IT $UITS SCHNEID
‘Sue York City’ duo 39G donors
Execs at a Brooklyn-based finance firm that fronts people cash against potential legal settlements have been spreading their own money around in Albany — with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman reaping the lion’s share, records show.
LawCash President Harvey Hirschfeld and company CEO Dennis Shields — who’s the boyfriend of “Real Housewives” star Bethenny Frankel — have showered various politicians with nearly $145,000 in campaign contributions over the past decade, according to state Board of Elections data.
Schneiderman, a Democrat, received $39,000, with Hirschfeld making 12 contributions totaling $33,000 between 2011 and last year and Shields giving $5,000 in 2014 and another $1,000 in 2016.
LawCash also enjoys ties to Schneiderman through its general counsel, former Democratic Brooklyn Councilman Lew Fidler, with one top political operative describing the two men as “close friends” and “very, very tight.”
Last year, Schneiderman sued a LawCash rival, RD Legal, charging it scammed Sept. 11 heroes and concussion-addled former NFL players in part by charging interest rates as high as 250 percent on cash advances against their personal-injury suits.
But Schneiderman has never taken action against LawCash, which was accused in a since-settled 2012 suit of charging clients as much as 124 percent on advances against their settlements.
On Wednesday, The Post exclusively revealed that LawCash and similar firms are costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year by fueling some of the suits that led to $722 million in payouts by the city during fiscal 2017.
In addition to the campaign cash doled out by Hirschfeld and Shields, LawCash has made $21,750 in political donations, records show.
The American Legal Finance Association, co-founded and chaired by Hirschfeld, has spent $304,380 lobbying Albany since 2009, according to New York’s Joint Com- mission on Public Ethics.
More than half of that was spent since the start of 2016, the same year a bill to regulate “third party litigation financing” passed the state Senate but stalled in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.
A Schneiderman spokeswoman denied he had a relationship with Fidler, and said the AG holds all such companies to a “code of conduct” agreed to by LawCash and eight other firms in 2005 to settle a probe by then-AG Eliot Spitzer.
Asked about the campaign cash from Hirschfeld and Shields, Schneiderman spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick said: “Official actions are determined exclusively by the merits and facts of each case.”
Hirschfeld said he donated to Schneiderman’s campaign “because I believe in what he’s doing,” adding, “I’ve never asked any politician I’ve given money to for any favors. There’s no other sinister plot.”
Fidler said he supported Schneiderman but added that they were just “passing acquaintances.”