Gropez gals hit jackpot
Pol aides’ pretty payouts
It sure pays to be pals with disgraced ex-Assemblyman Vito Lopez.
Despite pleading guilty to criminal contempt for lying to federal probers, serial groper Lopez’s former campaign treasurer Christiana Fisher was given a sixfigure payday after being booted by the lawmaker’s socialservices empire, tax filings show.
The Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council gave Fisher, 59, an eyepopping $243,343 payout, according to the nonprofit group’s latest tax filing.
The dough included $15,209 in unused vacation days and insurance coverage, along with a $206,250 noncompete payment, the group’s tax filings reveal.
The startling windfall, first reported in the New York World, came after Fisher was ousted in January 2012 as RBSCC’s executive director, following a city Department of Investigation probe revealing she had “recreated” missing documents to justify a $782,000 compensation package in 2009— double what she raked in the year before.
The group has been subsidized by taxpayers for decades, and the City Council approved $615,689 in discretionary funding to the organization this fiscal year.
Fisher faced six months in the slammer after copping a plea to misdemeanor contempt. But she received a slap on the wrist in 2013, when Manhattan Federal Judge James Francis IV sentenced her to a year of probation and — citing Fisher’s “lifetime record of good works” — ordered her to pay a $2,500 fine and forfeit $170,000 of her shady income.
Lopez’s longtime girlfriend, Angela Battaglia, is still on the group’s payroll as assistant executive director for housing and community relations, said Executive Director James Cameron.
She hauled in a total of $243,414 in 2012, the latest tax filing shows. “She earns every penny,” said Cameron.