CLUCK KENT
De Blasio yuks it up for Halloween after witness tells more tales of buying mayor
Mayor de Blasio spends Friday night dressed as mildmannered reporter Clark Kent at Gracie Mansion. Earlier in the day, he outran the press as more pay-toplay testimony emerged in the Norman Seabrook trial.
A TOP DONOR to Mayor de Blasio claimed Friday that City Hall was dawdling on his requests for favors — until he wrote a six-figure political check requested by the mayor personally.
Brooklyn businessman Jona Rechnitz, 34, who has pleaded guilty to corruption and is cooperating with the feds, continued his damning testimony in Manhattan Federal Court in the bribery trial of jail union boss Norman Seabrook.
Detailing what he said was a close relationship with the mayor, Rechnitz continued to undermine de Blasio’s claim that Hizzoner barely knew Rechnitz and couldn’t figure out how the man wound up on his inaugural committee.
Rechnitz raised $193,000 on behalf of the mayor and told a top de Blasio aide he expected “lots of access” to City Hall. The mayor visited Rechnitz at his office, gave him his personal cell phone number and email, and repeatedly directed subordinates to respond to Rechnitz’s many requests.
In the fall of 2014, Rechnitz said, de Blasio’s fund-raiser, Ross Offinger, reached out to request yet another donation from him. By then he had already raised $41,000 for the mayor’s 2013 election.
At the time, de Blasio was coordinating an effort to steer money to upstate candidates to flip the state Senate back to Democratic control. Because the checks went to political committees and not the candidates themselves, the amounts allowed were much bigger.
Rechnitz said he declined to pay at first, saying he wasn’t getting the response he desired from City Hall to his requests for favors.
“I’d been frustrated that we had a lot or requests and issues on the table that weren’t being attended to in a timely fashion,” he said.
He complained to Offinger, a longtime de Blasio aide, “All you do is come here when you need money.” In response, he said, Offinger suggested he call the mayor himself.
It’s not clear who made the call, although Rechnitz implied it was the mayor. He says he and the mayor spoke, “and the mayor told me it would mean a great deal to him if I could help out.”
“Once the mayor called me, I felt, it’s a personal favor for him and I’m going to come through,” Rechnitz testified.
On Oct. 22, 2014, records show, Rechnitz wrote a check for $102,300 — the maximum allowed — to the State Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. The check was under a limited liability corporation — not his own name.
After the donation, Rechnitz said, “Ross got a lot of the issues that I brought up attended to.”
That included a meeting with a top city official over citations Rechnitz had received at a Madison Ave. building he owned.
Buildings inspectors had cited the building for operating as an illegal hotel and having inadequate fire safety equipment. The city could have shut the building down, but instead settled on a $14,000 fine.
De Blasio’s personal solicitation of Rechnitz for money and Rechnitz’s assertion that he called the mayor often contradicts the mayor’s claims that he barely knew Rechnitz.
On April 11, 2016, after the existence of a probe into his fundraising surfaced, the mayor said in a Yahoo News interview, “I just don’t know well” Rechnitz and another donor, Jeremy Reichberg. He also claimed he didn’t know how Rechnitz and Reichberg got on his inaugural team.
Rechnitz claims he called the mayor as much as once a week to discuss a myriad of requests. On Friday he also claimed he tried to help the mayor smooth relations with union boss Seabrook.
In the spring of 2014, Seabrook was taking shots at the mayor’s then-Correction commissioner, Joseph Ponte, who had arrived from Maine after running a much smaller jail system.
“Since Bill and I spoke often, he also knew of my friendship with Norman,” Rechnitz said. “I told Bill, as a favor to him, I would get Norman to meet with Bill and be nicer to Ponte.”
In a May 22, 2014, email from Rechnitz to de Blasio’s personal email, the subject line was “Norman under control.” Rechnitz said the message to the mayor was that he had cooled down Seabrook, who would now be “nicer” to Ponte.
“He wasn’t as outspoken in the papers for a while,” Rechnitz said of Seabrook.
On Friday, the mayor dodged questions about his relationship with Rechnitz at a press conference on the unveiling of a “friendship arch” in Sunset Park.
His press secretary, Eric Phillips, again called Rechnitz “a liar” and said the mayor gave his personal cell phone number to “lots” of donors and nondonors.
De Blasio’s campaign spokesman Dan Levitan brushed off questions about Rechnitz’s testimony, insiting it was all old news and not worth discussing.
“All of these matters have been thoroughly investigated by multiple agencies. Each of those cases has been closed with no charges brought whatsoever,” Levitan said.
“Our team acted appropriately at all times. This trial is not about the mayor at all, and the testimony is from someone who has pled guilty to crimes in order to avoid additional charges and jail time.”
In March, the Manhattan U.S. attorney closed his investigation without bringing charges, but noted that the probe had made clear the mayor had, in fact, intervened on behalf of donors.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. also closed his investigation into the state Senate fundraising effort, but made a point of stating that the fund-raising effort appeared “contrary to the intent and spirit of the law” limiting the influence of money in politics.