Special treatment given to big de Blasio donors

From CBS 2:

Shocking video has surfaced, documenting the easy access achieved by a pair of donors to Mayor Bill de Blasio who reportedly used gifts and bribes to weasel their way into the very heart of the New York Police Department.

A photo taken at a dinner showing donors Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz bracketing then-NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks takes on a new whole new meaning in light of the astonishing dash cam video played out at Reichberg’s trial on charges of bribing police officers.

The video shows Reichberg and Rechnitz, who has already pleaded guilty and is testifying as a government witness, somehow gain access to the heavily protected underground garage at the department’s headquarters in lower Manhattan.

“I would expect that the chief, the PC, sent us a representative to walk us up to the private elevator,” Rechnitz said. “I expect nothing less.”

Banks, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, did in fact send an escort who can be seen greeting the pair effusively. Jurors were also shown pictures and video of the pair wearing Santa Claus hats and driving a black Aston Martin to deliver Christmas presents to officers, but it was the unfettered access to police headquarters that’s riled police experts.

2 de Blasio donors charged, but not de Blasio himself

From the NY Times:

A major donor to Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded guilty to using campaign contributions as bribes to buy better treatment at City Hall — and yet the mayor, who took the money and aided the donor, was not charged with a crime.

Another donor pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud that included making political contributions in exchange of official action — and again, no charges for the mayor.

The outcome has led some, including the WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer, to an obvious question.

“How can someone be guilty of giving you a bribe and you not be guilty of taking it?” Mr. Lehrer asked Mr. de Blasio on Friday.

It’s abundantly clear,” the mayor said. But it wasn’t.

“This man did a lot of bad things in a lot of places,” Mr. de Blasio said of Harendra Singh, a restaurateur who pleaded guilty to bribing the mayor. “I’m someone who never did, never would be involved in such an effort.”

Several factors were in play.

The United States Supreme Court set a much higher bar for public corruption cases with its 2016 ruling that reversed the bribery conviction of the former Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell. In the ruling, the court determined that making introductions or setting up meetings, even in exchange for gifts or financial benefits, did not constitute a crime.

As a consequence, several prominent corruption convictions were set aside, and prosecutors have become more cautious in taking on such cases.

Furthermore, bribery cases against elected officials based on campaign contributions are rare, the legal experts said. That is in part because the Supreme Court has drawn a clear distinction between a legal contribution to a political campaign and other kinds of payments like cash, gifts or other benefits that in effect go into the pocket of a public servant.

It may also have been that it was simply easier for prosecutors to bring charges against the person buying access, because the men admitted guilt, in the face of abundant evidence, as part of plea deals in which they agreed to cooperate with the government against other defendants. Mr. Singh is a witness in corruption trials on Long Island; Mr. Rechnitz testified against a labor official who was accused of steering millions of dollars of officers’ retirement funds into a hedge fund in exchange for promised kickbacks.

Nicole wants to dump the dope

From CBS:

Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis called on prosecutors to reopen a probe of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration Sunday – a mere two days ahead of the mayoral election.

As CBS2’s Hazel Sanchez reported, the state Assemblywoman and Republican mayoral candidate blasted de Blasio with more allegations of running a corrupt City Hall.

“People have a choice on Tuesday,” Malliotakis said. “Do they want to pay millions more in their tax dollars to defend a pay-to-play mayor, or do they want to join me in taking our city in a different direction?”

Pay to play spelled out at trial

From the Daily News:

One of Mayor de Blasio's biggest donors took the witness stand Thursday to spell out in crystal clear language how he showered Hizzoner with money and got the results he expected from City Hall.

The embarrassing pay-to-play testimony came from Jona Rechnitz, a Brooklyn businessman who pleaded guilty to corruption charges and is the star witness in the trial of disgraced jail union boss Norman Seabrook.

Describing one element of the criminal offense to which he admitted guilt, Rechnitz, 33, kept it simple, saying he “was giving money to the mayor of New York in exchange for favors.”

The deep-pocket donor for the first time detailed his regular interactions with the mayor, revealing that de Blasio came to his office before the 2013 election, gave him his personal cell number on the back of a business card, and “told me to call if there’s anything I need, always be in touch.”

He also detailed his multiple transactions with de Blasio’s top aide, Ross Offinger, portraying him as a sort of bag man who regularly solicited money for the mayor while carrying Rechnitz’s many demands for favors to City Hall.

BDB helped his corrupt friends

From the Daily News:

Mayor de Blasio repeatedly ordered his aides to intervene on behalf of two deep-pocketed donors who sought favors from City Hall before both were arrested in a sweeping corruption probe, newly released emails obtained by the Daily News reveal.

Brooklyn real estate developers Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg sent several emails to the mayor personally and to his top aides, often demanding City Hall’s help with real estate problems.

Whenever the mayor was contacted by Rechnitz, in particular, he responded immediately, steering the donor’s requests to the top levels of City Hall.

Both men appear to have benefited from their top-level access.

After meeting with a top City Hall aide to contest citations for operating an illegal hotel at a Manhattan building he owned, Rechnitz paid fines but dodged a vacate order — a tactic the city has used against others.

Reichberg got a discount on what he felt were overcharges to a water bill after reaching out to City Hall.

Rechnitz secretly pleaded guilty to corruption charges last year and cooperated with the Manhattan U.S. attorney's probe of de Blasio's fundraising tactics.

Reichberg faces charges of bribing several top NYPD brass to get favors. He has denied wrongdoing and faces trial.

Rechnitz and Reichberg both sponsored fund-raisers for de Blasio's 2013 campaign. Rechnitz also wrote a $50,000 check to de Blasio's now-defunct nonprofit, Campaign for One New York, on Jan. 28, 2014, and steered another $102,300 to an upstate Democratic committee as part of the mayor's failed 2014 bid to swing the state Senate to the Democrats.

Bill's fuzzy memory on pay to play

From the NY Post:

Mayor de Blasio claimed Friday that his memory is fuzzy when it comes to the call he got from shady donor Jona Rechnitz urging him to appoint a retired NYPD official as head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management.

Asked whether he took the phone call from the Brooklyn developer at the center of the NYPD’s corruption scandal, Hizzoner praised OEM Commissioner Joe Esposito and insisted he couldn’t remember the conversation.

Earlier Friday, he went on a rant about a Post report that said he had given Esposito the $220,000-a-year job after Rechnitz’s call.

“How about we ask the question the right way? How did Joe Esposito become commissioner?” he told WNYC host Brian Lehrer.

“Not because some guy who I have no respect for his opinion offered his opinion. I don’t even remember him doing that. Because [Esposito] was a highly qualified person, and he’s done a fantastic job. Why is this mysterious?”

He called the report “ludicrous.”

The Post revealed Wednesday that Rechnitz, a cooperating witness in the NYPD scandal, made a call on his cellphone from the office of then-Chief of Department Philip Banks to de Blasio asking that Banks’ predecessor, Esposito, get the gig to run OEM.

Rechnitz later bragged to his associates that “I’ve got the mayor on lockdown,” sources said.

He donated $50,000 to de Blasio’s now-shuttered Campaign for One New York charity and gave him $9,900 for his 2013 mayoral bid.