de Blasio “confident” “legally” “ethically” “disclosure”???

“I’m confident of the fact that we handled everything legally and ethically, that we did the things I wish more people would do in public service—we sought guidance from an ethics board, we followed that guidance and disclosed everything we did,”…

Mayor de Blasio, May 2016

Whose “Guidance” Did He Seek???

The Observor – for full coverage click here.

As Investigations Swirl, Bill de Blasio Sticks to His Talking Points

“Some of those words seemed to come up over and over: “confident,” “legally,” “ethically,” “disclosure.” Mr. de Blasio endeavored to look non-nonplussed by the fact that investigations into his administration and campaigns are stacking up so quickly it will soon be impossible to count them on a single hand.

There’s the investigation into his State Senate fundraising—subject of a leaked state Board of Elections memo and several subpoenas. There’s the investigation into corruption at the NYPD, where officers accepted gifts from two business who also donated handsomely to Mr. de Blasio. Then there’s the look into Rivington House, a former AIDS hospice where the city lifted a deed restriction that will ultimately allow for the development of lucrative condos at the site, where developers were at times represented by a lobbyist tight with Mr. de Blasio. And there’s also inquiries into Mr. de Blasio’s non-profit, the Campaign For One New York, and whether donors got favors from City Hall.

In response to every one of these inquiries, Mr. de Blasio has argued he’s followed the law and the advice of his attorneys—and, in soliciting donations to State Senate candidates or using a non-profit to collect hefty donations for his priorities, that he’s doing things other politicians do but is, for some reason, being singled out.

“I don’t conjecture. I can say, I think there should be a fair standard. I think there should be a consistent and fair standard,” Mr. de Blasio said. “We’re convinced that things were done legally and appropriately, and I think it’s a very important fact when someone discloses voluntarily. It suggests comfort that they have that they’re doing things the right way.”

Mr. de Blasio’s campaign has indeed voluntarily disclosed the donors to his non-profit, something that is not required by law and that others have not chosen to do. But whether it was appropriate to accept the donations—which came from unions who have contracts with the city, real estate firms with interests in re-zonings and others matters, activists calling for a horse carriage ban and others—has been questioned.

Last night, NY1 reported on a letter from the Conflicts of Interest Board advising Mr. de Blasio not to solicit any donations from entities that have matters “pending or about to be pending” before the city. But in a story last year, Politico New York reported that 62 percent of donors had business or labor contracts before the city, or were trying to get a project approved—including the union DC37, which was negotiating a contract, and a manufacturer of scented garbage bags who eventually got a contract to provide them to the city.

Mr. de Blasio would not offer an explanation of how accepting donations from those people squared with COIB’s advice, other than to say everything was reviewed by his attorneys.

“This is a very important thing to get the definitions right on, which is why we went to the Conflicts of Interest Board, got a definition on it, and then had lawyers determine how to follow that definition,” Mr. de Blasio said.

The mayor repeatedly referred to how frequently he spoke with lawyers about donors and the fundraising issues now under the microscope—which of course, to some, might raise the question of whether he or his team suspected they were running up against the law. (When a reporter posited that the legal advice the mayor had gotten may have been up against the line, which would seem to be a given since it’s led to formal criminal inquiries, Mr. de Blasio accused him “editorializing.”)

The mayor has argued that there are problems in the laws governing campaign finance—but said that even if he doesn’t like the current rules and thinks the laws should be change, he will play by them as long as his enemies are. So, while he’s decried the role of money in politics and called for publicly funded campaigns and the overturning of Citizens United, he’s solicited large donations to county committees that are then passed on Senate candidates, who would not legally be able to accept those donations directly. And he set up his non-profit to take larger donations than he could accept to his re-election account, though he repeatedly singled himself out for praise for taking the extra step of disclosing those donors.

That argument—that the conduct might be ugly but it isn’t against the law, and everybody else does it—might sound familiar: it was what former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s lawyers said when U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara indicted him on accepting kickbacks disguised as outside income. (It is not illegal to earn outside income while serving in the State Legislature; many pols do.) Mr. Silver was convicted and was sentenced to 12 years in prison today.

Did Mr. de Blasio think Mr. Silver was unfairly targeted?

“I don’t know the details of the case,” Mr. de Blasio said of the trial, which consumed the city’s press corps for weeks and was closely watched by politicians and lawyers. “I think it’s a tragedy what happened, I think it’s exceedingly sad, but again I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know the detail of the case. I think it’s clear something was done wrong.”

