Sanctuary City For Sale

THE CITY

It was already dark when Mayor Eric Adams and his security detail pulled up to the curb of the Wyndham Garden, a drab hotel next to a strip mall in Fresh Meadows, Queens.

At the time, his administration was paying for the hotel to shelter more than 100 formerly incarcerated New Yorkers integrating back into society after their release.

But the mayor wasn’t here to check in on one of his criminal justice initiatives. On that November evening nearly two years ago, Adams was visiting Winnie Greco, a top mayoral staffer, who had recently moved into one of the rooms at the Wyndham Garden.

Adams got out of the car, walked through a side door and went up to Greco’s specially arranged suite on the 11th floor, according to two sources with knowledge of the visit.

The mayor had been to the hotel before. Its owner, Weihong Hu, had thrown two campaign fundraisers with Adams present when he was running for mayor in 2021. Now Hu, who was reaping millions of dollars in city business through this very facility, was housing Greco in a room paid for by taxpayers, business and government records obtained for this story show. 

Greco ended up staying at Hu’s hotel for more than eight months, initially as she recovered from surgery, according to two sources with knowledge of her stay.

The lodging arranged for the mayor’s advisor is just one facet of a mutually beneficial relationship between Adams, an aggressive campaign fundraiser, and Hu, an ambitious hotel operator who bundled tens of thousands of dollars in campaign checks for his mayoral campaign and subsequently scored behind-the-scenes benefits and millions in contract dollars from his administration, an investigation by THE CITY, The Guardian US and Documented reveals.

The details of how this relationship blossomed in the odd setting of a hotel-turned-shelter offer a rare window into the way transactional dealings have taken shape in the Adams era. 

This report is based on a review of thousands of pages of city and business records and interviews with more than 20 of Hu’s former associates and current and former government officials. Nearly all sources spoke on the condition of anonymity citing fears of retaliation from Hu or the administration. Several provided reporters with photos, text messages, emails and videos to back up their claims.

In Hu’s case, multimillion-dollar city-funded contracts to her companies’ hotels continued to flow as she befriended a tightly knit core of the mayor’s longtime associates, some the subject of law enforcement investigations and ethical controversies who multiple sources say pledged to go to bat for her with city agencies.

It was at a 2021 fundraiser with Adams at her hotel that Hu became acquainted with a longtime pal of the future mayor, John Sampson. Formerly a state senator, Sampson had been released from federal custody only a month earlier, after being sentenced to a five-year prison term for trying to obstruct a probe investigating allegations that he embezzled more than $400,000. 

Hu named Sampson as CEO of one of her hotel companies in early 2023, and, according to a former city official familiar with the situation, he committed to helping her land a lucrative contract for a migrant shelter at a hotel she operates in Long Island City, Queens. A month later, the Department of Homeless Services approved a city-funded migrant contract slated to disburse $7.5 million annually to the hotel.

Hu also enlisted the help of another trusted Adams advisor, Rev. Alfred Cockfield II, whom she introduced to colleagues as a “consultant,” according to one former associate who said he attended business meetings with Hu and Cockfield. The former associate and another source with direct knowledge of the matter said Hu enlisted Cockfield to help her reverse city orders halting construction at two major hotel developments in midtown Manhattan.

Cockfield is a politically wired pastor who, after Adams won the mayoral primary, launched a political action committee, Striving for a Better New York, which he told Politico was intended to uplift “moderate,” “pro-business” candidates in the Adams mold. 

“The work I’m doing is God’s work,” he said. 

Yet campaign finance records show the PAC paid Cockfield $144,000 in wages and consulting fees — many times more than what it ever gave to an individual candidate. It also gave $60,000 to a charter school Cockfield leads. Last year, the school returned the entire sum after the state’s Division of Election Law Enforcement sent inquiries to the PAC about some of its allocations. 

The mayor’s son, Jordan Coleman, dressed in black and pushing a roller suitcase, and an unidentified woman also stayed in a room in November 2022 at the Fresh Meadows hotel where Greco was staying, according to a former worker at the hotel. That room, too, was among the 148 paid for by taxpayers.

