Et tu, Rory?

From Queens Politics:

A source very close to Gottlieb indicates that a little over two years ago, Gottlieb was to oppose the Staviskys on a matter of leadership.

What came in return was Evan and Toby threatening that they would unearth Jeffrey’s fiery problems from the 1970′s.

Jeffrey decided not to confront them and he laid low and stayed behind the scenes, but this time around Jeff thought that Evan and the Staviskys were working with Grace Meng, so there would be no real conflict because his campaign would be focused against Rory Lancman.

Jeff was wrong.

What Jeff didn’t know is that Lancman had retained Stavisky as an advisor prior to the nomination of Grace Meng. Rumor has it, and it’s been pointed out here, Stavisky is in fact working behind the scenes with Lancman.

From True News for Change NYC:

For the first time since the rise of Brian McLaughlin, Parkside is not running a major race for the Queens organization. It was not the string of losses, including Weprin and the Democratic Majority that knocked them out of the Meng campaign. It was the anti-Semitic flyers that the company attacked her father with when he beat Parkside candidate Barry Grodenchik in 2004. What Gottlieb did not understand is that Evan fears that a Meng win could destroy his million dollar consultant and lobbyist business. Congresswoman Meng would demand that County no longer deal with Parkside.

Gottlieb gone

From the NY Times:

The field in the crowded race for the Democratic nomination in the newly created Sixth Congressional District in Queens just became a little narrower.

Jeffrey Gottlieb, a clerk for the city’s Board of Elections and a longtime, if understated, behind-the-scenes fixture in Queens Democratic political circles, has withdrawn from the race, according to a person involved in the campaign who had not been authorized to speak about it publicly. The move came days after Mr. Gottlieb filed the signatures he had collected with the city to get on the ballot (a minimum of 938 valid signatures were required).

The reason, the person said, was the personal strain caused by the public disclosure that Mr. Gottlieb, 70, had been charged decades ago with second-degree arson, a felony; he was accused of drenching his Queens apartment in gasoline and setting it on fire.

A replacement for Mr. Gottlieb in the race will be chosen by a three-member panel he selects. Mr. Gottlieb has suggested Stephen Green, a lawyer who is a prominent member of the John F. Kennedy Regular Democratic Club, in which Mr. Gottlieb is also active. The primary election will be held on June 26.

Gottlieb got arrested for torching his apt in 1972

From the NY Post:

Jeffrey Gottlieb, a late entry into the hotly contested Democratic primary to replace Rep. Gary Ackerman in Queens’ 6th District, was charged with setting a 1971 arson fire in his Flushing apartment.

The blaze destroyed the home and damaged some half-dozen others in the building.
Gottlieb, 70, a retired schoolteacher and longtime Democratic operative, apparently kept the crime a secret for years.

But court documents obtained by The Post show he was arrested on Dec. 28, 1971, and charged with second-degree arson, a felony.

Gottlieb used gasoline to torch the apartment on 35th Avenue. His wife and infant son weren’t home, and no one else in the building was hurt, according to a source familiar with the case.

Gottlieb was treated at an upstate psychiatric hospital, the source said.

Gottlieb, who was a teacher at Benjamin Cardozo HS in Bayside at the time, took a “leave without pay for restoration of health” on April, 15, 1972, and returned to the school on Sept. 5, 1972, according to the Department of Education.

He plea-bargained the arson charge down to fourth-degree criminal mischief on Oct. 13, 1972, court records show.

Gottlieb managed to keep his teaching job, retiring in 2000. He collects a pension of about $54,000 a year and now works for the Board of Elections as a $27,927-a-year clerk.

Gottlieb, who got divorced after the fire and remarried, entered the congressional contest this month, joining a race with three other Democratic candidates.

They're "hack-ing" away in NY-6

From City and State:

A spokesman for Assemblywoman Grace Meng’s congressional campaign confirmed this morning that its main campaign consultant, Michael Nussbaum, urged a Jewish state committeeman in Queens to run for the same congressional seat as Meng.

The Meng spokesman, Michael Tobman, confirmed that Nussbaum had suggested to Matthew Silverstein that he join the then three-way Democratic primary in northeast Queens, but insisted that the suggestion was not serious. Silverstein ultimately passed on running for the seat.

The revelation comes as a new candidate, 70-year old Board of Elections employee Jeff Gottlieb, has jumped into the NY-6 race. Lancman’s campaign issued a statement yesterday condemning Gottlieb’s candidacy as a ploy by the Queens Democratic Party to split the Jewish vote in the district. Lancman, who is Jewish, asserts that Gottlieb, who is also Jewish, was only tapped to run for Congress after Silverstein decided to take a pass.

The Meng campaign’s admission came after three sources had told City & State of the conversation between Nussbaum and Silverstein. The sources characterized the meeting as an effort by Nussbaum, who runs the Queens political consulting firm Multi-Media, to place a Jewish candidate in the congressional race in order to split the Jewish vote in the four-way primary.

Silverstein told Lancman himself about the conversation with Nussbaum in some detail at a Community Board 7 meeting last evening, two sources said.

But Tobman insists that Nussbaum’s intention was not to siphon off votes from Lancman.

