Bill’s to pay
Panel slaps a limit on donors for Hizzoner’s legal defense
MAYOR DE BLASIO may have avoided criminal charges — but there’s no getting out of those large legal bills.
After hoping to hit up big-money donors to pay for lawyers, a city Conflicts of Interest Board ruling Wednesday greatly restricts the mayor’s ability to raise that cash.
The $50 or less cap for each contribution to his legal defense fund means de Blasio will struggle to pay off those $500-an-hour lawyers hired to defend him against two criminal probes that had been looking into his sketchy fund-raising efforts.
It was a year ago that de Blasio retained the high-powered firm of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel to represent him in the recently closed probes by the U.S. attorney’s office and the Manhattan district attorney.
The firm has sent him bills — an amount that he has not publicly disclosed — but he has so far not paid them a dime.
Instead, he had planned to form a legal defense fund and raise contributions to pay what he owes. His description of the fund has been vague — and he wouldn’t commit to staying away from soliciting checks from entities doing business with City Hall.
On Wednesday, the conflicts board decided that all donations to such a legal defense fund would be considered a “valuable gift” — and as such under campaign finance laws would be restricted to less than $50 per contributor.
“The public servant’s acceptance from these persons of a valuable gift that is a contribution of $50 or more would presumably violate” the section of law “as a misuse of the public servant’s city position,” the board wrote.
Questioned by reporters an hour after the decision was released, de Blasio implied he might try to change the law to allow for bigger donations.
“The Conflicts of Interest Board has raised a set of concerns, we’ll certainly engage them on that,” he said. “It may have to be addressed legislatively but it may not.”
The ruling said the $50 rule applies whether or not the donor was doing business with the city. It also said the only exception would be family members or a “close personal friend” not seeking favors from City Hall.
Those donors could give unlimited amounts. The ruling did not define “close personal friend.”
Dick Dadey, director of the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens Union, cheered the ruling.
“This is another step towards ending this culture where people who have business before the city feel they have to pony up in order to have a leg up,” he said. “This opinion closes the door on using legal defense funds as a means for influence peddling.”
Two weeks ago, the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. announced they had shut down their investigations, deciding they did not have enough evidence to file criminal charges against the mayor or his team.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim made a point of declaring publicly that de Blasio had intervened on behalf of donors who were seeking favors from City Hall.
For his part, Vance stated that the mayor’s efforts to steer huge donations to a failed effort to win a Democratic majority in the state Senate violated the “spirit” of campaign finance laws.
De Blasio said again Wednesday that he would not take taxpayer money to pay his legal bills, although he has set aside up to $11.6 million in city funds for lawyers representing other city employees questioned by investigators.
It was not clear who requested the conflicts board to render an opinion on the legal defense fund, though a source told the Daily News the query came from an unnamed elected official.
De Blasio said he didn’t ask for it, though he often says he uses the board for guidance on many issues, including whether he could personally solicit funds for his now-defunct Campaign for One New York.