But does the mayor worry that his argument might remind some New Yorkers of Silver’s defense?

“No. I think these are entirely different matters,” he told the Observer. “And first of all, to the credit of everyone involved in this discourse, no one’s talking about anyone lining their pockets—which unfortunately has happened in way too many instances. The thing we’re talking about is what we were trying to achieve working with outside colleagues, things like pre-k for all, affordable housing programs, a Democratic State Senate that we thought would better serve the people of New York State and New York City. So I think that’s apples and oranges to begin with.””

Simon Wiesenthal, Seabrook, Banks, Valentin and Platinum

“Norman is a friend,” Mr. de Blasio said. “Norman has been a great leader in this town. I want to thank him for all he does.”

 The New York Times, December 2014

Simon Wiesenthal, the Means Used to Legitimize Corruption: Rechnitz, Seabrook, Platinum, JSR, Banks and William Valentin

LostMessiah, April 28, 2016

Could Simon Wiesenthal’s Sensitivity Training Program and Platinum Partners Have Played an Integral Role in the Movement of Money and Political Influence from Jona Rechnitz (and JSR Capital) to then New York City’s Police Department Chief Philip Banks, Union head Norman Seabrook and Mayor de Blasio’s Office ?

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance established a program in 2004 to “teach cops to be more tolerant to religious and cultural minorities.” According to estimates the program has trained 13,555 officers over the years. Jona Rechnitz became a benefactor and volunteer in 2012. His primary role was “recruiting scores of high-ranking cops and corrections officers to attend the center’s sensitivity-training program”, called “Perspectives in Profiling.” “Jona helped introduce us to people at Corrections and the Police Department,” the museum source said. “He helped bring people to events and helped raise money for [the museum]”, as reported by the New York Post. 

The training program also provided donors Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg with legitimacy for untamed access to top brass within the NYPD, the NYC Corrections Bureau and other law enforcement agencies who attended the organization’s training program. In return for his commitment to Wiesenthal, it would appear that Wiesenthal’s rabbi, Steven Burg and connected lobbyist Michael Cohen arranged for him to gain access to influential people within the Jewish world. 

Importantly, whether intentional or otherwise, the association among Seabrook, Wiesenthal, Rechnitz, JSR Capital, Platinum and numerous “philanthropists” and high ranking political figures and law enforcement officials was made in 2014 when then-executive William Valentin began questioning Seabrook’s use and “investment” of pension funds.  Valentin allegedly uncovered the pension investments to Platinum and inconsistencies with reported returns and actual returns. It is arguable that Seabrook stripped Valentin of his position and of his pension, a contention Valentin has made in court papers, because Valentin got too close.

Jona Rechnitz has been a very public donor of Simon Wiesenthal and the Center’s Museum of Tolerance. He has also been quick to flash around his connections, as has been stated by numerous people close to the investigation.

On April 17, 2016, the New York Post in an article entitled, De Blasio donor spent $655K of City funds on museum program, it was reported that:

“Rechnitz’s primary role was recruiting scores of high-ranking cops and corrections officers to attend the center’s sensitivity-training program, called “Perspectives in Profiling.”

“Jona helped introduce us to people at Corrections and the Police Department,” the museum source said. “He helped bring people to events and helped raise money for [the museum].”

Two attendees included correction-union president Norman Seabrook and then-NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks, sources said.

The top cops are under federal investigation for receiving gifts and travel fees from Rechnitz, sources have told The Post.”

On April 18, 2016, the Real Deal reported that “Rechnitz funneled $255K in city money to Wiesenthal Center Program“:

“Revelations about the political wheelings and dealings of JSR Capital’s Jona Rechnitz, under federal investigation for corruption, continue.

The real estate investor and Africa Israel alumnus reportedly leveraged his political connections to ensure $655,000 in funding over two years for a New York City Police Department training seminar at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance.

The JSR boss, who worked with the museum since 2012, organized tours for top cops and worked with its rabbi, Steven Burg, and an affiliated lobbyist Michael Cohen – who has since become the museum’s director – to push for funding with the City Council, the New York Post reported, citing a source familiar with Rechnitz’s alleged dealings.”

Jona Rechnitz and the connection to Platinum Partners, summarized:

Jona Rechnitz’s connection to Platinum Partners and one of its main investors, Murray Huberfeld has been well established in the media, as well as articles related to Rechnitz’s curricum vitae, including his longstanding connection to Africa Israel.

On April 15, 2016, in one of many articles describing the connection between Jona Rechnitz and Platinum Partners, the New York Post reported.