Coleman hung up on a reporter and didn’t respond to text messages seeking comment. In a phone call, Hu’s attorney, Kevin Tung, denied that the mayor’s son stayed at the hotel overnight, but said he may have visited to discuss business with Greco, who has at times accompanied him to events.

The administration’s largesse flowed back to Hu in a variety of ways, the investigation’s findings show. After Adams came into office, his administration authorized the renewal of Hu’s six-month shelter contract at the Fresh Meadows hotel four times, reaping her business $6.2 million a year in income. 

It also finalized a second contract sending $6.3 million a year to Hu’s hotel in Long Island City, despite a history of elevator breakdowns and minimal housekeeping detailed to reporters by former workers and claimed in court documents. 

Last year, the Department of Homeless Services twice approved a more lucrative arrangement for the Long Island City hotel, bumping its annual potential revenue to a total of $8.8 million, government records show.

The help a close Adams ally can offer was evident on two occasions in which, according to sources, Hu tapped Cockfield for assistance with city authorities.

After a building inspector halted construction at one of her hotel developments, near Bryant Park on West 39th Street, citing a serious safety issue, the minister made a late-night call to top Department of Buildings officials and urged them to allow construction to proceed, according to a source familiar with buildings department operations. 

Roughly an hour later, the agency reversed the stop work order, which department records show was lifted just after 11 p.m.

At the second hotel development, Hu retained Cockfield to help lift a city Department of Buildings stop-work order issued after Hu’s team had begun an illegal demolition of rent-stabilized apartment buildings on West 35th Street in Manhattan, according to a source who said he attended meetings with Hu and Cockfield about the situation. That source said Cockfield and another individual he couldn’t identify promised to call city agencies on the hotel owner’s behalf. 

In late 2022, the Department of Buildings gave Hu permission to resume construction on that site, approving a plan that ignored a previous commitment to neighborhood leaders and the city’s housing agency to preserve affordable apartments.

Winnie Greco and the pay to play factory

https://t.co/EzARFtNz6O was right AGAIN!!!! ⁦@ViralNewsNYC⁩ ⁦@AlexJonesMW3⁩ ⁦@SaltyCracker9⁩ ⁦@TodayX22⁩ ⁦@SGTreport⁩ ⁦@andweknow⁩ ⁦@nypost⁩ ⁦@AOC⁩ ⁦⁦@DonaldTrump⁩ ⁦@PapiTrumpo⁩ ⁦@infowars⁩ ⁦@NYCMayor⁩ pic.twitter.com/uwkwO7M0f2

— jonathan David Rinaldi (@JDRforNYC) February 29, 2024

 

 THE CITY

FBI agents raided two Bronx homes owned by a top aide to Mayor Eric Adams early Thursday morning, along with the offices of a Queens mall that hosted Adams campaign operations. 

THE CITY previously uncovered strong evidence of potentially illegal straw donations tied to the mall. 

The aide, Adams’ director of Asian affairs Winnie Greco, was deeply involved in eight separate fundraising events at the New World Mall that generated tens of thousands of dollars for Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign. 

She is on leave from her job, the Mayor’s press office announced Thursday. Greco is the third person associated with Adams whose home was raided by federal officials in the past four months. In November, the FBI raided the homes of Brianna Suggs, then Adams’ chief fundraiser, and Rana Abbasova, an aide in Adams’ international affairs office. 

One New World Mall worker told THE CITY that she was asked by employers to make a $249 donation — and later reimbursed. That would make it a “straw” donation, a criminal violation that has already led to the prosecution of one set of Adams fundraisers by the Manhattan District Attorney, as well as a separate investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office into another set of donors with links to the Turkish government.  

 Another New World Mall employee told THE CITY she never made out a check to the campaign and didn’t recognize the signature on the check. Nearly two dozen others who donated claimed that they made their contributions at the behest of or with encouragement from mall managers.

The Bronx raids began at around 6 a.m., when FBI agents, acting in conjunction with the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s office, swooped down on two homes owned by Greco on Gillespie Avenue, sealing off intersections. The FBI later confirmed to THE CITY the sprawling New World Mall in Flushing as the site of a third raid.