From the NY Observer:

“Today, the Meng campaign has been caught red-handed in one of the most malicious schemes any of us have ever seen: an outrageous ploy to deceive Jewish voters with a fraudulent candidate designed to manipulate the electoral process in her favor,” Mr. Lancman’s campaign manager Mark Benoit said in a statement. “Based on today’s revelations, Grace Meng owes the voters an apology for concocting this sham, and Grace Meng should fire her main campaign operative Michael Nussbaum for his role in perpetrating this fraud.”

From Room Eight:

This story, from 2002, and several others I've found in my research, has made me revise my take on Queens hack Jeff Gottlieb's laughable, boss-blessed run for Congress.

For over a decade now, Gottlieb has thrown his hat into the ring for every race for an open seat in Queens, even when the seat was going to disappear, or wasn't really open.

Each time, he made some noise, but ultimately, he always faded when the Party bosses asked him to, knowing he's get his reward if he just waited his turn.

Unfortunately, that reward turned out to be a job at the Board of Elections.

A Queens Activist writes:

“Gottlieb was on the board of Bowne House when the Jacob Titus Bowne collection of historical papers disappeared and the Jamaica Town Records were put on the open market without the knowledge or consent of the membership. Everytime Jeff runs for something, the rumblings about this start and then he drops out and keeps a low profile for awhile. Then the cycle restarts.”

Hmmm...What's this about?

From Queens Politics:

Less than three weeks ago, political insiders were abuzz with different theories on why state Sen. Toby Stavisky’s Chief of Staff, Avi Fink would manage Liz Crowley’s campaign for Congress even after Grace Meng received the County nod.

QueensCrap was the first to point out Fink in the photos after Liz Crowley announced her bid for Assembly underneath the Unisphere.

Examining the pictures, insiders and pundits suggested that since Stavisky had longstanding ties to the County organization, there must have been some behind the scenes agreement to bolster Crowley with Toby’s seasoned staffer.

But those people were mistaken as the deal wasn’t made with Toby, it was made with Fink. Toby was set up to get the short end of the stick.

Over time, word had spread. Fink was unhappy; he wanted to leave Toby’s office and his colleagues were waiting for the right opportunity to give him the chance.

Enter Liz Crowley.

When push comes to shove, Crowley’s longstanding ties to County supersede those of the Stavisky faction, including her son’s Lobbying firm the Parkside Group.

Queens County Democrats were discontented. Toby and Evan have been making the Party look bad for far too long. “The Parkside thugs are not Queens County no matter what they appear to be,” said a party official.

According to an inside source, Fink did not show up to work for twenty-four hours after Crowley’s announcement. He went AWOL and when he returned unannounced, Toby went nuts after Fink admitted he took a job with the Crowley campaign.

In summation, County made Fink an offer he couldn’t refuse: leave Toby now and we’ll get you back on the Hill.

Oh, so county DID set up the Liz Crowley campaign, then? Otherwise, it would have made more sense for Fink to work for Meng. Thanks for clarifying!

Jeff Gottlieb thrown in race to split Jewish vote

From True News for Change NYC:

Former Brian McLaughlin, Alan Hevesi, David Weprin and Morton Povman staffer, Jeff Gottlieb, expected to enter the race for congress in the Meng district according to political consultant Jay Golub. Gottlieb will clearly split the Jewish vote with Lancman making county choice Grace Meng a walk in to win.

Jay Golub, who is a consultant for Jeff Gottlieb's congressional run to split the vote in the 6th, is president of GSP consultants. Golub GSP Consulting was paid $4,500 by the Ragusa faction of the Queens GOP against the Haggerty faction. Steven Graves was running in the 25AD for State Committee as part of the Ragusa faction in 2009. Also working for GSP is Dennis Gallager, who the NYP calls the "Perv pol." Gallagher, who stepped down in 2008 after pleading guilty to sexual-abuse charges stemming from accusations that he raped a woman in his Middle Village office, is listed on a city government database as an “additional lobbyist” with GSP Consulting. Gallagher, a Republican, confirmed that he does consulting work with Golub and that he’s done consulting for Councilman Peter Koo (R-Queens) but said he hasn’t done any work for Republicans in Queens “on a paid basis.” Michael Nussbaum, Meng's campaign consultant, also worked on the 2009 Peter Koo campaign. Golub also worked on the campaign for Issac Sasson. In both the Koo campaign and the Sasson campaign, Nussbaum's Multi Media company did the printing.

And speaking of Gallagher, guess who he was hanging out with on Easter eve?

None other than Council Member and GOP congressional candidate Dan Halloran! Dan was hosting karaoke at a Whitestone pub, and posted photos of the merriment on Facebook.




For some reason, the last photo was mysteriously deleted from the Councilman's page early on Easter Sunday. Too bad for them that I had already seen it and downloaded it.

Queens Dems & Queens GOP: it's just one big embarrassing hack orgy, isn't it?

Which brings us back to Gottlieb:

From City Hall:

He is currently an employee at the Board of Elections, a patronage position. And the Flushing resident has literally has come out of nowhere to run for Congress: He has no federal campaign account, no campaign website and waited several weeks into petitioning into order to begin.

In addition, Queens Democratic sources said that before Gottlieb entered the race, Meng backers attempted to recruit Matt Silverstein, a Democratic state committeeman who is also Jewish, to run for the congressional seat in order to split the Jewish vote.