DeBlasio tried to help slumlord in return for campaign cash

From the Daily News:

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio made a name for himself with his Worst Landlords list, trumpeting the names and sins of city slumlords for all the world to see.

But for one building owner with a rash of code violations, he took another tack — he went to bat for him days after the landlord began steering donations his way.

Michael Shah owns two buildings on Staten Island that have racked up more than 200 code violations. The buildings’ elevators break down so often, the city Buildings Department made one of them No. 3 on its Top 10 Elevator Offenders list. But instead of targeting him for scrutiny as he has some of the city’s worst slumlords, de Blasio aides say the public advocate invited Shah to meet with him in his office on July 27, 2011, as Shah sought help reducing taxes on some of his buildings that house low-income tenants.

Weeks before that meeting, Shah — who’d never given a dime to any city candidate before — donated the maximum $4,950 to de Blasio. He then began acting as an “intermediary” to raise more money — $11,850 in all, including six checks delivered 16 days before the July 27 meeting.

When the two met, Shah brought along his hired lobbyist, ex-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato’s son Chris, and asked de Blasio to push the city to reduce his taxes so he could continue to afford renting to lower-income tenants. After the meeting, de Blasio called Finance Commissioner David Frankel to explain the situation. It’s not clear how Frankel responded.

“He (de Blasio) looked into the matter, he was very responsive,” Shah told The News. “We were able to get to where we needed to go, and I really liked him. Bill gave me his email, his cell phone number.”

De Blasio spokesman Wiley Norvell said Shah did not mention the donations during the meeting but he couldn’t say whether de Blasio knew Shah was one of his money-raising “intermediaries.” Norvell denied the donations influenced de Blasio in any way, stating, “We advocate aggressively for any tenant, business owner and everyday New Yorker alike that needs help navigating city bureaucracy. That’s our job.”

At the time of the meeting with Shah, two Shah buildings on Staten Island, 195 and 231 Steuben St., had accumulated more than 200 open housing code violations for broken windows, busted locks, rampant mice and chronically malfunctioning elevators. The number of current violations in those buildings exceed those at two of the top three “Worst Landlords” on Staten Island that are currently singled out on de Blasio’s site.