One neighbor, who declined to give his name, told THE CITY that more than a dozen FBI officials were on Gillespie Avenue ready to enter the home. “They had all the blocks closed off, every intersection,” he said. “It was frozen for a bit. Nobody was allowed to leave.”

An Adams spokesperson said Thursday in a statement about the raid: “Our administration will always follow the law, and we always expect all our employees to adhere to the strictest ethical guidelines. As we have repeatedly said, we don’t comment on matters that are under review, but will fully cooperate with any review underway. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing.”

Greco, who is paid $100,000 a year for her City Hall job, is already being probed by the city’s Department of Investigation in the aftermath of another story by THE CITY detailing allegations of ethical improprieties against her. One business executive alleged to THE CITY that Greco solicited a $10,000 donation for a nonprofit she had founded as a condition for attending an event at Gracie Mansion with Adams honoring the Chinese community. A former Adams campaign volunteer who obtained a city government job with Greco’s help told THE CITY that Greco demanded he supervise renovations at one of her houses for no pay.

A longtime advisor to Adams dating back to his start as Brooklyn borough president a decade ago, Greco has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his prior and current mayoral campaigns. Adams’ chief confidant and top political advisor at City Hall, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, once called Greco her “baby sister.” 

When asked by THE CITY about Greco in November, Adams said he had a “hands-off policy when things are being reviewed.” Greco still appeared with him at some public events, including in Times Square on New Year’s Eve for the ball drop and at a women’s focused event later in January.

However, Greco was conspicuously absent from or played a smaller than usual role in Adams’ recent Lunar New Year celebrations.

NYCHAGATE

 NY Post

Seventy current and former NYCHA workers were charged Tuesday in a 10-year, $2 million “classic pay-for-play” corruption scheme involving the largest number of federal bribery raps brought in a single day in Department of Justice history.  

Some of the kickbacks to the rogue workers hit well over six figures — and several of the heftiest charges were slapped against a 47-year-old female employee accused of helping an unnamed co-conspirator extort contractors in exchange for work with the agency, court documents claim.

“Babe[,] could you put a company through for someone? All you would need to do is sign the documents as the approved and get anyone to sign as the requestor,” the co-conspirator messaged Angela Williams on Feb. 3, 2022, according to the papers. 

“That has been my side hustle…lol 1k per,” the unidentified person added of the scheme.

The avalanche of bribery and extortion crimes occurred in about a third of the 335 developments in the New York Housing Authority — the country’s biggest public housing agency — when the suspects demanded cash in exchange for lucrative construction, maintenance and no-bid contracts, officials said.

The defendants, all of whom were working for NYCHA at the time, sought between 10% and 20% of the contracts’ values – or kickbacks of between $500 and $2,000 – though some asked for higher amounts, authorities said.

 In total, the dozens of rogue workers received more than $2 million in bribes involving $13 million in contracts between 2013 and 2023, officials said.

 

Blaze destroys notorious riverfront restaurant where The Blaz took bribes

LIC Post 

A fire tore through a well-known shuttered waterfront restaurant in Long Island City early Tuesday, Oct. 10.

The blaze broke out at 4-01 44th Dr. — the site of a dilapidated former restaurant called Waters Edge that sits atop a barge — and the FDNY responded to the scene after receiving a 911 call at around 6:45 a.m. an FDNY spokesperson said.

Video footage posted online shows smoke billowing up from the two-story building while flames can be seen through the large windows facing 44^th Drive on the second floor, above the lobby area.

Around 60 firefighters from 12 units responded to the scene and brought the blaze under control just after 7:30 a.m., the FDNY said. At least two tower ladder trucks were put into operation, the footage shows.

The Queens/LIC Post arrived on the scene minutes after the fire had been extinguished. Several of the lobby windows facing 44^th Drive were smashed as well as windows facing the East River. The lobby area had extensive fire damage.

It is unclear what sparked the blaze, with the FDNY spokesperson saying the cause of the fire is under investigation. However, one firefighter at the location told the Queens/LIC Post that the abandoned restaurant was being used by homeless people, and they may have started the fire by accident.

There were no reported injuries.

 The abandoned restaurant, which first opened in 1980, has been closed for years and has a storied life having once stood as one of Long Island City’s most preeminent dining destinations with a spectacular view of midtown Manhattan.