“Rechnitz has ties to the Platinum Partners hedge fund through one of its initial investors, Murray Huberfeld.

Huberfeld has a shady past that includes pleading guilty to a misdemeanor in 1992 for having a stand-in take his brokerage licensing exam and, with a business partner, getting fined $4.7 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1998 for illegally selling restricted stock.

Rechnitz isn’t listed as an official marketer for Platinum and it was unclear whether he got a referral fee over the union’s investment, the Journal reported.

According to its website, Platinum manages more than $1.3 billion spread across “multiple funds.” It claims to be generating steady profits, but last year blocked clients from withdrawing money from one of its funds, sources told the Journal.”

Enter Norman Seabrook:

It has been widely reported that Norman Seabrook, as head of the Corrections Officers Union and corresponding Pension Funds has unbridled access to pension funds and the authority to invest them as he sees fit. Two investments in particular, both of which reflect a lackadaisical approach to due diligence and which should have waived glaring red flags, were allegedly introduced to Seabrook by Rechnitz. It is worth noting that Rechnitz is not a Registered Investment Advisor, nor is he listed on Platinum’s records as an advisor or market-maker. It is not clear whether or not he generated fees from the introductions. In addition, while we suspect it does, whether or not these introductions, [otherwise known as investment advice] raise securities violations is an analysis for the SEC and FINRA.

The first of the Rechnitz recommendations an investment in Platinum Partners, was an investment that made savvy investors, like Yeshiva University wary. The university declined, despite having many alumni touting the credibility of the fund. The second, an investment in a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Hamlet Peralta, is in our view almost unfathomable for someone with a fiduciary duty to COBA’s members, but that too is an issue for the courts.

In an article in Reuters Investigates, entitled:

The top-performing hedge fund manager that’s too hot for big money to handle

Reuters takes an in-depth look into Nordlicht and his Paltinum funds. Interesting for the purposes of this analysis, is his connection to the Jewish community, most notably the personal connection that married Platinum to Seabrook, Jona Rechnitz. According to Reuters, Nordlicht:

He has strong ties in the New York-area Jewish community, the source of some of his funds’ investors. These include, according to public tax filings for 2014, a charitable trust set up by day-trading pioneer Aaron Elbogen, who was fined $1.4 million for illegal trading and bookkeeping while the chief executive of Datek Securities Corp; the Century 21 Associates Foundation, led by department store executive Raymond Gindi; and the SFF Foundation, a non-profit controlled by the Schron family, known for its real estate investments. All declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

Nordlicht has enriched his investors with his focus on higher-risk debt that can yield far more than traditional fixed-income investments. And after years of near-zero interest rates, it’s a strategy increasingly sought out by big, otherwise conservative institutional investors hungry for higher yields.

Reuters goes on to explain that despite some big-money Jewish organizations declining to invest [Yeshiva University], Rechnitz was able to rope in Seabrook and the Corrections Officers’ Benevolent Association’s pension endowment. The article states:

Among institutional investors that have considered putting money with Platinum but ultimately chose not to are the endowment of Yeshiva University, which is the alma mater of several Platinum employees, and large hedge fund allocator GAM, according to people familiar with the institutions.

One institutional investor that did get in is New York City’s Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, according to two people familiar with the situation. The New York Times reported in June last year that Norman Seabrook, the union’s leader, was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for potentially using his position to enrich himself. A broad subpoena from prosecutors requested that the union supply information related to Platinum, but the connection was not clear, according to the report.

A spokesman for the union declined to comment. The Justice Department and Seabrook did not respond to requests for comment.

In April The Real Deal also reported  on Rechnitz’s active role in introducing Seabrook to the Platinum Partners investment:

“Rechnitz referred Norman Seabrook, the president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, to Platinum Partners, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

A substantial amount of the union’s money went toward the investment, and at the time, Rechnitz reportedly had links to the hedge fund, the Journal reported. Rechnitz and the founder of a Platinum subsidiary run in the same Jewish philanthropic circles, sources told the Journal.

Prosecutors investigated the investment last year as well as Seabrook’s financials and travel records.

The newspaper reported that Platinum’s investments include financing deals tied to litigation, loans backed by life insurance policies and energy markets.

Rechnitz, who founded JSR Capital, owns a handful of properties, focusing on residential buildings with retail components and individual condominium units, according to an analysis by The Real Deal.

