The Curious Case Of The Purloined Lawn Signs

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New signage for the Grados campaign have replaced the pilfered ones

September 22, 2025

By Barrett Seaman–

Glancing out the window of her house on Irvington’s Meadowbrook Lane, Terri Altamura noticed a man taking one of two recently-planted Bob Grados for Mayor lawn signs and sticking it in the hatchback of his white SUV. She bolted out the door, activating their front door Ring home security camera, which captured the brief exchange that followed (see video below).

“What are you doing?” she called out as she strode down the driveway.

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“Taking them back,” the man replied. “Putting new ones up.”

In his brief encounter with Terri, the man identified himself as Robert (or Bob) “Alozo,” claiming to be a Grados campaign worker. When she expressed skepticism, the man jumped into his SUV and drove off. Alarmed, her husband Tony called Grados, the independent candidate for mayor, who said he knew nothing about any such lawn sign swap-out, so Altamura called the Irvington Police. A little online research told him that destruction of political yard signs is a Class A misdemeanor in New York with potential penalties of up to $1,000 and a year in jail.

Alerted to the incident, Grados turned to his campaign Facebook page, asking supporters to keep an eye out for the lawn sign bandit. He also called his opponent, Arlene Burgos, to report the incident. Both he and Altamura suspected that “Alozo” worked for her campaign.

“Of course there is no one working on our campaign with that name,” Burgos wrote in an email. “Nor does anyone on my campaign know anyone by that name.” Further to that, the Irvington Democratic Party reported that a search of registered voters in New York State turned up no one named Alozo.

Moreover, Democrats point out, as of this week, 12 of Burgos’ lawn signs or posters had been pilfered or defaced, including one advertising an “Ice Cream Social” scheduled for Sunday, the 21^st that was torn down and dumped in the tunnel under the railroad tracks. None, however, had music promotion posters plastered over them.

With video footage and other evidence, the Irvington Police were able to identify in short order the person who took the sign from the Altamuras’ lawn. When asked to provide a name, the department declined, saying that it was their hope that the sign-stealer would turn himself in and that the matter would be amicably settled. “We have some evidence that it was not politically motivated,” Chief Francis Pignatelli told The Hudson Independent.

On Thursday, the Altamuras met with Ryon Burnett, the investigator assigned to the case. Burnett told them that Robert Alozo was in fact Robert Clivilles, a musician, recording executive and co-founder of C + C Music Factory, a known player in the hip-hop/dance music space. Until a few years ago, Clivilles lived in Irvington’s upscale Legend Hollow neighborhood. Burnett further told the couple that he believed that Clivilles’ stole the signs in order to re-purpose them as promotions for his son’s budding music career. (His son, who goes by Brennen Cole, is indeed a musician; a video of him performing “Call Me” can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRrBIpEyCag.)

Burnett also relayed Clivilles’ claim that he was not even aware that there was a mayoralty race in Irvington. Finally, the investigator told them that the defaced signs were to be found beyond Irvington’s border in Yonkers, which he thought further undermined the theory that Clivilles was specifically targeting the Irvington mayoral election.

At that time, the Altamuras weren’t buying it. Based on his own investigation, Tony told Officer Burnett that there was evidence that Clivilles targeted the Grados campaign “at least one other time,” according to a third party who claimed he saw someone cover a Grados campaign sign with a picture of Clivilles’ son near the Irvington Pizzeria.

Clivilles’ explanation to police, Altamura believed, was full of contraditions. “Why would someone state that he’s replacing the signs with new ones and that he’s with the campaign on the one hand,” Altamura pondered, “and then assert that this was all a misunderstanding and that he was taking abandoned signs on the floor on public property to repurpose them?”

Later in the week, in what would appear to be an attempt at reconciliation, Clivilles called Bob Grados directly. Using the pseudonym again, he asked if he could come by and pick up two lawn signs (presumably to replace the one taken from the Altamuras and the other in front of the pizzeria). He said he was calling “just to make things right,” but Grados, an attorney, replied that he knew his real name and that he “didn’t believe a word he was saying.”

Both Grados and Altamura had the impression that the Irvington Police wanted what appeared to be a low-level misdemeanor to be resolved outside the courts. But Chief Pignatelli assured The Hudson Independent that the department remained neutral and was prepared to pursue the case if the Altamuras wanted to go forward. In the end, the couple decided not to file charges,

No one was more relieved than Robert Clivilles. In a phone interview a week after he was captured on the Altamuras’ Ring camera, he described himself as “a zealous father promoting his 18-year-old son’s music career.

“It was dumb.,” he admits. The Altamuras’ sign, he says, was the only lawn sign he took—and that he didn’t think it was directly on their property. He says he saw it out near Broadway as he drove by and decided on the spot that it would serve nicely as a frame for one of son Brennan’s album ads. As for the poster in front of the pizzeria, he says that was the work of one of Brennan’s Irvington friends, some of whom have been helping spread the singer’s promotional posters elsewhere, including ones in Yonkers.

He confirms that he called Bob Grados and was prepared to pay for the sign he took as well as the one his son’s friend papered over in town. “It’s a sign,” he stressed. “I mean how much could it cost? Five dollars?”

As for the name “Alozo,” he says it was actually “Alonso,” part of his mother’s full Puerto Rican matronymic name of Anna Alonso Crespo that he, as a musician, occasionally adopts to protect his privacy. After selling his home on Manor Pond Road three years ago, Clivilles moved with his family to Miami, where he no more plans to vote than had he remained in Irvington. He describes himself as totally apolitical. “I don’t vote,” he says, repeating his statement to the police that he really didn’t know Irvington was having an election.