It hosted countless weddings, birthday bashes and political fundraisers — including scandal-hit dinners for former mayor Bill de Blasio – and in April, the Queens/LIC Post reported that the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) planned to demolish the structure once it received the necessary funds. DCAS said it would take eight months to destroy the structure after the funds are received.

In 2008, restaurateur and philanthropist Harendra Singh and his Singh Hospitality Group acquired the premises.

But by the early 2010s, Singh began getting into financial difficulty and was reported to have owed the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in back rent on the Water’s Edge barge lease.

DCAS was threatening to terminate the lease and Singh had also failed to pay for renovations to the pier where the barge was docked, which the agency said were required by his lease, according to THE CITY.

Singh held two fundraising events for Bill de Blasio at Waters Edge in the hope of currying favor with city hall: one in 2011 when de Blasio was still public advocate; and the second in October 2013 shortly after he beat former city Comptroller Bill Thompson in a runoff before taking the general election.

De Blasio’s campaign did not pay for the events until it forked out a check for $2,613.01 after the city’s Campaign Finance Board began auditing the campaign. Until that moment, the events were essentially an illegal free gift from Singh to de Blasio that the mayor’s campaign had failed to disclose to the public as required, according to THE CITY.

When he got into office, De Blasio instructed one of his top aides to step in with regard to resolving Singh’s lease. But before the matter could be sorted out Singh was arrested in September 2015 on federal corruption charges in Nassau County unrelated to the Water’s Edge restaurant.

 

Kathy Clown's hiring of Contractor Gadget Jr. has got herself in hot water

NY Post 

The son of a major Kathy Hochul donor was hired by her campaign right around the time his father hosted a fundraiser for the Democratic governor — and just weeks before the dad’s company scored what’s being called a “pay-to-play” deal to sell the state $637 million in overpriced COVID-19 tests.

James Tebele, 21, has a resume that starts with a 2016 summer internship at his dad Charlie’s New Jersey-based Digital Gadgets consumer technology company, which pivoted to selling masks, gowns, sanitizer, thermometers and at-home rapid tests during the pandemic.

Now a student at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, James Tebele began working for Hochul’s campaign as a finance intern in November — and appears to have risen up the ranks, or at least pay scale, of her campaign as his dad’s fundraising for the governor increased.

On Nov. 22, Charlie Tebele — whose family has donated over $300,000 to Hochul — spent $5,150 on food, decorations and servers for a Hochul fundraiser and his wife, Nancy Tebele, also donated $18,000 to the governor’s campaign that day, the Albany Times Union first reported earlier this month.

Just four days later, Hochul suspended competitive-bidding rules for the state’s purchase of COVID-19 supplies, leading to the first of two contracts awarded to Digital Gadgets for a total of 26 million test kits.

Despite the rapid confluence of events, and her campaign’s hiring of James Tebele, Hochul has maintained that she “was not aware that this was a company that had been supportive of me” — an assertion rejected and ridiculed by her critics.

“The governor attended an in-person fundraiser hosted by the donor and hired one of his family members, but claims she was unaware of any connection. It’s laughable,” Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Fulton) said Wednesday.

The first contract — inked on Dec. 20 — charged taxpayers $13 per test, even though Hochul’s administration had recently struck a deal to buy similar tests from another supplier for just $5 each, according to the Times Union.

Digital Gadgets charged the state an average of $12.25 per test — costing taxpayers a total of $268 million more than if officials bought the “Carestart” tests directly from the manufacturer instead of using Charlie Tebele as a middleman, the Times Union said.

 NY Post

This is not the kind of national attention most governors seek.

Congressional Republicans are vowing to probe a $637 million alleged pay-to-play scheme involving Gov. Kathy Hochul and a deep-pocketed campaign donor if they retake the House of Representatives this November.

“As a taxpayer, it really pisses me off that my governor is paying twice as much for a product that other states are and that the money is going to one of her large donors,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island-Brooklyn) told The Post Thursday.

“It smells so bad,” she added.

The vow comes amid growing calls for local, state and federal officials — who have remained silent about whether they will investigate — to probe how $300,000 in campaign cash to Hochul might have helped the New Jersey-based Digital Gadgets land the no-bid contract for 52 million COVID rapid tests, a deal first revealed by the Times Union this summer.

