‘DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO, POLITICS’
Queens councilman rails vs. nepotism, but he draws heat from fellow Dem as records show his campaign & allies have steered cash to his son’s firm
Queens City Councilman Robert Holden has for years railed against nepotism in the city government ranks, calling it a “disturbing” element of the public sector that must be rooted out.
But a Daily News review of public records and internal communications show Holden’s campaign has steered more than $12,000 to his son’s consulting firm and looked into using public matching funds to cover portions of those expenses. Several Republican allies of Holden, a conservative Democrat who also runs on the GOP ballot line in local elections, have funneled tens of thousands of dollars more to the firm owned and operated by his son Brian Holden, records show.
The revelations prompted accusations of hypocrisy from one of Holden’s Democratic Council colleagues.
“This is typical ‘do as I say, not as I do, politics,’” said the Council member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering Holden. “Looks like holier than thou Bob is actually nepotism Bob — hypocrisy of the highest order.”
Holden has over the years made nepotism a key target of his ire.
He blasted ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to let his wife, First Lady Chirlane McCray, lead a city mental health program as a “disturbing” and “gross abuse of power” that “needs to end.” While campaigning for his current Council seat in 2017, he charged that his opponent, incumbent Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, would never have gotten elected if it wasn’t for her cousin, then-Congressman and Queens Democratic Party boss Joseph Crowley.
“The current Council member, Elizabeth Crowley, was elected due to the influence of her cousin, Congress member Joseph Crowley, who runs the Queens County Machine, infamous for practicing cronyism and nepotism,” he wrote in a candidate questionnaire that year.
But Holden campaign spokesman Daniel Kurzyna said the Council member’s hire of his son doesn’t amount to nepotism because Brian Holden is “a top-notch designer, driven by his sheer talent and passion — and nothing else.”
“Any attempt to construe this as a political controversy is misguided,” Kurzyna said. “Holden is immensely proud of his son, and Brian is his own person, and doesn’t rely on anyone, even his father, to achieve success.”
Brian Holden did not respond to requests for comment last week.
The younger Holden launched his firm, Battery Interactive, which also goes by Battery Digital, in 2006, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The firm specializes in creating digital campaigns for “clients in various industries including fashion, retail, entertainment, sports and music,” his about.me profile says. Most of his work is not in politics, and he’s currently also working as a senior art director for Bloomingdale’s, per his LinkedIn profile.
Robert Holden’s spending on his son’s services dates to June 2017. At the time, Holden was mounting a successful bid for Crowley’s 30th Council District seat, and his campaign paid Battery $39.95 for “web hosting” services, City Campaign Finance Board records show.
Four years later, when Holden was up for reelection, he turned to his son’s firm again, shelling out $7,105 on website design services, email ads and newsletter production between January and July 2021, according to records. The Holden campaign paid Battery an additional $4,872 this past March 26 for “web & domain” services, meaning he has pumped a total of $12,016.95 into his son’s company coffers to date, records show.
After the first 2021 expense, Larry Caruana, Holden’s campaign treasurer, inquired with the Campaign Finance Board to get guidance on whether the Council member could cover payments to his son’s firm with public matching funds — taxpayer dollars awarded by the city to incentivize soliciting small-dollar donations.
Records obtained by The News via a Freedom of Information Law request show that after back-and-forth discussions about the matter, including a Microsoft Teams meeting with a senior-ranking Campaign Finance Board official, the panel informed Caruana that the campaign could under no circumstance pay Holden’s son with matching funds.
“Reimbursements to family members are never qualified,” the Campaign Finance Board official wrote in an April 6, 2021, email to Caruana.
Kurzyna said he does not believe Holden has ever used matching funds to pay his son’s firm.
Years before Holden started contracting with his son’s firm, Brian Holden — who has been a registered Democrat since 2016 — scored business with some of his dad’s Republican allies.
In 2012, then-GOP Queens Councilman Eric Ulrich, a longtime friend and ally of Councilman Holden, was mounting a bid for a state Senate seat, and his campaign paid Battery $21,500 on Nov. 13, 2012, to draw up “campaign literature” for him, state filings show.
Ulrich’s state Senate bid was ultimately unsuccessful. But he went back to Battery in 2019, when he paid the firm $7,850 to
produce more campaign literature, this time for his public advocate campaign, records reveal. The public advocate campaign also failed, but it was endorsed by Councilman Holden, the only elected official in the city to offer official support for Ulrich’s longshot bid.
Kurzyna said Holden had nothing to do with Ulrich contracting with his son’s firm.
But speaking with The News last week, Ulrich — who’s expected to be indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office this month on criminal charges related to illegal gambling — acknowledged he likely wouldn’t have hired Battery if it wasn’t for his personal connection to Councilman Holden. “I met [Brian Holden] through Bob, obviously,” said Ulrich, who most recently served as Mayor Adams’ buildings commissioner before resigning last November after coming under investigation by the Manhattan DA. “I consider the Holdens very close family friends. Bob never called me and said, ‘You should use my son’ — no. But it’s common sense.”
More recently, Ulrich said he hired Brian Holden’s firm to help him develop a website advertising a children’s book he wrote this summer.
“He’s a consummate professional,” Ulrich said of the younger Holden.
Another Republican who has paid Brian Holden’s firm for services is Queens Councilwoman Joann Ariola, whose Council run was also endorsed by Robert Holden.
Records show that the first time Ariola contracted with Battery was in August 2020, when her unsuccessful Queens borough president campaign paid the firm $6,095 for “web development,” per Campaign Finance Board records. Her borough president campaign paid Battery an additional $4,000 in November of that year for “mailer design.”
While running for Council in 2021, Ariola’s campaign paid Battery an additional $6,570 for “fund-raising” and “domain hosting” services, records show. After her election, she paid Battery $400 more for the same services.
Like Ulrich, Ariola told The News she has known the Holden family for years. She said her decision to hire his firm did not come at Councilman Holden’s urging.
“I’ve seen Brian’s work on his father’s campaign firsthand, as well as on several other projects, and I believe that his work speaks for itself,” she said.
Other Republicans who have hired Battery for political consulting services include Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, whose campaign spent $7,850 on having the firm design mailers in 2021, records show.
Despite being a Democrat, Brian Holden has almost exclusively done political business with Republican candidates connected to his father. Records show that, besides his dad, the only Democrat who has hired Brian Holden for campaign services is Paul Graziano, a perennial Queens political candidate whose unsuccessful 2017 Council campaign paid Battery $2,800 for campaign literature design.
Like several of the other politicians Brian Holden has done business with, Graziano was supported by Robert Holden, who donated $175 to his Council campaign in April 2017, according to city records.