KING SHOULD QUIT – COREY

Slams pol over ethics flap

Council Speaker Corey Johnson called on Councilman Andy King to resign Wednesday amid new details of King’s alleged conflict-of-interest violations, retaliation against staff and homophobic comments.

“This is totally unacceptable and inappropriate and I condemn it in the strongest terms and I think it’s going to be hard for him to discharge his duties,” Johnson said. “I think that he should resign.”

Johnson shied away from saying the Council should expel King, saying, “Each member has to make their own decision.”

Earlier in the day, Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (DQueens) was the first to call for King’s (D-Bronx) resignation, saying, “King’s behavior is horrifying & fundamentally disqualifying: if he does not resign immediately, the Council should expel him.”

The Council is expected to vote on punishments for the Bronx pol next week. The Ethics Committee has already substantiated the allegations and recommended King be suspended without pay for 30 days, fined $15,000 and get a monitor placed in his office for the duration of his term, among other measures — all after King got a slap on the wrist for inappropriate advances toward a female staffer in 2017.

Shocking new details from the panel’s report surfaced Wednesday.

King (photo) was accused of using Council resources for a retreat to the Virgin Islands; enabling his wife Neva Shillingford-King — executive vice president of the 1199 SEIU union — to use his office for her own ends, and forcing out three staffers for cooperating with investigators.

King “allowed the lines between personal and familial interests and his Council duties to become impermissibly and completely blurred in the running of his Council office, which resulted in Council staffers and Council resources being used to personally benefit both Council Member King and his wife,” states the report.

The couple allegedly absconded to the Virgin Islands for a “retreat” on the Council’s dime in 2017 to attend Shillingford-King’s daughter’s wedding, according to the Ethics Committee.

Asked for comment, King dismissed the report as the Ethics Committee’s “version of events to substantiate their agenda to the execution of me.” He said he would address the allegations this weekend.

1199 SEIU didn’t respond to a request for comment.

King enabled his wife “to essentially help run the office,” according to the report, overseeing hiring of favored candidates including people she’d worked with at the union. King’s harsh treatment of his staff included homophobic remarks, according to the report.

“I don’t approve of this behavior,” King allegedly said of the New York City Pride March. “To me, this is the same as child pornography.”

The comment came as a rebuke to a staffer who accidentally posted a photo from the 2015 march to the councilman’s Twitter account, having intended to share it through the staffer’s own feed.

King’s alleged tormenting of his staff didn’t end there.

The Ethics Committee’s report depicted a climate of terror at the Bronx pol’s office, with an abusive supervisor regularly menacing staff. At one point, the manager almost came to blows with King himself in front of the staff, “some of whom began to cry,” the report said.

The Ethics Committee’s investigation began after a fired King staffer accused the councilman of gender discrimination in January

Amid the 2017 investigation, the councilman allegedly demanded that employees who cooperated with investigators admit they had done so.