An Africa Israel alumnus, Rechnitz donated $50,000 to de Blasio’s political nonprofitCampaign for One New York, and he and his wife contributed $9,900 to the mayor’s 2013 campaign. [WSJ] — Dusica Sue Malesevic”

The Valentin Connection:

In 2014, according to Court documents and sources within the organization, William Valentin began raising questions about Seabrook’s investment of pension funds into Platinum. According to Valentin, Seabrook was required to get union approvals, a requisite he bypassed. Valentin further contends that Seabrook then overstated the returns on the investments.

In April of 2016 the Wall Street Journal Reported:

Businessman Helped Steer $10 Million of Union Money to Hedge Fund

“The federal probe has examined, among other things, a Manhattan civil suit filed in 2015 by a former union executive, William Valentin, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Valentin alleged that he was pushed out of the union’s leadership after he raised questions about Mr. Seabrook’s investment of $10 million of union money into an unnamed hedge fund that he said was in financial distress.”

Mr. Valentin alleges Mr. Seabrook didn’t get required approval for the investment and then overstated the returns.

In an affidavit responding to that suit, Mr. Seabrook said the investment was in the best interest of the union and said the board received a presentation on the fund.

Mr. Seabrook said the fund—which he didn’t name—made its initial presentation in January 2014 to the union’s annuity fund, which he said was managed by a group of the union’s trustees; an initial $5 million investment was made in March of that year. Mr. Seabrook said he negotiated an agreement with the fund to redeem up to $1 million on three days’ notice, an arrangement he said was unique to the union.

Between March and June, Mr. Seabrook said, the fund earned more than $475,000 on the investment and he decided to invest an additional $5 million of union money with the fund. The union’s 2014 financial statements, filed by Mr. Valentin in his case, indicate that the profit was $47,500.

The financial statements also show that the union had $8.7 million in cash on hand at the start of the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2013, of which $5 million was invested in Platinum. The union had $3.2 million in cash at the end of that year.

Mr. Valentin’s lawsuit was dismissed last year but filed again in December.”

Following the Wall Street Journal report, on April 14th of 2016 Reuters reported:

Businessman in New York corruption probe linked to hedge fund investment

“A businessman at the center of a federal corruption probe involving New York police officers and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising helped arrange an investment by the correction officers’ union in a hedge fund, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Jona Rechnitz, who heads a New York real estate firm, referred the president of the city’s Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, Norman Seabrook, to Platinum Partners, which received an investment of at least $10 million, the source said.

The probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office is examining whether police officers received gifts and travel from businessmen in exchange for favors, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The investigation continues to make headlines in New York and has already resulted in the reassignment of five high-ranking members of the New York Police Department.

The connection of Platinum Partners to the probe, which is examining Rechnitz and Seabrook, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier on Thursday. Reuters on Wednesday was first to report the union invested in Platinum Partners.”

In April 2016 The Wall Street Journal reported:

Norman Seabrook probe is great news for city’s jail boss

“Seabrook is facing accusations that Jona Rechnitz, one of two businessmen named in the burgeoning municipal corruption scandal, helped him put a sizable chunk of the union’s assets into the Platinum Partners hedge fund to which Rechnitz has ties.

Seabrook was among the first law-enforcement officials scrutinized by the FBI in a suspected gifts-for-favors scheme involving Rechnitz, Jeremy Reichberg and NYPD brass, sources have told The Post.”

 In January of 2015, the New York Daily News reported:

Official compares Correction Officer union chief to Castro

“Correction Officers union president Norman Seabrook runs his union “the way Castro ran Cuba” and that has to stop, a fellow labor official said Wednesday as he filed a lawsuit against his boss.

William Valentin, 45, of Suffolk County said in Manhattan Supreme Court papers that Seabrook violated union bylaws earlier this month when he tossed Valentin from his post as Recording Secretary, banned him from union headquarters, took his car, credit card and cell phone and sent him back to his job as an Emergency Service Unit Officer.

Valentin said Seabrook tossed him out the door on Jan. 5 after convening an emergency meeting of the board of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association.

 Seabrook called the meeting to grill Valentin about his request for a copy of the mailing list of COBA’s 8,100 members.

A correction officer for 23 years and a union delegate since 1996, Valentin was elected Recording Secretary in 2012 and he said he needs that list to do his job properly.

However, he said in an interview Wednesday, Seabrook refused to give it to him and then got enraged when Valentin asked COBA’s controller for a copy.

“A Corresponding Secretary, according to our constitution bylaws, is supposed to maintain and upkeep and accurate member list of the association. He did not allow me to do this. I requested it several times,” he said sitting in the law offices of his lawyer, Harvey Levine.