“With your duty to enforce federal laws and ensure fair and impartial administration of justice, we ask that you use your position within the Department of Justice to promote transparency in government spending and investigate this potential kickback scheme that has defrauded taxpayers millions of dollars,” reads a Sept. 26 letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland from GOP members of Congress including Malliotakis and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-North Country).

 

Governor Kathy Clown's pay to Medicaid play scheme to remain in power

NY Post 

A couple with ties to a firm that’s been awarded hundreds of millions in Medicaid transportation contracts over the years has driven more than $300,000 combined into the campaign coffers of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and current Gov. Kathy Hochul, records reviewed by The Post reveal.

Critics say the donations are a textbook case of Albany’s pay-to-play culture that allows bidders and contractors to give massive campaign contributions to the governor whose agencies oversee them. By comparison, New York City law limits donations from bidders and contractors to the mayor and have business Big Apple agencies to $400.

The firm, Medical Answering Services, founded by president Russ Maxwell in 2004, was awarded eight contracts totaling $403.7 million by the state Health Department from 2011 through 2018. Four of the contracts don’t expire until next year.

Maxwell and his spouse, Morgan McDole, dropped $236,000 into Cuomo’s campaign coffers over those years.

The couple has also dumped more than $100,000 combined into the campaign coffers of Hochul, as governor and lieutenant governor under Cuomo — and the Hochul-controlled state Democratic Committee.

McDole, for instance, gave three contributions totaling $52,600 to Hochul over the past year — $22,600 on Jan. 8, 2021, $10,000 on Sept. 9, 2021 shortly after she became governor and $20,000 on April 24 of this year.

McDole donated another $20,000 to the Hochul-influenced state Democratic Party on April 27 of this year.

Meanwhile, Maxwell has donated $32,100 to Hochul since 2018 and $176,000 to Cuomo during his tenure. McDole donated another $60,000 to Cuomo.

“It’s a perfect example that shows how lax state campaign finance laws are,” said John Kaehny, director of the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany.

Pay to play Emily Gallagher's game

@EmilyAssembly campaigning and doing a book informercial while working for taxpayers

And wouldn't you know it, trivia contest is rigged for urbanish bike zealots to win and you literally have to pay to play it. Surely this won't influence any policy decisions, how de Blasioesque pic.twitter.com/MTExHa7bwU

— JQ LLC: I'm creeping death (@ImpunityCity) January 13, 2022

Maya Wiley's "agents of the city" legal advisory memo encouraged de Blasio to let his aides take bribes for him

 

 

THE CITY

Last Friday, mayoral candidate Maya Wiley held a news conference to blast Gov. Andrew Cuomo for what she deemed were ethical lapses — including reports he’d improperly pressured staff to help on his book “American Crisis.”

She promised that as mayor, she’d run an honest, transparent administration. She did not mention — or eagerly discuss when reporters inquired — another ethics issue: her proximity to the conflict-of-interest scandals that tarnished Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure at City Hall.

As the mayor’s first general counsel, or in-house lawyer, Wiley drafted a memo advising him on how he could legally solicit donations for a nonprofit he’d formed called Campaign for One New York (CONY) without violating conflict-of-interest rules. De Blasio nevertheless wound up the target of federal, state and local ethics investigations.

Federal prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges, but determined that de Blasio had intervened on behalf of donors with business before the city.

The state Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) cited several donors for providing illegal gifts to the mayor with their CONY contributions. And the city Department of Investigation (DOI) concluded that de Blasio had violated city ethics rules by soliciting individuals with pending matters at City Hall.

This week, in response to a long list of questions from THE CITY, Wiley’s campaign released a terse statement acknowledging that while she had provided the mayor with ethical boundaries for his CONY fundraising, her advice “was not always followed.”

“In her role as counsel to the mayor, Maya provided legal guidance regarding the mayor’s involvement in fundraising for non-profit organizations,” the campaign stated. “Maya has made clear she was not involved with Campaign for One New York nor its implementation of the guidance which she provided. It is clear from DOI’s conclusion the guidance was not always followed.”

