Bronx pol fined $5,000 for 2014 traffic stop & fix

A Bronx pol was fined just $5,000 for trying to use the power of her office to get out of a traffic violation, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board announced Thursday.

Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson reversed herself and admitted to contacting a higher-up at the NYPD precinct in her district as an officer was writing the pol a ticket for talking on the phone while driving nearly six years ago.

After being pulled over, Gibson called then-Deputy Inspector Kevin Catalina of the 44th Precinct and said she was innocent. While Gibson claims she didn’t explicitly ask Catalina to intervene on her behalf, Catalina called the 44th Precinct’s desk officer, who contacted the cop writing the ticket and told her not to do so.

When the police officer approached Gibson’s vehicle, Gibson put her on the phone with the deputy inspector, who told the officer that Gibson was chairwoman of the Council’s Public Safety Committee and shouldn’t be ticketed. The officer “admonished” Gibson instead, according to COIB.

“Thank You Lord for being exactly who you are in my life. I remain grateful,” Gibson crowed in a since-deleted tweet after the settlement was announced.

In an official statement, she insisted she had not actually been guilty of the traffic violation.

“In 2014, my vehicle was stopped by the police and the officer told me she observed me using my cell phone. I was not,” she said. “I told the officer and her superiors that she was mistaken. I was admonished on the spot, but did not receive a traffic ticket.

“I should have accepted a ticket if one was issued, and then contested it through the appropriate legal channels,” Gibson concluded. “I apologize to our community for my actions, accept full responsibility for my conduct, and will abide by COIB’s ruling.”

COIB declined to answer why the settlement came nearly six years after the incident or state whether Catalina was under investigation.

Michele Hernandez, the officer who tried to ticket Gibson, sued the city for $75 million in 2016, claiming supervisors retaliated against her for not fulfilling their summons-writing quotas. Her suit detailed the allegations against Gibson, who claimed at the time she couldn’t remember the incident.