“He never gave a reason why” other than to say the list contained private information, Valentin said.

“In his words, and I quote, ‘No one will get the member list.’ ””

 The Banks Connection:

Chief Department Philip Banks, once the police department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, apparently received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Jona Rechnitz’s real estate firm, JSR Capital, according to financial disclosure reported by Banks in 2014. Photographs of him in Israel with Rechnitz and Reichberg are very telling in terms of the closeness of his relationship with them. Pictures and videos paint a picture of high finance and extravagant trips and reports hint at allegedly payments in cash and potentially diamonds. Banks also attended the Wiesenthal sensitivity training program.

Businessman in New York corruption probe linked to hedge fund investment

 

“The investigation has also included former Chief of Department Phillip Banks, once the police department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, and Seabrook, head of the correction officers union, the source said.

Banks earned $250,000 to $500,000 from unspecified investments from JSR Capital Inc, Rechnitz’s real estate firm, according to a financial disclosure report Banks filed in 2014.

A lawyer for Banks has previously denied wrongdoing.

De Blasio has said that he was confident his campaign and administration had not committed any improprieties.”

 Wiesenthal, Platinum, Seabrook and Banks:

It has been reported that Seabrook’s political clout extended far beyond his position with the Corrections Officers’ Benevolent Association. He used his clout to “gain better financial deals for the union.” It has also been reported that he used [union] finances to endorse political candidates, many of whom presumably assisted him in accomplishing his endeavors, whether personal or professional. Seabrook, as has been posted earlier, was intricately involved with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, attended its sensitivity program, encouraged his colleagues and officers to attend which included Philip Banks, whom it should be noted was a long time friend of Seabrook.

In 2015 The New York Times reported:

Rikers Inquiry Expands to Include Union Chief’s Financial Dealings

“”Mr. Seabrook has amassed tremendous political clout as the head of his 9,000-member union and long used his endorsement of candidates, or the threat that he would withhold it, as a lever to gain better financial deals for the union, like higher pension benefits. During the last round of elections, the union gave out nearly half a million dollars in political donations, mostly to candidates for state offices.

The subpoena also demanded records concerning the union’s financial dealings with a disparate group of people and institutions, including Koehler & Isaacs, the union’s longtime law firm; the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization based in Los Angeles that focuses on Holocaust research; two hedge funds; and Philip Banks III, a longtime friend of Mr. Seabrook’s who was the New York Police Department’s top chief when he stepped down last year, about 10 months after being passed over for the job of commissioner.

Prosecutors often cast a wide net in their subpoenas, sometimes to obscure what they are really after, or to pressure people named into becoming cooperating witnesses, or simply to see what they can turn up. So it is unclear what conclusions can be drawn, if any, from the people and institutions named in the subpoena.

Mr. Seabrook did not return repeated calls and text messages seeking comment. A spokesman for the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, would not comment, nor would the F.B.I., which is also participating in the investigation.

No evidence has been made public indicating that Mr. Seabrook or others named in the request were involved in any criminality. But the subpoena comes just months after Mr. Bharara sued the city over widespread abuse of inmates and malfeasance at Rikers.

While the lawsuit and an earlier report about jail brutality released by Mr. Bharara’s office last August were never explicitly critical of Mr. Seabrook, an investigation by The Times last year showed that the union president has long been an obstacle to reform efforts at Rikers.

He has resisted stiff punishments for officers charged with excessive force, intervened in investigations and fought stronger screening measures meant to stop guards from smuggling weapons and drugs into jails, The Times found.

For years, Mr. Seabrook, who makes nearly $300,000 annually, has presided with nearly unchecked authority over his union, while becoming close to mayors and governors and exercising extraordinary influence over the city’s Correction Department.

During that time, he has weathered many challenges to his authority. Early in his tenure, he faced allegations of sexual harassment by several women with whom he had worked, settling at least one of the suits. His opponents in the union have been driven out or, in some cases, found themselves the subject of criminal prosecutions.

But Mr. Seabrook has never faced a threat like Mr. Bharara, whose corruption investigations over the last year have led to the indictment of some of New York’s most powerful politicians.

Among the requests in the subpoena is one for any record of “services provided to the union” by Mr. Banks, the former police chief. However it is unclear what, if any, connection he has had to the union. A search of business records by The Times did not turn up any ties to Mr. Seabrook.”