On Wednesday, she declined to directly answer most of THE CITY’s questions during a brief interview as she campaigned in The Bronx. Asked how she felt about the mayor not following her guidance, she replied, “I stand by my advice and when I am mayor will always take the advice of my lawyers.”

Wiley also gave de Blasio a way to conceal from the public City Hall’s internal communications with outside political consultants who were paid big bucks from the money he’d raised. She dubbed these consultants “agents of the city” — a justification ultimately shot down by the courts.

Wiley’s advice on CONY and her use of the “agents of the city” argument raise questions about her good government promises, said Sal Albanese, a former City Council member from Brooklyn who first ran for mayor against de Blasio in the 2013 Democratic primary and has since been a consistent critic of his fundraising tactics.

“It was almost like an exercise in, ‘Let’s see how we can make this happen for the mayor,’” said Albanese, who is now seeking a Council seat on Staten Island. “Wiley should have shut that whole thing down immediately,” he added. “The whole thing is a conflict of interest.”

Jimmy's got a brand new bag while his husband is bringing home the bread

 

He is a reborn union man fighting real estate and for the working man and woman according to his website - Jimmy Van Bramer for Queens Borough President

 BUT he is notoriously close to real estate developers! In 2013 campaign finance records below show he got at least  $6,350.00 from a developer's family, the Wolkoffs, related to the Five Points Development, which not only got a lucrative variance BUT ALSO the developer G&M Realty owner -AKA Jerry Wolkoff - didn't use all union labor as promised. The people of LIC got glass behemoths instead - thanks to Jimmy! He is also an old friend of big-time developer Stuart Suna.

 

 

 

NY Post

While City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer may have sworn off special interest cash, the same hasn’t been true for his husband — author and documentary filmmaker Dan Hendrick.

His 2017 documentary “Saving Jamaica Bay” is larded to the hilt with money from lobbyists and big real estate interests the councilman swore to avoid, a review by The Post shows.

The influential lobbyists singled out for thanks in the film credits include Uber lobbyist Patrick Jenkins, the founder of Patrick B. Jenkins & Associates; Jon R. Del Giorno, a founding member of Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno and lobbyist for the Yankees; Arthur Goldstein, a partner in Davidoff Hutcher & Citron and lobbyist for the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation; former NYU lobbyist Rose Christ, of Cozen O’Connor; and Joe Reubens, a partner at The Parkside Group who lobbied for AT&T.

Big real estate also chipped in, with The Durst Organization, Tishman Speyer Properties, the Real Estate Board of New York Foundation and others also thanked in the film credits.

Hendricks made no secret of the need for financing while making the film, telling local news he took in “hundreds of thousands” of dollars for the flick, which was narrated by Susan Sarandon. 

 “On the surface, it doesn’t look good,” said Betsy Gotbaum, a former city Public Advocate and current executive director of the good government group Citizens Union.

200,000 reasons why Cuomo is a now a big Islanders fan

 

Field of Schemes

As I’ve often pointed out in this space, political corruption is seldom as simple as a quid pro quo, where a politician backs a favored project solely in exchange for campaign donations. There are other factors at work — wanting to have big shiny projects they can use to show they’re allegedly creating jobs, wanting to please “growth coalitions” of business leaders who band together behind development deals, wanting the damn lobbyists to finally go away — that are equally if not more effective than outright bribes.
 
That said, handing over stacks of twenties is a time-honored way to at least say thank you for services rendered. And according to campaign finance records compiled by Newsday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo collected more than $200,000 worth of small bills in recent weeks in the wake of his support of the New York Islanders‘ new arena at Belmont Park:

Cuomo received $50,000 from Scott Malkin, and another $50,000 from Jon Ledecky, with both contributions listed as occurring on July 10, according to state campaign finance records. Ledecky and Malkin are the co-owners of the New York Islanders, who are in the midst of building themselves a new arena at Belmont. Belmont is state-owned land – and the project’s approval came after strong support from Cuomo.

Adding to the Belmont sundae just a few days later, an entity referred to in campaign finance data as Sterling Mets LP provided another $50,000 to Cuomo’s political coffers. Sterling Project Development, the real estate arm of Sterling Equities, the owner of the New York Mets, is partnering with the Islanders on the Belmont effort.

