10LAWYER LOSES JOB, SEZ BOSS GOT ILLEGAL CASH TO YANG
In strange tale, neither candidate nor head of major firm are charged
A politically-connected Manhattan lawyer is facing scrutiny from two federal agencies over allegations that he facilitated illegal campaign contributions to mayoral candidate Andrew Yang and another Democrat — but the attorney says the claims are bogus and cooked up by a disgruntled ex-employee.
William Wachtel, the founder of white-shoe law firm Wachtel Missry, is accused by the former employee in a Federal Election Commission complaint of soliciting colleagues and associates to make political contributions on his behalf — a practice known as straw donating, which can be illegal if middlemen are reimbursed.
Yang, now the front-runner in the city’s mayoral race, received $2,000 for his 2020 presidential bid from two alleged Wachtel straw donors, the complaint claims. Yang is himself not accused of wrongdoing. The complaint, which was obtained by the Daily News, claims Wachtel set up a similar scheme for at least one other politician.
Theodore Mukamal, Wachtel’s former chief of staff, filed the complaint under oath with the FEC last month for review, agency spokeswoman Judith Ingram confirmed. Ingram declined to say if the FEC has opened a formal investigation, citing confidentiality protocols.
Mukamal, who left Wachtel’s firm in late 2019, told The News he also provided the complaint to the FBI, and that he was called in for an interview with three agents at the bureau’s Manhattan office in February. The FBI declined to comment, but an email exchange reviewed by The News confirms Mukamal spoke to agents about Wachtel.
The FBI typically summons tipsters for interviews if their allegations are deemed credible. Still, Wachtel has not been accused of wrongdoing by the FBI or FEC. There’s also no indication that the FBI has officially launched an inquiry.
Wachtel said Mukamal’s accusations are false and motivated by a desire for financial revenge.
“Ted was a young lawyer who, in 2019, abruptly and without notice left my employ to pursue a career as a Trump impersonator using the stage name Tootsie Warhol. He later demanded severance of more than $900,000 when in fact he was not entitled to anything,” Wachtel said in a statement. “When this demand was rebuffed, Ted embarked on a campaign of filing complaints against me with regulatory bodies such as the one he just filed with the FEC.”
Mukamal first filed his complaint with the city’s Attorney Grievance Committee and Campaign Finance Board, both of which said they lacked jurisdiction and referred it to the FEC.
Wachtel said he’s “highly confident that the FEC, like the other agencies before it, will conclude in short order that the matter is not even worthy of consideration for one simple reason: there is no substance whatsoever to any of the allegations.”
Beyond running his own law firm, Wachtel is involved in several non-partisan nonprofits.
One of those non-profits is Why Tuesday, a voting rights initiative Wachtel founded with Martin Luther King III, the co-chair of Yang’s mayoral campaign.
Yang told The News last month he knows nothing about Wachtel or the allegations against him, saying he’d never even “heard of his name.”
Eric Soufer, a spokesman for
Yang’s campaign, later called Mukamal’s claims “paper thin” and suggested one of his opponents in the mayoral race may have ginned up his complaint. “It seems like this is yet another desperate stunt by a rival campaign,” Soufer said.
Mukamal, who regularly posts Instagram videos of himself in Trump garb under the “Tootsie” moniker, says he has no beef with Yang, but admits having an ax to grind with Wachtel.
He claims in the FEC complaint that he was ousted from Wachtel’s firm after refusing to donate $1,000 to Yang’s presidential campaign in November 2019 with the promise that the boss would reimburse him in cash. Mukamal alleges he rebuffed a similar demand from Wachtel in 2017 to contribute $2,700 to Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s campaign.
“Wachtel wouldn’t have offered to reimburse me in cash if he didn’t know it was illegal,” Mukamal said.
Mukamal alleges in the complaint that Wachtel found others to make the donations to Yang after he refused.
He acknowledged that he asked for a roughly $900,000 severance payment from Wachtel, but said he had good reason to do so.
“I have a valid claim for a suit for wrongful termination and workplace harassment and this number is appropriate given the damage to my career and earnings and emotional distress,” Mukamal said.
Mukamal has not taken any legal action against Wachtel over the matter.
Wachtel has faced similar accusations before.
Several low-level employees at Wachtel’s firm, as well as his then-21 and 19-year-old sons, each gave the maximum amount permitted, $4,950, to Fernando Ferrer’s 2005 mayoral campaign, according to a 2004 Observer report. The contributions “raised eyebrows” because of the donors’ modest incomes, The Observer reported.
Wachtel denied reimbursing either his sons or employees for the Ferrer contributions, telling the news outlet at the time that the suggestion was “ridiculous.”
Kenneth Mayer, a University of Wisconsin professor specializing in campaign finance law, said straw donation schemes ultimately come down to whether intermediaries were reimbursed.
“Taking credit for organizing contributions and asking people to contribute, are not, by themselves, violations,” Mayer said. “It would depend on the specific donations and whether those were in fact reimbursed.”