Keep Blas off stand: city
The city’s Law Department said it plans to block efforts to get Mayor de Blasio to testify in a civil action brought by a former aide who claims he was fired for exposing City Hall corruption.
Lawyers with the department say they object to requests by Ricardo Morales, former deputy commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, to question de Blasio about being axed.
Morales sued the mayor and the city in February, claiming his civil rights were violated when he was canned in 2017 for being a whistleblower. “Defendants object to the deposition of Mayor de Blasio as he was not personally involved in any of the allegedly adverse employment actions,” Courtney Fain, a lawyer with the Law Department, wrote in a filing Tuesday. Morales’ Manhattan federal lawsuit says he was booted for his failure to give Queens City restaurateur Harendra Singh — who has pleaded guilty to trying to bribe the mayor — special treatment at a time when Singh owed the city millions of dollars tied to his sinceshuttered Water’s Edge restaurant.
Morales also claims he was targeted because he fought efforts by the Mayor’s Office to pin blame for the controversial sale of the Rivington House nursing home on the city’s Administrative Services Department.
The Law Department is fighting the lawsuit, which it says has no merit.