The cherry on top came from Oak View Group – another partner in the Belmont effort. Oak View itself contributed $5,000 on July 8. But Oak View chief executive Timothy Leiweke gave Cuomo $50,000 on July 8, and another $3,000 on July 14.

Is $203,000 in donations a lot? Cuomo’s relection campaign committee raked in just over $2 mllion in the last six months, so the Islanders developers’ cash amounted to about 10% of his total take, which is significant if not overwhelming. Though Cuomo has long relied heavily on donations from big developers and other donors with business before the state, so you can certainly argue that the promise of campaign cash is what got the Belmont arena team a seat at the table, even if it didn’t buy them the entire table. 



Islanders lost in OT

Contractor Gadget buys a seat on the EDC board

THE CITY

 

A major donor to Bill de Blasio’s aborted presidential campaign and seller of COVID-related gear to New York has scored a seat on a powerful board controlled by the mayor.

Charlie Tebele, whose business has hawked hoverboards out of a New Jersey warehouse, joined the board of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, with his first appearance on May 6, meeting minutes indicate.

A spokesperson for de Blasio said the mayor made the appointment on March 18 — one week before Tebele and the city signed the first of nearly $119 million in no-bid contracts for masks and ventilators.

The nonprofit is the city’s chief vehicle for steering subsidies and real estate to private businesses, including the failed 2018 proposal to usher Amazon to Long Island City. Last year, EDC received more than $2 billion via exclusive contracts from the city Department of Small Business Services, making it City Hall’s single largest contractor, according to city comptroller records.

As THE CITY has previously reported, Tebele’s firm Digital Gadgets LLC secured three emergency contracts in late March to sell masks and ventilators to the de Blasio administration as the coronavirus crisis surged and the city scrambled to secure gear.

The administration later canceled the largest of those contracts, for $91 million in ventilators and breathing kits, after the life-saving ventilators did not arrive — but not until after advancing $9.1 million to Digital Gadgets.

The firm has continued to be a major supplier of N95 and other masks to city government, with payments totaling more than $25 million since March 30 registered in the comptroller’s Checkbook NYC system.

Federal records show that Digital Gadgets received Paycheck Protection Program aid of between $150,000 and $350,000, covering a dozen workers in New Jersey — even as the firm and a new Manhattan-registered company associated with Tebele called Digital Gadgets Medical LLC scored tens of millions of dollars in COVID-related business from New York, followed by Cook County, Ill., and other local governments across the U.S.

COVID-19's Contractor Gadget

THE CITY

City Hall’s frantic hunt for protective masks and medical equipment to combat coronavirus led officials to sign emergency contracts totaling nearly $119 million with a firm run by a major donor to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s failed presidential campaign.

Digital Gadgets LLC, a New Jersey-based wholesaler of hoverboards and other electronic devices to QVC and similar TV outlets, entered into three contracts with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services between March 25 and March 28, city contract records show.

The first payment of $9.1 million came the following Tuesday — representing 10% of a total $91 million agreed to for “procurement of respirators and breathing kits” through the end of June. One order of two million N95 masks comes at a price of $8 million, or $4 a mask.

The Digital Gadgets deal arrived in the midst of a bidding war among cities, states, and nations around the globe for personal protective gear and was well within range of prices on offer at the time.

Before March 25, Digital Gadgets had never appeared in the city comptroller’s decade-old CheckbookNYC tracking system.

Digital Gadgets’ website features a pop-up box: “If you are inquiring about our COVID-19 PPE please click on button below,” followed by an email address.

Company CEO Charlie Tebele and family members made donations totaling $32,000 to de Blasio’s now-abandoned campaign for the Democratic nomination for president and related political action committees, state and federal records show. Tebele and family members also contributed at least $12,750 to de Blasio’s 2017 reelection campaign.

Tebele, who owns a Manhattan townhouse residence on East 61st Street, and Digital Gadgets did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls from THE CITY.

de Blasio's an idiot savant. He may not know shit about preparing for a crisis and evidently leading a city during one, but his brain cells get energized the second an opportunity comes up to make sure anyone who gave him money immediately gets a cherry contract with the city.

Despicable