Maya Wiley's advisory malfeasance extended to City Hall's official non-profit fund

 

 NY Daily News

Before Maya Wiley became an MSNBC commentator and candidate for mayor, her most public moments came when she fell under the media’s glare for her role advising Mayor de Blasio and his administration on how to raise money legally.

The unwanted attention started during the first three years of de Blasio’s first term and it continues to linger.

In 2015, in what may now seem like a prescient assessment, Wiley summed up her role as de Blasio’s legal counsel in a video posted online by his wife, Chirlane McCray.

“I’m Maya Wiley. I’m counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, and that means I’m — I keep him out of jail,” she said jokingly. “I advise him on legal issues, but I’m also part of his senior team.”

De Blasio has so far avoided jail, despite allegations of fundraising malpractice. But now, about four months into Wiley’s run for mayor, exactly what role she played in counseling Team de Blasio — and in vetting donations to his cause — is still not entirely clear.

But documents obtained by the Daily News show that the part Wiley did play appears to be much more extensive than has previously been reported.

The newly unearthed records show that, aside from her connection to the controversial Campaign for One New York, Wiley also appears to have played a key part in vetting donors to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance NYC, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of New Yorkers.

Wiley, who served as the mayor’s legal counsel for about two years, joined the de Blasio administration in the first year of his first term in office. Within months, she became involved in providing legal advice on how to ensure compliance with conflict-of-interest rules when it came to the Campaign for One New York, part of de Blasio’s fundraising apparatus.

The Campaign for One New York, also known as CONY, was established just weeks before de Blasio took office in 2014 and almost immediately began collecting donations to help promote his efforts to launch universal pre-K, widely regarded as his signature policy achievement in City Hall. After pre-K launched, the nonprofit took on a more general focus, but continued to raise — and spend — money to promote de Blasio’s priorities.

But it didn’t take long for CONY’s operation to come under scrutiny. Eventually, that led to probes from the city’s Department of Investigation, the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

How Chirlaine gets away with stuff

From the NY Post:

First lady Chirlane McCray has raised between $13 million and $28 million in donations for a City Hall-aligned nonprofit from people and entities with business before her hubby Mayor de Blasio, The Post found.

The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City raised the cash during McCray’s four-year tenure as chairwoman from big Wall Street banks, developers, lobbyists, nonprofits and others. The Post analyzed donations made between April 2014 and September 2017 found in disclosures filed with the city Conflicts of Interest Board, along with data from the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services.

In January 2014 de Blasio got approval from COIB to appoint his wife chair of the Mayor’s Fund. As chairwoman, McCray is the “lead fund-raiser” for the fund, which was created in 1994 under former Mayor Giuliani to promote City Hall’s agenda.

Conflict of interest rules bar civil servants from fundraising on the city’s behalf from people with business before their agencies unless “firewalls” exist between those officials and decisions that could impact the donors.

But because McCray is an unpaid volunteer and not a city employee, the rule doesn’t apply to her — even though the mayor often calls her his “closest confidante” and “No. 1 adviser.”

As boss of the mayor’s fund, McCray has the freedom to not only fundraise from anyone with business before the city, but discuss the donors or issues and policies impacting them with her husband.

Construction firms' de Blasio donors are under the microscope

From DNA Info:

City investigators are looking into $45,000 in donations that workers from two related construction firms made to Mayor Bill de Blasio's 2013 campaign, city records show.

DNAinfo New York first reported in October that the Department of Investigation opened a probe into de Blasio fundraiser Husam Ahmad and his construction companies, HAKS and SIMCO Engineering.

DNAinfo reported at the time that both HAKS and SIMCO — which each have city contracts worth tens of millions of dollars — said in disclosures to the Mayor's Office of Contract Services that DOI investigators executed search warrants on their offices on Aug. 17.

Neither the firms nor the DOI, however, would tell DNAinfo what the probe was about.

But in a recent disclosure to the city, HAKS said the search warrant sought information on campaign donations.

Ahmad, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of HAKS, personally bundled $6,400 in contributions from HAKS employees to de Blasio's 2013 mayoral run, campaign finance records show.

HAKS employees donated an additional $32,900 that was not bundled by Ahmad to de Blasio's 2013 campaign and transition team. SIMCO employees gave $5,800 in donations to de Blasio's 2013 campaign, records show.

Ahmad did not donate directly to de Blasio — principals of firms that do business with the city can only give a maximum of $400 to a city candidate per election cycle. But Ahmad's wife, Uzma, has given a total of $13,450 to de Blasio's 2013 and 2017 campaigns.

In June 2014, de Blasio appointed Ahmad to the board of advisors of the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, a nonprofit that solicits donations to promote city causes. Records show that HAKS donated between $20,000 and $59,000 to the Mayor's Fund in 2015.

The mayor also appointed Ahmad to his Workforce Development Board, which consists of leaders from the private sector, public agencies and unions who advise the city on its policies about job seekers, employers and adult learners.

While HAKS does not have the disadvantaged business enterprise designation, SIMCO does.