Pol’s foul pal
Albany hopeful got $ for biased guy’s group
FORMER CITY Councilman Robert Jackson, who is running for state Senate, once funded a kids nonprofit run by a Harlem man who repeatedly posts antiSemitic, homophobic and sexist comments on social media.
Jackson steered $3,500 in City Council discretionary funds to Hugs for Harlem in 2009 to mentor and educate youth in computer classes and job training.
He also tried to give the charity another $7,000 in city money in 2011 and 2012, but those funds weren’t approved.
The director of Hugs for Harlem, Michael Green, has a history of posting anti-Semitic quotes and rants from controversial figures like Louis Farrakhan.
He posted a pic of Farrakhan on Instagram on Dec. 20 in which he holds a book by the Nation of Islam titled “Jews Selling Blacks: Slave Sale Advertising by American Jews.”
Green posted a homophobic photo on Instagram on Feb. 19.
“Stop comparing gay people with black people. Having Melanin is a gift, being gay is a European curse,” the photo says.
Green also repeatedly posts crude sexual references on his Instagram feed.
“F--- all that Good Morning s-. . . What color panties you got on?” he wrote in 2017.
In another, he posted a photo of nine nude women and wrote, “Just grab them by the p---y.”
He also posted two photos of him posing with Jackson, including one where the pol wears a Hugs for Harlem shirt.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office accused Green in 2013 of stealing from the Harlem Charity city funds that were supposed to be used on after-school programs.
A Department of Investigation probe found that he used money to pay for fast food, phone cards and taxi rides. The DOI report at the time said that Hugs for Harlem’s Twitter handle posted “profanity, references to drug usage, sexual content, and other matters which are not suitable” for children.
It’s unclear about the disposition of the Manhattan district attorney’s case, which is sealed.
Jackson, who served as a councilman representing Harlem from 2002 to 2014, is trying to unseat state Sen. Marisol Alcantara. He currently works as a lobbyist, pulling $4,000 a month for representing Dart Container Corp. on business matters before the City Council.
He called Green’s Instagram posts and the accusations of ripping off Hugs for Harlem “reprehensible.”
“These recent social media posts are disgusting, and I strongly denounce their contents,” Jackson said.
“Knowing what we know now, this minimal allocation seven years ago, among the more than a million dollars yearly we fought to bring to our community, was a mistake. I’ve had no association with them since, and it is certainly not an organization that I will have any involvement with in the future.”
Green did not respond to requests for comment.