Big-deal donor
Blaz ally key in $173M pact with slumlords
For three months, Mayor de Blasio and two notorious landlords have hidden the fact that a chief architect behind a controversial $173 million land deal is none other than longtime de Blasio ally and Brooklyn Democratic clubhouse lawyer, Frank Carone.
Carone (photo), who has served as counsel to the Brooklyn Democratic Party for nearly 10 years and donated $5,000 to de Blasio’s Fairness PAC in September, is representing Jay and Stuart Podolsky, the owners of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of city real estate who pleaded guilty to a raft of felonies related to their holdings in 1986.
The city finalized the deal with the Podolskys on Thursday, according to a city official.
According to Carone’s bio on the website of his law firm Abrams Fensterman, he also has served on the city Taxi & Limousine Commission, receiving appointments to that agency from both de Blasio and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“Carone was summoned to insert himself in the pic to take care of things and put the fire out with any issues with the city due to his relationship with the mayor,” said a former Podolsky employee in an emailed statement sent Monday to the Daily News. “The Podolsky link to the city is Carone.”
The secretive nature of his involvement in the deal is consistent with how both the city and the Podolskys have presented it to the public, starting with the day de Blasio and city officials first announced its plan.
In December, de Blasio first went public with the proposal for the city to pay for 17 buildings in the Bronx and Brooklyn so they could be converted from “cluster site” homeless apartments to permanent, affordable housing. One small but key detail his team omitted, though, was who the city was planning to purchase the land from: the Podolskys.
City officials also declined at the time of the announcement to rmake public the properties’ addresses, citing the residents’ privacy rights and concerns the information would somehow derail the deal. Before the Daily News broke the story in January that it was the Podolskys the city were negotiating with, lawyers and representatives for the brothers did not reveal Carone’s involvement — despite being directly asked who was handling the deal for the family.
Carone refused to comment on when he became involved in negotiations with the city to sell the 17 properties, his relationship with de Blasio and how much he’s earned in legal fees on the deal. A spokesman for the lawyer said he “has represented the Podolskys since around 2005 on a variety of matters.”
“The city reached out to discuss eminent domain with respect to these properties, not the other way around,” said the spokesman. “At no point did Carone discuss the details of this sale with the mayor.”
According to the former Podolsky employee, the best offer the brothers got for the properties — before going to the city — was $120 million “at the height of the market.”
The de Blasio administration continued to defend the deal Thursday. “This deal is about improving and securing affordable homes for 2,000 people,” de Blasio spokesman Eric Phillips said. “The personal political activity of one of the many lawyers involved never entered into the equation.”