How Alluring, More Lies

 

ALLURING LIES

April 26, 2016

Rivington Street and the seemingly inexplicable lifting of a deed restriction “without the Mayor’s knowledge” is only one in a long string of lies, about which Mayor De Blasio has teeter-tottered between speaking and refusing to speak. We are just waiting to find a connection between Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, a connection that is so alluring but seems to be eluding us. 

POST: Mayor “Caught in a Lie” on Rivington House

http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2016/04/post-mayor-caught-in-a-lie-on-rivington-house.html#

 

According to a report over the weekend in the New York Post, high-ranking officials in the de Blasio administration were “frantically” trying to reinstate the Rivington House deed restriction in late February.

There have been shifting stories from the administration about when the mayor’s office learned that the deed had been changed. The decision from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services in November allowed the Allure group to sell the former AIDS hospice to luxury condo developers for $116 million.

Mayor de Blasio said he only learned about it when the city’s comptroller launched an investigation of the matter (that was on March 7). The New York Times reported earlier this month that Anthony Shorris, first deputy mayor, had begun looking into the deed change in late February.  Now the Post chimes in with new details that suggest another high-ranking official had been dealing with the situation:

On Feb. 24, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen’s chief of staff frantically offered a $16.1 million refund to The Allure Group… In return for the refund, Allure was told, the city sought a long-term care facility or affordable housing, according to a source close to the negotiations and evidence reviewed by The Post. Those two options were what “the Mayor’s ­Office wants,” James Patchett, chief of staff to Glen, told Allure’s rep, the source said… But a crestfallen Patchett — who blamed a bungling city agency for the whole mess — was told it was too late; the sale had already gone through. An increasingly desperate Patchett persisted, calling the situation an “important issue to us” and saying he would “highly encourage” Allure to change the outcome, the source said.

Allure purchased the building, 45 Rivington St., from VillageCare in February of 2015 for $28 million. According to the Post, Allure balked at paying $16 million to change the deed, which required the building to be used as a not-for-profit health care facility. De Blasio has said Allure promised to continue operating the Lower East Side nursing home. Now a source tells the Post that Allure made it clear to city officials it could not afford to keep the center open after paying the $16 million. The administration, says the tabloid, was intent on collecting its fee from the company:

The city Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which handled the negotiations, was determined to get all it could. In fact, DCAS was so anxious to get the cash that in January 2015 it urged Village Care, the former owner of the nursing home, to “expeditiously” submit documents to complete the deed deal. Assistant DCAS Commissioner Randal Fong wrote a Jan. 9, 2015, letter, obtained by The Post, to Emma DeVito, the CEO of the nonprofit Village Care, which ran the AIDS facility. It said: “Please confirm in writing that you agree to the value to ­remove the restrictions.”

Just in case you were having trouble drawing your own conclusions from the Post story, a separate editorial today spells it out:

On Sunday, The Post’s Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein caught Mayor de Blasio himself in a lie… How could word of the coming public-relations nightmare not make it back to de Blasio? Unless his minions are simply afraid to bring him bad news, the mayor lied about when he learned of the mess.

More on Rechnitz’s “donations”

April 25, 2016

From the New York Observer:

Congressional Candidate Starts New Campaign Committee—While Old One Still Owes $100K

State Senator Adriano Espaillat has created a new campaign committee for his third bid to replace retiring Congressman Charles Rangel—even though his old committee is $100,000 in the hole, including money owed to a donor at the heart of a scandal swirling around Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The latest Federal Election Commission filings show Mr. Espaillat’s new account, “Espaillat for Congress 2016,” has raised some $302,000 toward electing him to Mr. Rangel’s soon-to-be-vacant Upper Manhattan and South Bronx-based seat. But his old committee “Espaillat for Congress,” which raised and spent cash towards his unsuccessful 2012 and 2014 challenges of Mr. Rangel, is still almost $69,300 in debt to consultants, fundraising firms and creators of campaign literature.

The federal filings also show Mr. Espaillat is supposed to pay back some $31,500 to 16 donors whose contributions exceeded the legal limit—including $5,000 owed to real estate developer Jona Rechnitz, the owner of JSR Capital. Mr. Rechnitz is now at the center of a federal probe into whether he gave improper gifts to NYPD brass, and into the $50,000 he gave to the mayor’s now-defunct political nonprofit Campaign for One New York.

The Upper West Side-based multimillionaire, who sat on Mr. de Blasio’s inaugural committee, also bundled some $40,000 for the mayor’s 2013 campaign. Mr. Rechnitz’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

Also among the over-the-limit contributors to the old Espaillat for Congress committee are former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his late father, Bernard Spitzer—who the campaign is supposed to reimburse a combined $5,000.

