NEW YORK (Reuters) - The company that set up a huge tent for visiting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will plead guilty to zoning violations in the town of Bedford, New York, and pay a $1,000 fine, the town attorney said on Thursday.
Belleweather Strategies LLC set up the tent for Gaddafi last week on property leased from developer Donald Trump but was ordered to dismantle it, under threat of legal action, by the affluent town 30 miles (50 km) north of New York City, said Bedford Town Attorney Joel Sachs.
Gaddafi, a famously eccentric figure known for pitching a large Bedouin tent on his trips abroad, was in New York where he addressed the U.N. General Assembly on September 23.
Belleweather, "who we believe is an agent for the Libyan government," agreed to plead guilty to four zoning violations and the $1,000 fine on Thursday in local court, Sachs said.
In return, the town will drop the related criminal charges it filed last week against Seven Springs LLC, part of the Trump Organisation that owns the 213-acre (86-hectare) estate.
"We're discontinuing litigation against Trump because they proved to our satisfaction that under the lease, the responsibilities for all permits and licenses lay with the tenant," Sachs said.
The Trump Organisation has denied that Trump knew about plans for the tent beforehand, he added.
Trump said last week that he had leased the property on a short-term basis to Middle Eastern partners.
Attempts to contact Belleweather were unsuccessful.
Authorities discovered workers setting up the tent and satellite dishes for the Libyan leader on September 22. The tent was dismantled, briefly reassembled and then permanently taken down over the course of the next two days.
Gaddafi did not stay in the tent during his U.N. trip.
It was his third attempt to pitch a tent in the region. Earlier plans to erect a tent in suburban New Jersey, where the Libyan Embassy owns property, were blocked by the U.S. government. A request to set up the tent in New York's Central Park also was turned down.
Gaddafi has come under criticism for giving a celebratory reception to Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, and was recently freed from prison by Scottish authorities.
Bedford is home to such celebrities as homemaking expert Martha Stewart, fashion designer Ralph Lauren and actor Richard Gere who, with his actress wife Carey Lowell, owns a bed and breakfast there.
Trump once hoped to build a golf course on the estate but ran into opposition over its environmental impact and, more recently, has proposed building mansions on the land.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
