that he not contact the mayor, nor come near her home, car or place of employment.
During the hearing, Moskowitz’s attorney, Robert Kaplan, said the police affidavit describes a “passionate constituent wanting to speak with an elected representative, in this case the mayor of Burlington.”
“This really has the tenor of a public official who can’t handle dissent,” Kaplan said. “We have strong First Amendment rights in this country to speak our minds and to petition our elected representatives. And I get that the mayor finds this annoying, but it is certainly Mr. Moskowitz’s right to engage a political official about political matters.”
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George recused herself from the case because Moskowitz has sent her messages and she could be a witness. Franklin County State’s Attorney Bram Kranichfeld — who is running against George in the Democratic primary election in August — was brought in to prosecute the case.
Judge Tim Doherty said the case is unique, given the victim is the mayor. He acknowledged that it could raise potential First Amendment issues.
“We all have the right to petition our government and make our views on matters of public import heard,” he said.
After the hearing, Kaplan alleged that the case has been brought to “suppress political dissent.
“Mr. Moskowitz is a proud supporter of the State of Israel and a Jewish American who’s experienced discrimination at city hall from people who work in City Hall,” Kaplan said. “His efforts to reach out to the mayor to redress this conduct have been rebuffed at every turn, and the mayor has no interest in dealing at all with citizens who disagree with her.
“Unpopular political views are now the subject of criminal prosecution in the State of Vermont for individuals who don’t agree with the popular political opinions,” Kaplan continued, “and that’s a sad state of affairs.”
The mayor’s office told Seven Days it would release a statement about the case later Monday.
The criminal complaint was filed on Friday, just about two weeks after police issued a trespass order that banned Moskowitz from City Hall for 180 days. He has no criminal history in Vermont but has had 30 contacts with law enforcement since 2017, according to police. He was also the subject of a separate temporary order against stalking Mulvaney-Stanak issued by a judge on Friday.
In her sworn statement about her interactions with Moskowitz, Mulvaney-Stanak said he started complaining to her office in April 2025 about an online interaction he’d had over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a security guard employed by Chocolate Thunder, a private contractor that patrols City Hall. Moskowitz repeatedly claimed the employee worked for the mayor’s office and discriminated against him, despite assertions from the mayor and city staff that Chocolate Thunder workers are not city employees.
Months later, Moskowitz approached Mulvaney-Stanak “in an agitated way,” she wrote, to ask why the mayor wouldn’t meet with him about his complaint.
“At the time, I did not know much about his complaint other than that he had repeatedly been to city hall and made city staff uncomfortable with his verbal aggressive behavior and line of questioning,” Mulvaney-Stanak wrote. “Staff had warned me to avoid him if possible.”
Her next run-in with Moskowitz was in January 2026, when he waited to talk to her after a public meeting on Pine Street.
“I felt nervous as he was watching me,” Mulvaney-Stanak wrote. “I asked a man standing near by if he would help walk me to my car.”
Moskowitz then “aggressively” asked why the mayor wouldn’t set up a meeting and “partially blocked” her exit, she wrote. He followed her out of the building, “shouting at me about how I was a pathetic mayor and that I was required to meet with him and how I supported discrimination.”
As Mulvaney-Stanak drove away, she “took a long way home in case he was following me.”
Moskowitz subsequently verbally attacked the mayor during public comment at City Council meetings, she wrote, and posted AI images of her on an Instagram account that he used to call her names, blame her for community problems and call for her resignation.
In late May, Mulvaney-Stanak heard from Council President Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5) that Moskowitz “was calling councilors and telling them he was going to protest at my house and that he knew where I lived.” He also started messaging Chittenden County State’s Attorney George, who encouraged the mayor “to take extra precautions,” Mulvaney-Stanak wrote.
On May 29, Moskowitz ran up to the mayor and “placed his body uncomfortably close” to her as she walked with her 11-year-old child in the Burlington Trout Parade through downtown.
“He kept yelling at me that I was pathetic and an asshole and eventually stepped away,” Mulvaney-Stanak wrote. “I have never been approached this way by anyone before. I found the behavior alarming and unsettling.”
Moskowitz was subsequently trespassed from City Hall for harassing staff.
On June 2, he again ran up to Mulvaney-Stanak on Main Street and “threatened to come to my house with ‘100 drug users and homeless people’ to protest me and my family,” the mayor wrote.
The most recent interaction was last Thursday, when Mulvaney-Stanak saw Moskowitz at a downtown restaurant and left to avoid talking to him. She subsequently hid in a bathroom and locked the door at a nearby bakery as he ran after her. A staff member who came in to check on the mayor said she “broke down” and began crying.
Once Moskowitz was gone, Chocolate Thunder security came and escorted her back to City Hall.
Not long after the bakery incident, interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke was on foot patrol on College Street when Moskowitz approached and told the chief about how the mayor had “run away from him,” Burke wrote in court filings.
“Moskowitz told me that the Mayor was afraid of him and laughed in a way that struck me as sinister,” Burke wrote. “I told Moskowitz that he had gone too far — that engaging in a course of conduct which places a person in fear could be criminal behavior. Moskowitz struggled to find words at first and then told me he needed to ‘retract’ his statement and that he never intended to place the Mayor in fear.”
That same day, Moskowitz posted an AI-generated image of Mulvaney-Stanak in a bathroom with a caption saying she “locked herself in a bathroom … because she was afraid to have a respectful conversation … what are you hiding Emma?”
In her statement, Mulvaney-Stanak wrote that she has “made several changes in my life because [Moskowitz] causes me to fear for my safety,” including having working security cameras at her house, not allowing her children to answer the front door and changing how she travels around the city. She also bought pepper spray and created “an escape plan” for her family to leave their home in an emergency, according to court filings.
“The hardest thing for me,” Mulvaney-Stanak wrote, “has been being in fear of mine and my family’s safety when we’re in Burlington where I live and work.”
Moskowitz is at least the third person who has been temporarily banished from City Hall for aggressive or erratic behavior. The mayor ordered Keren Sita banned from the building for 90 days, a period that city councilors ultimately lowered to 30 days after Sita appealed.
Sita had targeted the mayor at council meetings and in emails, including one in which she wrote: “I’ll burn this whole fucking state down watch me fucking do it Emma you wanna fucking ruin me bitch I’ll fucking ruin you you stupid dumb little Cunt and I’m taking you out publicly too bitch. Fuck you dumb little Cunt.”
Also kicked out of City Hall was a man named Todd DeLuca, who films around Burlington and was accused earlier this month of loitering in the building.
Moskowitz owns Timely Tire, a mobile tire service business he started in December 2019, a few years after moving with his wife to Vermont from New York City.
More recently, he’s started taking videos downtown and posting them on social media. In some, he talks to unhoused people and business owners about their feelings on the state of the city. He also criticizes Mulvaney-Stanak and her policies. He’s posted criticism of State’s Attorney George and support for her opponent, Kranichfeld — who is now prosecuting Moskowitz.
At council meetings and online, Moskowitz has been vocal about his support for Israel. In April, he attended a Burlington event organized by Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Ben Cohen and held up a sign reading, “Don’t eat antisemitic ice cream.” Cohen and his company have been critics of Israel and supporters of Palestinian rights.
Moskowitz told a Seven Days reporter at that time that he planned to run for mayor. But on May 31, he wrote on his Facebook account that was “withdrawing” his bid.
“I recognize that some people don’t agree with my approach, and I respect those differences in perspective,” Moskowitz wrote on Facebook. “I also see this as an opportunity to learn, grow, and move forward in a more constructive way.”
Colin Flanders contributed reporting.