Among the old committee’s biggest uncompensated contractors are the MirRam Group consulting firm and its affiliate, Metro Strategies, owed a total of $35,645.66 for literature, ads, surveys and phone banking. The list of the unpaid also includes Red Horse Strategies, owed $22,000 for a primary day field operation.

Red Horse declined to comment, while MirRam did not respond to the Observer’s queries.

Jonathan Reznick, who Espaillat for Congress is supposed to pay $1,295 for digital consulting, said the campaign has not responded to his requests for compensation, nor has it acknowledged his change of address. He expressed incredulity when told the candidate had created an all-new committee.

“If Espaillat does not wish to be spoken of as a campaign deadbeat in the community, he has to stop acting like one,” Mr. Reznick said in an email. “I look very darkly on his use of a new committee when he has debts to pay on the old one. I anticipate a clear statement from the senator on when he intends to pay the little guy.”

Federal election law does not require candidates to pay off their debts until they file to terminate the committee. But if they raise money to bring their campaigns into the black, contributors must designate their donations for the election cycle in which the debt was incurred.

Mr. Espaillat’s camp did not respond to requests for comment.

 

De Blasio’s ‘ordinary politics’ defense rings of Shelly Silver

April 25, 2016

From the New York Post:

Team de Blasio is answering charges that it massively broke state election laws by calling its fund-raising “ordinary politics.” Hmm: The last local to use that defense, ex-Speaker Sheldon Silver, will be sentenced for his crimes next month.

The memo from Risa Sugerman, chief enforcement counsel for the state Board of Elections, charges the mayor and his top aides went far beyond the usual tricks in trying to hand the state Senate to Democrats in 2014.

It alleges they used taxpayer time and taxpayer equipment for the schemes. “I don’t recall ever hearing or reading about anything like that — someone saying the mayor of New York [was] raising campaign funds right out of City Hall,” said veteran local political consultant Jerry Skurnik.

The memo also suggests the operation not only directed the cash to upstate county committees, but also told the committees what campaigns to send the funds to.

At a minimum, we still have the mayor, his chief political operative and his top fund-raiser soliciting individuals who do business with the city for donations to remote county committees. Why give, except to win favors from City Hall?

Mind you, the mayor has raised private funds to the tune of $40 million these last three years, when you include his various pocket nonprofits.

Questions about the giving belatedly prompted the mayor to shut down his pet nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, this year — after Common Cause/NY asked the city Conflicts of Interest
Board and the Campaign Finance Board to look into it.

For years, de Blasio has been raising millions and directing the funds to his various causes — and then shuttling the cash around between multiple entities.

It may be that the 2014 shenanigans struck his team as “ordinary politics” because it was just another form of what had become ordinary to them. Will US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan DA Cy Vance see it the same way?

De Blasio’s administration might be the dumbest in modern times

April 25, 2016

From the New York Post:

Bill de Blasio can’t even whine coherently. No wonder he’s in so much trouble.

Take the lawyer’s letter the mayor dispatched Sunday, complaining about a leaked report accusing him of felony-level violations of state campaign-finance law.

Its prose is so opaque normal people will need a can opener to get into it, but here’s the CliffsNotes: “We didn’t do anything wrong, but even if we did it wasn’t nice to rat us out to the DA.”

As if facts matter in the shark tank of New York politics.

New Yorkers got their first clue de Blasio actually belongs in the kiddie pool just six weeks into his administration, when he personally arranged a middle-of-the-night release for Orlando Findlayter, a storefront bishop from Brooklyn who had been arrested for unlicensed driving.

No big deal, really, but such things are supposed to be done without fingerprints — yet de Blasio wrote his name on this one with a neon red Sharpie.

Why he thought he could get away with sticking his thumb in NYPD business after spending most of his campaign demonizing the department was a mystery back then. Of course the cops were going to throw him in.

But it since has come into focus: The sad fact is this may be the dumbest administration in modern times. L’affaire Findlayter was still simmering when de Blasio made the fundamental errors that brought him to his present agony.

• He disremembered that warning about tugging on Superman’s cape, picking a pair of very public fights with Gov. Cuomo — one over education policy, the other over taxes. Big mistake; the governor has been torturing him ever since.
• Then de Blasio installed a cash register in City Hall and — up front and out in the open — began peddling political and policy access to big-bucks insiders. Corrupt union bosses, consultants, real-estate developers and other favor-seekers lined right up — pouring in cash that was meant to finance, among other things, de Blasio’s rise to national prominence.

