OweMG! Pols in arrears

NY tax deadbeats

This state politician elected not to pay his taxes.

State Assemblyman Michael Blake, a Bronx Democrat, owes $13,820.43 in personal income tax, according to the state Tax Department.

Blake (inset), who worked on former President Barack Obama’s 2006 campaign and was later an outreach director in the White House, first ran for the Assembly in 2014. He faced questions at the time over not meeting New York’s residency requirements, which mandate that candidates live in the state for five years before running.

Blake used his mother’s Bronx address as his own and in June 2014 filed tax returns to prove he was a resident, saying he would fork over $18,000 in back taxes.

It’s unclear whether he paid anything because the state filed a $40,538.45 lien against him in May 2015, an action considered a last resort when taxpayers don’t cooperate.

A spokeswoman for Blake, who is also a vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he was paying down the lien under an installment plan with the state.

Blake, whose district includes parts of Melrose, Belmont and East Tremont, won the seat vacated by Democrat Eric Stevenson, who was convicted of bribery and extortion in 2014.

Stevenson served three years in prison and was released a year ago. But his tax debts are also not fully paid: He owes $342.39, and the state filed a lien against him in July 2017.

Former Bronx City Councilman Larry Seabrook, who infamously tried to bill taxpayers $177 for a bagel sandwich and a Snapple, owes $2,139.14 in taxes. The state filed the lien against him in March 2017.

Seabrook received a five-year prison term in 2013 on multiple fraud charges connected to funneling more than $1 million in taxpayer money to his family and girlfriend. Seabrook, a Democrat who had also been a member of the Assembly and Senate, was released last July.

Former state Sen. John Sampson of Brooklyn, who had once been the chamber’s Democratic leader, owes $4,905.35 in past income tax. He is serving a five-year prison term for obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents.

And Daniel Halloran, the pagan practitioner and former city councilman, owes the state $18,284.07.

Halloran, a Republican from Queens, began serving a 10-year prison sentence in June 2015 for his role in a mayoral bribery scheme.