Blaz donor’s secret plea
A MAJOR DONOR to Mayor de Blasio secretly pleaded guilty to making campaign donations to public officials in exchange for official action, the Daily News has learned.
This stunning admission was made by Jona Rechnitz, a Brooklyn real estate investor who months ago began cooperating with prosecutors in former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s pay-to-pay probe of de Blasio.
The assertion surfaced in court papers detailing for the first time Rechnitz’s admissions of criminal activity.
Rechnitz’s criminal “information” was quietly unsealed by the courts March 15, the same day the U.S. attorney’s office announced it had decided not to bring criminal charges against de Blasio or his top aides. Prosecutors requested the unsealing order two days before.
Rechnitz’s information makes no mention of de Blasio, but Rechnitz was a major donor to his campaign through multiple avenues.
In October 2013, shortly after the mayor won the primary, Rechnitz collected $41,650 for the mayor’s campaign. In January 2014, he followed up with a $50,000 donation to the mayor’s nonprofit, Campaign for One New York, and in October 2014 he wrote a $102,000 check to the state Democratic Senate campaign committee as part of de Blasio’s failed 2014 bid to switch the Senate to Democrat control.
On June 6, Rechnitz pleaded guilty and was released on $500,000 bail. He then began helping prosecutors and the FBI try to make a case that de Blasio used his official powers to raise funds for his campaign and the Campaign for One New York, which could accept checks of unlimited amounts.
Rechnitz specifically admitted that he conspired to “deprive the public of its intangible right to honest services of law enforcement and other public officials.”
He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, also admitting his role in the bribery of Norman Seabrook, former president of the Corrections Officers’ Benevolent Association.
Seabrook is facing multiple corruption charges for taking bribes to steer $20 million in union pension funds to a tainted hedge fund.
De Blasio’s lawyer, Barry Berke, did not return calls. Rechnitz’s lawyer, Laura Birger, declined comment.