That didn’t happen, and now US Attorney Preet Bharara — fresh from his high-drama convictions of Shelly Silver and Dean Skelos — is sorting out what all those donors got for their money.

De Blasio made stunning — wholly avoidable — blunders, and they converged in Sunday’s petulant lawyer’s letter. In it, mayoral attorney Laurence D. Laufer took state Board of Elections counsel and long-time Cuomo hatchet-lady Risa Sugarman to task for “leaking” charges that the mayor had steered insider cash upstate in an effort to weaken Cuomo’s influence with the Senate.

Laufer says Sugarman’s playing politics, which is hilarious. Of course she is. (If she did leak the report.) Doesn’t everybody? And didn’t Mike Bloomberg once buy himself the Independence Party — lock, stock and ballot line?

But Sugarman is also a piranha — Cuomo keeps a kettle full of them — and clearly she has the attention of both Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.

Thus Team de Blasio is not in a happy place.

Neither is New York City, which must be governed with wisdom and sophistication if it is to prosper — but which now finds itself led by a man who is neither wise nor sophisticated.

Indeed, he has made himself profoundly suspect — his every public move is now subject to presumptive suspicion, just as his every decision is open to wholly justified second-guessing. What’s in it for the mayor?

Sugarman’s campaign-finance allegations are center-stage at the moment, but de Blasio’s breach of trust extends far beyond ill-obtained cash for upstate Democrats.

The mayor and his people siphoned up hundreds of thousands of dollars from interested parties and then seemingly proceeded without a hint of subtlety to acknowledge the dough.

Bharara, Vance, et al., need to establish specific quid pro quos in order to proceed criminally — which is only right and proper. But ordinary New Yorkers needn’t be so precise as they consider de Blasio’s fitness to serve. This isn’t a legal matter so much as it’s a moral calculation.

Is a $9 billion teachers-union contract awarded only days after the union kicked $325,000 into the principal de Blasio slushfund a crime or a sin? How about a lifted nursing-home deed restriction that leads to condo construction right after a $50,000 contribution engineered by a consultant who both represents the developer and is tight with de Blasio? What about those carriage horses? And so on.

Plus this, maybe the most important question of all: How did Bill de Blasio get himself so deep into the weeds so quickly?

The benign answer would be naivety. The more likely explanation is boneheaded arrogance overlaid with contempt for the rules that smarter mayors at least pretend to respect.

Either way, welcome to “Preet Bharara, The Sequel.”

“The mayor is compromised. He has also compromised the integrity of the City of New York.”

April 24, 2016

From the New York Post

Activists call for de Blasio to step down

Two community activists called on Mayor de Blasio to step down Sunday, promising more protesters in the coming weeks at City Hall — which has become a “modern day Tammany Hall.”

“If he cares about this city the way he says he does, he needs to step down immediately and save us the continued national embarrassment,” said Tony Herbert, a former member of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. “There are a lot of levels to this corruption”

Herbert and John Rodriguez, who heads a community-police relations group in Brooklyn, stood outside City Hall Park on Sunday to slam de Blasio for presiding over several scandals that have rocked the city’s political firmament.

Both conceded they don’t expect Hizzoner to drop the reins of city government without a fight so they’re exploring how to jump-start the impeachment process.

“The mayor is compromised. He has also compromised the integrity of the City of New York,” Herbert said. “You can not honestly represent this city, having these criminal investigations on your back.”

City, state and federal investigators are probing de Blasio and his top aides in several areas, including their fundraising efforts for the 2014 state Senate races, donors who allegedly traded gifts for police favors, and a Lower East Side land deal that resulting in an assisted care facility being sold to build luxury apartments.

Herbert and Rodriguez said they’re unsure how impeaching a sitting mayor in New York City would work, but they aren’t the first to suggest de Blasio’s ouster. One change.org petitioner who attracted 250 supporters called for his impeachment a year ago for not being supportive of cops. Another moveon.org petition calling on his resignation received over 50,000 signatures in 2014 — before he had completed his first year in office.

Herbert suggested even more New Yorkers would back such an impeachment push now, citing three anti-de Blasio websites with thousands of supporters.

A de Blasio spokeswoman declined to comment on the nascent impeachment effort, but defended his efforts.

“We are confident that all of our efforts were appropriate and in accordance with the law at all times,” said spokeswoman Karen Hinton.