POL’S PISTOL PENALTY?
Council formally mulls action against Vernikov over gun tote
The City Council Ethics Committee began formally considering disciplinary charges against Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov this week over her decision to carry a gun to a pro-Palestine protest last fall, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Vernikov, a Republican who represents a section of southern Brooklyn that includes Brighton Beach, was referred to the Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee for potential punishment shortly after being arrested for bringing her sidearm to the Oct. 12 rally at Brooklyn College. Prosecutors later dismissed a gun charge against her.
But the ethics panel hadn’t made any moves to pick up the Vernikov case until this past Monday.
On Monday afternoon, the ethics committee convened to consider sanctions for alleged violations of Section 10.80 of the Council’s internal rules, which prohibits members from engaging in “disorderly conduct,” public records show.
The records don’t elaborate on the nature of the charge or spell out which Council member is accused of it, but two sources familiar with the matter told the Daily News that Monday’s hearing was held to officially begin the process of weighing whether Vernikov should be reprimanded for the pistol-packing incident.
When asked Thursday about the ethics committee inquiry, Vernikov would not confirm or deny its existence. “I have no information and no comment,” she said in a text message.
Queens Councilwoman Sandra Ung, who chairs the ethics committee, declined to comment. The panel’s other four members either declined to comment or did not respond to questions.
According to Council rules, if a member is found to have violated the 10.80 provision, they can be officially censured, fined, stripped of committee assignments and even expelled from the chamber. Any disciplinary action taken must be approved by two-thirds of the Council’s 51 members.
Monday’s session was held almost entirely behind closed doors. Ung offered a brief comment on the Council record before closing it to the public, though.
“The Committee on Standards and Ethics is meeting today regarding multiple alleged violations of Section 10.80 of the rules of the Council,” Ung said at the outset of the hearing. “It is necessary for the committee to discuss confidential personnel issues.”
When Council Speaker Adrienne Adams first referred Vernikov to the ethics committee last year, Council sources said the panel would likely not take any action until it was clear whether she’d face criminal repercussions over the gun incident.
In November, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office threw out a criminal charge of illegal weapon possession against Vernikov because prosecutors said the gun she brought to the protest “was unloaded and missing the recoil spring assembly, rendering it inoperable.” Vernikov had a permit for her gun, but was criminally charged because the state adopted a law last year making it illegal to wield a weapon, regardless of licenses, at “sensitive locations,” including protests.
With the gun clipped to her waistband, Vernikov appeared at the pro-Palestine protest at Brooklyn College where students showed solidarity with Palestinians in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. In a video from the protest, Vernikov, the gun visible on her waistband, said anyone attending the demonstration was “nothing short of a terrorist without the bombs.”