New York Daily News

Bill: $leaze duo didn’t get wish

- BY ERIN DURKIN

MAYOR DE BLASIO insisted two big donors who asked City Hall for favors before getting arrested in a corruption probe offered up mostly bad ideas and “didn’t get what they wanted.”

Emails released last week revealed that real estate developers Jona Rechnitz (inset, top) and Jeremy Reichberg (inset, bottom) wrote several times to de Blasio at his personal email address, and Hizzoner often responded within minutes and steered the requests to top aides.

“They sent emails, and what typically happened was they didn’t get what they wanted,” de Blasio told reporters at an unrelated press conference in Brooklyn on Monday.

Reichberg and Rechnitz did appear to get at least some of what they wanted after reaching out to City Hall for help — Rechnitz avoided a vacate order for operating an illegal hotel, although he did pay the maximum fine, while Reichberg got a discount on what he felt were overcharge­s to a water bill.

But de Blasio denied he was engaged in pay-to-play on behalf of the deep pocketed donors. “I reject that notion. I reject it out of hand,” he said.

“People offer their ideas all the time to me, whether they are elected officials, community leaders, people I meet on the street, just everyday citizens. I listen. Sometimes those are good ideas. Other times they’re not. I’ll listen,” he said.

“Those ideas those guys were putting forward typically were not good ideas and were not given the time of day by those who looked at them.”

Rechnitz and Reichberg both sponsored fund-raisers for de Blasio’s 2013 campaign. Rechnitz also wrote a $50,000 check to de Blasio’s now-defunct nonprofit, Campaign for One New York, and steered another $102,300 to the mayor’s failed bid to swing the state Senate to the Democrats.

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States