CITY HALL WHITE WASH
Probe reveals Blaz staff deliberately covered up details of pal’s shady deal, agreed to cough up goods after suit threat
Mayor de Blasio’s attorney finally agreed to turn over previously whited-out documents, as well as computers, to city watchdog.
THE DEPARTMENT of Investigation released evidence Tuesday that the de Blasio administration deliberately covered up crucial information regarding the city’s handling of a deed restriction on a Lower East Side nursing home.
Behind the scenes on Thursday, DOI notified Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter by letter it would sue him to gain access to the mayor’s computer and thousands of pages of documents that Carter had censored.
Late Friday, Carter agreed to turn over the requested documents unredacted, and on Tuesday he reversed course and granted DOI access to the computer that serves the mayor and several of his top aides.
In the back-and-forth with Carter, DOI spelled out for the first time some of the important information Carter withheld — including two memos involving First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris — that was relevant to DOI’s investigation.
Carter specifically held back an internal memo detailing a city analysis of the pros and cons of the sale of a nursing home on Rivington St., according to DOI’s letter to Carter.
The critical memo was attached to a July 23, 2014, email from a Department of Citywide Administrative Services staffer to DCAS Commissioner Stacey Cumberbatch.
The document revealed early on the possibility that the nursing home could be sold for condos, including a reference to briefing Shorris. Shorris has claimed he knew nothing about the condo plans.
Carter withhheld it, sending DOI two whitedout pages stamped “DP” or confidential as part of the city’s internal “deliberative process.” DOI later discovered the nature of the memo’s contents elsewhere.
Carter also whited out sections of a Nov. 18 memo to Shorris from Cumberbatch detailing aspects of the Rivington St. deed, stamping it “NR” for “not relevant.”
DOI later discovered from another source that the section Carter deemed “NR” described yet another deed restriction waiver, this one involving the Dance Theater of Harlem. In that case, a de Blasio donor buying the building needed the waiver so it could be turned into apartments.
The coverup occurred after DOI began investigating how the city handles deed restrictions after questions emerged in March about potential fraud in the Rivington St. sale.
In the deal, the buyer bought the nursing home from a nonprofit group for $28 million, paid the city $16 million to remove a deed restriction, and sold it for $116 million to a condo developer.
By executive order of the mayor, DOI — the city’s internal watchdog — is supposed to have total access to city documents, emails and computers.
But Carter became the gatekeeper, deciding he would determine what was relevant. Carter declared hundreds of pages of documents “not relevant” and denied DOI access to the mayor’s computer.
In the July 21 letter to Carter threatening to sue, DOI wrote, “Neither City Hall, Law nor any other City agency or official is entitled to interfere or refuse to cooperate with a DOI investigation or determine what material is relevant to that investigation.”
DOI noted that Carter’s intervention was a conflict of interest because the Law Department itself was involved in signing off on the Rivington St. deed waiver.
On Tuesday, Blasio continued to back Carter, stating via his press secretary Eric Phillips, “Zach Carter and the Law Department have absolutely acted appropriately in their compliance with DOI’s review.”
“As a result of a DOI review that City Hall asked for,” Phillips added, “the Law Department has now provided access and information significantly above our legal obligation and far beyond any useful scope of DOI’s review.”
In mulling the deed waiver, the city incorporated a memo written by the nursing home seller’s lobbyist, James Capalino, into its analysis. Capalino has raised nearly $60,000 for de Blasio and his causes in the last year.